Table of Contents

Introduction
1
#1: Embodied Knowing versus History-centrism
5
#2: Integral Unity versus Synthetic Unity
7
#3: Anxiety over Chaos versus Comfort with Complexity and Ambiguity
8
#4: Cultural Digestion versus Sanskrit Non-translatables
9
1. The Audacity of Difference
11
Piercing the Pretense of Pluralism
15
Difference: Anxiety or Mutual Respect?
25
Digestion and Assimilation
36
False Resolutions of Difference Anxiety
39
Purva Paksha: Reversing the Gaze
48
2. Yoga: Freedom from History
54
Two Ways of Knowing the Divine
55
Explaining Dharma to a Western Audience
60
Itihasa Combines History, Myth and More
63
How Embodied Knowing Works
70
How History-centrism Works
83
Authority in the Prophetic Traditions
87
3. Integral Unity and Synthetic Unity
101
Integral Unity and Synthetic Unity Defined
105
Comparison of Cosmologies
111
Indra’s Net
114
Time, Flux and Non-linear Causation
119
Views and Relative Knowledge
126
Freedom and Pluralism
131
The Synthetic Unity of the West
140
The Templeton Project to Re-invent the West
141
The Birth of the West: Inherent Problems
144
Incompatible: Christian Dogma and Greek Reason
149
Five Synthetic Movements in the West
154
4. Order and Chaos
167
Indian ‘Chaos’ and Western Anxiety
170
Indian Comfort with Chaos
178
Sacred Stories
183
Contextual Ethics
191
Aesthetics, Morality and Truth
203
Dharmic Forest and Judeo-Christian Desert
212
Western Joker and Indian Clown
216
5. Non-translatable Sanskrit versus Digestion
220
Integral Unity as Vibration
222
Discovery of Sanskrit
228
Sanskriti, the Dharma Civilization
239
Sanskriti and Pan-Asian Civilization
244
Non-translatable Categories
249
6. Contesting Western Universalism
307
Germany as a Case Study inn Western Digestion and Synthesis
310
Common Responses to Western Universalism
325
Conclusion: Purva Paksha and the Way Forward
337
Purva Paksha and Sapeksa-Dharma
338
Anticipated Western Responses
342
Challenging the Leaders of Dharma
345
Gandhi’s Sva-dharma and Purva Paksha
347
Appendix A: The Integral Unity of Dharma
354
Hinduism’s Integral Unity of God-Cosmos-Human
355
Many scholars disagree with Rambachan
362
Notions of Self in Hinduism and Buddhism
369
Jainism: Multiple Perspectives and Mutual Respect
369
Appendix B: A Systems Model of Dharma and Abrahamic Traditions
371
Notes
375
Index
441
Bibliography
459
Acknowledgements
473