Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (Collected Works of Rene Guenon) - Hardcover

Guenon, Rene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0900588748 ISBN 13: 9780900588747

Publisher: Sophia Perennis et Universalis, 2004

Synopsis

René Guénon's Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines can serve as an introduction to all his later works-especially those which, like Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, The Symbolism of the Cross, The Multiple States of the Being, and Studies in Hinduism, expound the more profound aspects of metaphysical doctrines in greater detail. In Part I Guenon clears away certain ingrained prejudices inherited from the 'Renaissance', with its adulation of the Greco-Roman culture and its compensating depreciation-both deliberate and instinctive-of other civilizations. In Part II he establishes the fundamental distinctions between various modes of thought and brings out the real nature of metaphysical or universal knowledge-an understanding of which is the first condition for the personal realization of that 'Knowledge' which partakes of the Absolute. Words like 'religion', 'philosophy', 'symbolism', 'mysticism', and 'superstition', are here given a precise meaning. Part III presents a more detailed examination of the Hindu doctrine and its applications at different levels, leading up to the Vedanta, which constitutes its metaphysical essence. Lastly, Part IV resumes the task of clearing away current misconceptions, but is this time concerned not with the West itself, but with distortions of the Hindu doctrines that have arisen as a result of attempts to read into them, or to graft onto them, modern Western conceptions. The concluding chapter lays down the essential conditions for any genuine understanding between East and West, which can only come through the work of those who have attained, at least in some degree, to the realization of 'wisdom uncreate'-that intellective, suprarational knowledge called in the East jñana, and in the West gnosis.

About this title

About the Author

MARCO PALLIS was born in Liverpool in 1895, and served in the British army during World War I. In 1923 Pallis visited southern Tibet on a mountaineering trip, and he returned to the area in 1933 and 1936, consumed by an interest in its traditional culture, and stayed in monasteries in Sikkim and Ladakh. His other books include "The Way and the Mountain and "A Buddhist Spectrum. He died in 1990.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sophia Perennis et Universalis
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0900588748
• ISBN 13: 9780900588747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 276