Twentieth Century Panditas of Kolkata
With the arrival of the colonial education in India, a nationalist urge swept across the Indian subcontinent. And Kolkata was not an exception. There was a conscious attempt on the part of the traditional scholars, to make the philosophical insights available in ancient India available to the modern intelligent readers who for several reasons lost touch with the original Sanskrit intellectual world. Many Sanskrit commentaries were translated with detail explanatory notes in Bengali. These works written in vernacular constitute a rich tradition of recent Indian philosophical repertoire. In this digital library attempts have been made to make these works accessible to the interested researchers.
A Study in the Dialectical of Sphoṭa
Gaurinatha Sastri, in this book, deals with the idea of sphoṭa as one finds in the Grammarian Tradition in classical Indian philosophy. The book contains four chapters: 1. Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā objections to the idea of sphoṭa, 2. The views of Kumārila, Śabara and Jayanta on sphoṭa. 3. Classification of Sphoṭa and 4. Authority of Āgama on sphoṭa.
Studies in the Upaniṣads
This book is a detailed study of the philosophical significance of the Upaniṣads. Govinda Gopal Mukhopadhyay, the author of the book, reconstructs the salient themes of the Upaniṣads in seven chapters: 1. The Problem of Reality, 2. The Problem of Knowledge, 3. The Preparation, 4. Contemplation, 5. The Synthetic Way, 6. The Analytic Way and 7.The Problem of Attainment. The first two chapters deal with the metaphysical and epistemological views of the Upaniṣads. The next four chapters present an analysis of the different methods of attaining the ultimate reality as prescribed in different Upaniṣads. The last chapter deals with the nature of the state where one attains the ultimate goal by contrasting the Upaniṣadic views with other alternative theories.
The Philosophy of Word and Meaning
Gaurinath Sastri, the author of this book, reconstructs the whole philosophy of Bhartṛhari. Bhartṛhari is the first philosopher in Indian tradition to build an entire philosophical system on a theory of language. The present book contains the following chapters: 1. The Supreme Reality, 2. The Supreme Power, 3. Functioning of Powers, 4. Correspondence of Form and Matter, 5. The Empiric World of Realities, 6. Word: What It Is, 7. Import of Words, and 8. Import of Propositions. The author presents Bhartṛhari’s thesis on the metaphysics of word and its manifestation in the form of the empirical world. There is a detailed discussion on the nature of sub-sentential parts like varṇa, pada etc. An elaborate discussion on the nature of knowledge of the different parts of a sentence resulting in the knowledge of the whole sentence can be found in this book. A comparative estimate of the relevant views of other Grammarians and other schools of classical Indian philosophy has been attempted by the author.
With the arrival of the colonial education in India, a nationalist urge swept across the Indian subcontinent. And Kolkata was not an exception. There was a conscious attempt on the part of the traditional scholars, to make the philosophical insights available in ancient India available to the modern intelligent readers who for several reasons lost touch with the original Sanskrit intellectual world. Many Sanskrit commentaries were translated with detail explanatory notes in Bengali. These works written in vernacular constitute a rich tradition of recent Indian philosophical repertoire. In this digital library attempts have been made to make these works accessible to the interested researchers.