The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy tells the story of philosophy in India through a series of exceptional individual acts of philosophical virtuosity. It brings together forty leading international scholars to record the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute philosophy in the geographical region of the Indian subcontinent, a region sometimes nowadays designated South Asia. The volume aims to be ecumenical, drawing from different locales, languages, and literary cultures, inclusive of dissenters, heretics and sceptics, of philosophical ideas in thinkers not themselves primarily philosophers, and reflecting India's north-western borders with the Persianate and Arabic worlds, its north-eastern boundaries with Tibet, Nepal, Ladakh and China, as well as the southern and eastern shores that afford maritime links with the lands of Theravda Buddhism. Indian Philosophy has been written in many languages, including Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Persian, Kannada, Punjabi, Hindi, Tibetan, Arabic and Assamese. From the time of the British colonial occupation, it has also been written in English. It spans philosophy of law, logic, politics, environment and society, but is most strongly associated with wide-ranging discussions in the philosophy of mind and language, epistemology and metaphysics (how we know and what is there to be known), ethics, metaethics and aesthetics, and metaphilosophy. The reach of Indian ideas has been vast, both historically and geographically, and it has been and continues to be a major influence in world philosophy. In the breadth as well as the depth of its philosophical investigation, in the sheer bulk of surviving texts and in the diffusion of its ideas, the philosophical heritage of India easily stands comparison with that of China, Greece, the Latin west, or the Islamic world.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Indian Philosophy? Why Now? Jonardon Ganeri
Timeline: Indian Philosophy in 100+ Thinkers Jonardon Ganeri
Methods, Literatures, Histories
1. Interpreting Indian Philosophy: Three Parables Matthew Kapstein
2. History and Doxography of the Philosophical Schools Ashok Aklujkar
3. Philosophy as a Distinct Cultural Practice: The Transregional Context Justin E. H. Smith
4. Comparison or Confluence in Philosophy? Mark Siderits
Legacies of Sutta & Sutra: Philosophy Before Dignaga (100-480)
5. Nagarjuna on Emptiness: A Comprehensive Critique of Foundationalism Jan Westerhoff
6. Philosophical Quietism in Nagarjuna and Early Madhyamaka Tom Tillemans
7. Habit and Karmic Result in the Yogasastra, Christopher Framarin
8. Vasubandhu on the Conditioning Factors and the Buddha's Use of Language Jonathan Gold
9. Buddhaghosa on the Phenomenology of Love and Compassion Maria Heim
10. The Philosophy of Mind of Kundakunda and Umasvati Piotr Balcerowicz
11. Vatsyayana: Cognition as a Guide to Action Matthew Dasti
12. Bhartrhari on Language, Perception and Consciousness Vincenzo Vergiani
The Age of Dialogue: A Sanskrit Cosmopolis (480-800)
13. Coreference and Qualification: Dignaga Debated by Kumarila and Dharmakirti John Taber and Kei Kataoka
14. Reflexive Awareness & No-Self: Dignaga Debated by Uddyotakara & Dharmakirti Monima Chadha
15. The Metaphysics of Self in Prasastapsda's Differential Naturalism Shalini Sinha
16. Proving Idealism: Dharmakirti Birgit Kellner
17. Santideva's Impartialist Ethics Charles Goodman
18. A History of Materialism from Ajita to Udbhata Ramkrishna Bhattacharya
19. Consciousness & Causal Emergence: Santaraksita against Physicalism Christian Coseru
20. Pushing Idealism Beyond its Limits: The Place of Philosophy in Kamalasila's Steps of Cultivation, Dan Arnold
The Age of Disquiet (800-1300)
21. Jayarasi Against the Philosophers Piotr Balcerowicz
22. Two Theories of Motivation and their Assessment by Jayanta Rajam Raghunathan
23. Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta on the Freedom of Consciousness Isabelle Ratié
24. The Nature of Idealism in the Moksopaya/ Yoga-vasistha, François Chenet
25. Logic in the Tradition of Prabhacandra (Marie-Hélène Gorisse)
26. An Indian Philosophy of Law: Vijñanesvara's Epitome of the Law, Donald Davis
27. Sriharsa's Dissident Epistemology: Of Knowledge as Assurance Jonardon Ganeri
Philosophy From Gangesa (1300-1460)
28. A Defeasibility Theory of Knowledge in Gangesa Stephen Phillips
29. Jayatirtha and the Problem of Perceptual Illusion Michael Williams
30. Madhava's Garland of Jaimini's Reasons as Exemplary Mimamsa Philosophy Francis Clooney
31. Hindu Disproofs of God: Refuting Vedantic Theism in the Samkhya-sutra, Andrew Nicholson
Early Modernity: New Philosophy in India (1460-1757)
32. Raghunatha Siromani and the Examination of the Truth about the Categories, Michael Williams
33. Nilakantha Caturdhara's Advaita Vedanta Christopher Minkowski
34. Muhibballah Ilahabadi on Ontology: Debates over the Nature of Being Shankar Nair
Freedom & Identity on the Eve of Independence (1857-1947)
35. Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi, and the Contexts of Indian Secularism Akeel Bilgrami
36. Freedom in Thinking: The Immersive Cosmopolitanism of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya Jonardon Ganeri
37. Bimrao Ramji Ambedkar's Modern Moral Idealism: A Metaphysics of Emancipation Gopal Guru
38. Anukul Chandra Mukerji: The Modern Subject Nalini Bhushan & Jay L. Garfield

Author Information

Edited by Jonardon Ganeri, Fellow of the British Academy

Jonardon Ganeri is a Fellow of the British Academy, and the author of Attention, Not Self (2018), The Lost Age of Reason (OUP 2011) and The Self (OUP 2012).

Contributors:

Aklujkar, Ashok
Arnold, Dan
Balcerowicz, Piotr
Bhattacharya, Ramkrishna
Bhushan, Nalini
Bilgrami, Akeel
Chadha, Monima
Chenet, François
Clooney, Francis
Coseru, Christian
Dasti, Matthew
Davis, Donald
Framarin, Christopher
Ganeri, Jonardon
Garfield, Jay L.
Gold, Jonathan
Goodman, Charles
Gorisse, Marie-Hélène
Guru, Gopal
Heim, Maria
Kapstein, Matthew
Kataoka, Kei
Kellner, Birgit
Minkowski, Christopher
Nair, Shankar
Nicholson, Andrew
Phillips, Stephen
Raghunathan, Rajam
Ratié, Isabelle
Siderits, Mark
Sinha, Shalini
Smith, Justin E. H.
Taber, John
Tillemans, Tom
Vergiani, Vincenzo
Westerhoff, Jan
Williams, Michael