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Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History


About the Series

Face-to-face conversation and dialogue are defining features of South Asian traditional texts, rituals and practices. Not only has the region of South Asia always consisted of a multiplicity of peoples and cultures in communication with each other, but also performed and written dialogues have been indelible features within the religions of South Asia; Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Islam are all multi-vocal religions. Their doctrines, practices and institutions have never had only one voice of authority, and dialogue has been a shared tactic for negotiating contesting interpretations within each tradition.

This series examines the use of the dialogical genre in South Asian religious and cultural traditions. Historical inquiries into the plurality of religious identity in South Asia, particularly when constructed by the dialogical genre, are crucial in an age when, as Amartya Sen has recently observed, singular identities seem to hold more destructive sway than multiple ones. This series approaches dialogue in its widest sense, including discussion, debate, argument, conversation, communication, confrontation and negotiation. Opening up a dynamic historical and literary mode of analysis, which assumes the plural dimensions of religious identities and communities from the start, this series challenges many outdated assumptions and representations of South Asian religions.

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In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata

In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata

1st Edition

By Brian Black
April 29, 2022

The Mahābhārata has been explored extensively as a work of mythology, epic poetry, and religious literature, but the text’s philosophical dimensions have largely been under-appreciated by Western scholars. This book explores the philosophical implications of the Mahābhārata by paying attention to ...

Dialogue and Doxography in Indian Philosophy Points of View in Buddhist, Jaina, and Advaita Vedānta Traditions

Dialogue and Doxography in Indian Philosophy: Points of View in Buddhist, Jaina, and Advaita Vedānta Traditions

1st Edition

By Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette
April 07, 2020

This is the first book fully dedicated to Indian philosophical doxography. It examines the function such dialectical texts were intended to serve in the intellectual and religious life of their public. It looks at Indian doxography both as a witness of inter- and intra-sectarian dialogues and as a ...

In Dialogue with Classical Indian Traditions Encounter, Transformation and Interpretation

In Dialogue with Classical Indian Traditions: Encounter, Transformation and Interpretation

1st Edition

Edited By Brian Black, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
March 18, 2019

Dialogue is a recurring and significant component of Indian religious and philosophical literature. Whether it be as a narrative account of a conversation between characters within a text, as an implied response or provocation towards an interlocutor outside the text, or as a hermeneutical lens ...

Categorisation in Indian Philosophy Thinking Inside the Box

Categorisation in Indian Philosophy: Thinking Inside the Box

1st Edition

Edited By Jessica Frazier
February 12, 2018

It is by fitting the world into neatly defined boxes that Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain philosophers were able to gain unparalleled insights into the nature of reality, God, language and thought itself. Such categories aimed to encompass the universe, the mind and the divine within an all-encompassing ...

Shared Characters in Jain, Buddhist and Hindu Narrative Gods, Kings and Other Heroes

Shared Characters in Jain, Buddhist and Hindu Narrative: Gods, Kings and Other Heroes

1st Edition

By Naomi Appleton
December 07, 2016

Taking a comparative approach which considers characters that are shared across the narrative traditions of early Indian religions (Brahmanical Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism) Shared Characters in Jain, Buddhist and Hindu Narrative explores key religious and social ideals, as well as points of ...

Hindu and Buddhist Ideas in Dialogue Self and No-Self

Hindu and Buddhist Ideas in Dialogue: Self and No-Self

1st Edition

Edited By Irina Kuznetsova, Jonardon Ganeri, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
November 15, 2016

The debates between various Buddhist and Hindu philosophical systems about the existence, definition and nature of self, occupy a central place in the history of Indian philosophy and religion. These debates concern various issues: what 'self' means, whether the self can be said to exist at all, ...

The Ethics of Sankara and Santideva A Selfless Response to an Illusory World

The Ethics of Sankara and Santideva: A Selfless Response to an Illusory World

1st Edition

By Warren Lee Todd
October 26, 2016

Exploring the philosophical concerns of the nature of self, this book draws from two of the most influential Indian masters, Śaṅkara and Śāntideva. Todd demonstrates that an ethics of altruism is still possible within a metaphysics which assumes there to be no independent self. A new ethical model ...

Dialogue in Early South Asian Religions Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Traditions

Dialogue in Early South Asian Religions: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Traditions

1st Edition

Edited By Brian Black, Laurie Patton
July 21, 2015

Dialogue between characters is an important feature of South Asian religious literature: entire narratives are often presented as a dialogue between two or more individuals, or the narrative or discourse is presented as a series of embedded conversations from different times and places. Including ...

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