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Existence and Perception in Medieval Vedānta - by Michael Thomas Williams (Hardcover)
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Highlights
- This book focuses on discussions of metaphysics and epistemology in early modern India found in the works of the South Indian philosopher Vyāsatīrtha (1460-1539).
- About the Author: Michael Thomas Williams, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
- 337 Pages
- Religion + Beliefs, Hinduism
Description
About the Book
This book focuses on the philosophy of the sixteenth-century Mādhva Vedānta philosopher Vyāsatīrtha. Vyāsatīrtha's Nyāyāmr̥ta influenced philosophers throughout India and propelled his tradition to the center of the power-politics of theBook Synopsis
This book focuses on discussions of metaphysics and epistemology in early modern India found in the works of the South Indian philosopher Vyāsatīrtha (1460-1539). Vyāsatīrtha was pivotal to the ascendancy of the Mādhva tradition to intellectual and political influence in the Vijayanagara Empire.
This book is primarily a philosophical reconstruction based on original translations of relevant parts of Vyāsatīrtha's Sanskrit philosophical text, the "Nectar of Logic" (Nyāyāmr̥ta). Vyāsatīrtha wrote the Nyāyāmr̥ta as a vindication of his tradition's theistic world view against the Advaita tradition of Vedānta. In the centuries after it was written, the Nyāyāmr̥ta came to dominate philosophical discussions among Vedānta traditions in India.
The Advaitins argued for an anti-realist stance about the empirical world, according to which the world of our experience is simply an illusion that can be dispelled by a deep study of the Upaniṣads. This book reconstructs the parts of the Nyāyāmr̥ta where Vyāsatīrtha argues in favor of the reality of the world against the Advaitins. Philosophically, it focuses on the concept of existence in Vyāsatīrtha's metaphysics, and on his arguments about knowledge and the philosophy of perception.
About the Author
Michael Thomas Williams, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria.