ABSTRACT
Providing new insights into the contemporary creationist-evolution debates, this book looks at the Hindu cultural-religious traditions of India, the Hindu Dharma traditions. By focusing on the interaction of religion and science in a Hindu context, it offers a global context for understanding contemporary creationist-evolution conflicts and tensions utilizing a critical analysis of Hindu perspectives on these issues. The cultural and political as well as theological nature of these conflicts is illustrated by drawing attention to parallels with contemporary Islamic and Buddhist responses to modern science and Darwinism.
The book explores various ancient and classical Hindu models to explain the origin of the universe encompassing creationist as well as evolutionary—but non-Darwinian—interpretations of how we came to be. Complex schemes of cosmic evolution were developed, alongside creationist proofs for the existence of God utilizing distinctly Hindu versions of the design argument. After examining diverse elements of the Hindu Dharmic traditions that laid the groundwork for an ambivalent response to Darwinism when it first became known in India, the book highlights the significance of the colonial context. Analysing critically the question of compatibility between traditional Dharmic theories of knowledge and the epistemological assumptions underlying contemporary scientific methodology, the book raises broad questions regarding the frequently alleged harmony of Hinduism, the eternal Dharma, with modern science, and with Darwinian evolution in particular.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |49 pages
The classical background
chapter |14 pages
Creationism and evolutionism in the ancient and classical traditions
chapter |10 pages
Manifestation and apparent design in the Advaita Vedānta of Śaṅkara
chapter |11 pages
Theism and atomistic design in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika of Udayana
chapter |13 pages
Design discounted in the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta of Rāmānuja
part |111 pages
The colonial period
chapter |16 pages
Design and Darwin in the colonial period
chapter |12 pages
The Vedāntic Deism of Rammohan Roy
chapter |12 pages
Design and the intuitive theism of Debendranath Tagore
chapter |14 pages
Design and the religious evolutionism of Keshab Chandra Sen
chapter |14 pages
The Modern Vedic Creationism of Dayananda Saraswati
chapter |24 pages
The Modern Advaitic Evolutionism of Swami Vivekananda
chapter |18 pages
The Integrative Evolutionism of Sri Aurobindo Ghose
part |62 pages
The post-colonial period