1st Edition
Vaiṣṇava Concepts of God Philosophical Perspectives
1. Introduction, Ricardo S. Silvestre, Alan C. Herbert & Benedikt P. Göcke; 2. The concept of god in the Bhavagad-Gītā: A panentheistic account, Ricardo S. Silvestre and Alan C. Herbert; 3. Beauty and form as a corollary of a perfect being: Kṛṣṇa in the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa, Edwin Bryant; 4. The nature of God in the Pāñcarātra with specific reference to the Jayākhya-Saṃhitā, Gavin Flood; 5. Supreme Self and Supreme Lord: Cosmological monotheism in the Mahābhārata epic, Angelika Malinar; 6. The Āḻvār concept of God and Tamil Vaiṣṇavism: If we examine, there is but one God! Suganya Anandakichenin; 7. Two conceptions of the relation between self and God: The debate between Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja, Anand Jayprakash Vaidya; 8. In defence of divine transcendence: Madhva’s critique of ‘material panentheism’, Gabriel Reis de Oliveira and Gustavo Moura Oliveira; 9. Non-theism and theism in the Nimbārka Sampradāya, Vijay Ramnarace; 10. Embodiment and abstraction: God in Puṣṭimārga, Frederick M. Smith; 11. On śaktis and their divine possessor: Towards a Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava concept of God, Alan C. Herbert & Ricardo Sousa Silvestre; 12. Harmonising the personal God with the impersonal Brahman: Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta in dialogue with Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, Swami Medhananda; 13. The God of yoga: Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda and divine pedagogy addressing divine hiddenness, Kenneth Valpey and Shivanand Sharma; Index
Biography
Ricardo Sousa Silvestre is Associate Professor at Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil and Professor of the Graduate Program in Philosophy at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Also, he is the leader of the project "Concepts of God and the Variety of Theisms in Indian Traditions", funded by the John Templeton Foundation. He has authored and edited several books, including Beyond Faith and Rationality: Essays on Logic, Religion and Philosophy (2020).
Alan C. Herbert is Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS), Oxford, UK. He was a director of the research project that made this volume possible: "A Philosophical Approach to the Vaishnava Concept of God", funded by the John Templeton Foundation through the Global Philosophy of Religion Project. He is the Indian Studies Lead Researcher for the John Templeton-funded project "Concepts of God and the Variety of Theisms in Indian Traditions". He is also a co-director of the OCHS research project: Hinduism in Modern Contemporary Society.
Benedikt Paul Göcke is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and the Philosophy of Science at the Faculty of Catholic Theology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, a Research Fellow in Philosophy at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University, UK and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, UK.
