Contents: Preface. General introduction/D.P. Chattopadhyaya. Introduction/R. Balasubramanian. I. Holistic society: 1. Vedic society on the Quadrant: men and Gods, earth and Heaven/Satya Prakash Singh. 2. Sangam Society on the Quadrant: men and Gods, earth and heaven/Prema Nandakumar. 3. Civil society in Indian culture: its presuppositions, problems, and projects/Sudarsan Padmanabhan. 4. The ideal of unity/Pabitrakumar Roy. II. Encounter with the other: 5. Encounter with the world of commonsense and science/Subhash Kak. 6. Existence, transcendence, and the other-directedness/Ramakant Sinari. 7. Reflections on the other in the Hindu, Jaina, and Bauddha traditions/S. Mishra. 8. Between Apathy and Hegemony: an Essay on modern Indian thought/Saranindranath Tagore. III. Consciousness, mind, and body: 9. Consciousness, cognition, and knowledge/R.C. Pradhan. 10. Consciousness and self-consciousness: a retrospect and review/Kisor K. Chakrabarti. 11. Supracortical consciousness: an opening to multiple new doors of science/A.K. Mukhopadhyay. 12. Adventure of consciousness, human development, and contemporary crisis/Kireet Joshi. 13. Layers of consciousness/H.R. Nagendra. 14. The enworlded subject: freedom in bondage/K. Bagchi. 15. Consciousness: foundational and functional/R. Balasubramanian. IV. Values and culture: 16. Logical value/Srinivasa Rao. 17. Rta, Rna, and Dharma/N. Veezhinathan. 18. Spiritual dimensions of beauty/T.P. Ramachandran. 19. Aesthetics and values/Kapil Kapoor. 20. Globalization, democracy, and social justice/Satya P. Gautam. 21. Ecology and Vedic vision/K. Sasidhar. 22. Culture, historical process, and Indian social tradition/G.C. Pande. 23. The individual-in-society/Bhuvan Chandel. 24. The linguistification of the sacred/S. Panneerselvam. Index.
"The volumes of the Project on the History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization aim at discovering the main aspects of India's heritage and present them in an interrelated way. These volumes, in spite of their unitary look, recognize the difference between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. The project is not being executed by a single group of thinkers and writers who are methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in their commitments. In fact, contributions are made by different scholars with different ideological persuasions and methodological approaches. The project is marked by what may be called 'methodological pluralism'.
In spite of its primary historical character, this project, both in its conceptualization and execution, has been shaped by many scholars drawn from different disciplines. It is for the first time that an endeavour of such a unique and comprehensive character has been undertaken to study critically a major world civilization like India.
The Jiva who lives in the world is the enworlded subjectivity. The concept of the "Enworlded subjectivity" interrelates consciousness, science, society, value, and Yoga. Every individual who is placed in this world becomes an enworlded subjectivity encountering and experiencing three worlds as explained by the Upanisads in the Indian tradition and by Popper and Eccles in the west. The four sections in this volume bring out the nature, status, and function of the individual in relation to society on the one hand, an its achievements, values, and aspirations on the other. The message of this volume is that the human beings, though rooted in the transactional world, endeavour to achieve transcendence of their finitude from time to time, from stage to stage. The Upanisad not only speaks about the spiritual journey from the outer world to the inward self, but also formulates the technique for realizing the primal spirit through the vision of oneness. The end of the journey takes us to the point from which the journey was started.
This volume will be of interest not only for students and scholars of philosophy, but also for social philosophers, interested in the Indian culture and civilization." (jacket)
