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Eastern Religions and Western Thought
This challenging and beautifully written book describes the leading ideas of Indian philosophy and religion. It traces the probable influence of Indian mysticism on Greek thought and Christian development, through Alexandrian Judaism, Christian Gnosticism, and Neo-Platonism. The author argues that Christianity, which arose out of an eastern background and became wedded to Graeco-Latin culture, will find rebirth in a renewed alliance with this Eastern heritage.
420 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
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About the author
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
141 books241 followersBharat Ratna Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was an Indian philosopher and statesman. He was the first Vice-President of India (1952–1962) and subsequently the second President of India (1962–1967).
One of India's most influential scholars of comparative religion and philosophy, Radhakrishnan is thought of as having built a bridge between the East and the West by showing that the philosophical systems of each tradition are comprehensible within the terms of the other. He wrote authoritative exegeses of India's religious and philosophical literature for the English speaking world. His academic appointments included the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta (1921-?) and Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University (1936–1952).
Among the many honours he received were a knighthood (1931), the Bharat Ratna (1954) and the Order of Merit in 1963. His birthday is celebrated in India as Teacher's Day.
One of India's most influential scholars of comparative religion and philosophy, Radhakrishnan is thought of as having built a bridge between the East and the West by showing that the philosophical systems of each tradition are comprehensible within the terms of the other. He wrote authoritative exegeses of India's religious and philosophical literature for the English speaking world. His academic appointments included the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta (1921-?) and Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University (1936–1952).
Among the many honours he received were a knighthood (1931), the Bharat Ratna (1954) and the Order of Merit in 1963. His birthday is celebrated in India as Teacher's Day.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 16, 2019
The book sets the pace to understand the gravity of our understanding in ancient times. The religion of Hinduism has no trace of a beginning but still, it holds the people in one line.
Radhakrishnan was a great scholar of Indian Philosophy. He tries to show how Indian religion and scholars have influenced the thoughts of the wesren world. Whether you talk about Greek Philosophy or Italian thoughts all are influenced by the galaxy of thoughts presented by Indin scholars.
Radhakrishnan was a great scholar of Indian Philosophy. He tries to show how Indian religion and scholars have influenced the thoughts of the wesren world. Whether you talk about Greek Philosophy or Italian thoughts all are influenced by the galaxy of thoughts presented by Indin scholars.
March 31, 2015
Given the similarities between Platonic and Indian thought, I reviewed this Radhakrishnan book (second edition, 1940)from that perspective only.
Radhakrishnan describes extensive contact between India and pre-Plato Greece, and suggests that trade between the two regions can be traced to the sixteenth or fifteenth century BCE; he states that the Persian Empire (established in 578 BCE with the fall of Baghdad) under Darius, Cyrus’ successor, included the Indus Valley and Greece. “The Iranians, who ruled the empire from the Mediterranean to the Indus, were themselves kinsmen of the Vedic Aryans,” Radhakrishnan writes. “The community of interest and ideas between the kindred peoples received emphasis during the centuries preceding the invasion of India by Alexander the Great, when Persia exercised sway over north-western India. While Indians took part in the invasion of Greece in 480 B.C., Greek officials and soldiers served in India also.”
It is clear that Radhakrishnan believes that Indian Vedic thought influenced Plato and the Greek thinkers before him, although he allows that “it is quite possible that the Greeks and the Indians reached similar conclusions independently of one another.” Radhakrishnan states that some of the Upanishads that “set forth the fundamental concepts of Hindu thought” are “pre-Buddhistic (900-to-600 B.C.)” and these are the beliefs that seem likely to have been incorporated into Greek thought and particularly “to the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries and the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato….” Radhakrishnan notes that the beliefs held in common “are those of rebirth, the immortality and godlike character of the soul, the bondage of the soul in the body, and the possibility of release by purification.” Drawing in particular from Orpheus and Pythagoras, Radhakrishnan sees the following as the Vedic origins of Plato’s thought: “The essential unity of the human and the divine spirit, the immortality of the human soul, the escape from the restless wheel of the troublesome journey, the phenomenality of the world, the contempt for the body, the distinction between knowledge and opinion" and these "contradict every single idea of Greek popular religion.”
By implication, Indian thought is for Radhakrishnan the foundation of Western religious philosophy and it may be. “Some of those whose tradition and training are limited to the European are apt to imagine that before the great Greek thinkers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, there was a crude confusion of thought, a sort of chaos without form and void. Such a view becomes almost a provincialism," Radhakrishnan writes, "when we realize that systems of thought which influenced countless millions of human beings had been elaborated by people who never heard the names of the Greek thinkers.”
In Radhakrishnan, the reader gets a sense that he is writing about what it means to be a Platonic man: “To be inspired in our thoughts by divine knowledge, to be moved in our will by the divine purpose, to mould our emotions into harmony with divine bliss, to get at the great self of truth, goodness, and beauty to which we give the name of God as a spiritual presence, to raise our whole being and life to divine status, is the ultimate purpose and meaning of human living.” It is frustrating, though, to read Radhakrishnan as he gives us a purified vision of an unreal world that leaves us and our world behind.
Radhakrishnan describes extensive contact between India and pre-Plato Greece, and suggests that trade between the two regions can be traced to the sixteenth or fifteenth century BCE; he states that the Persian Empire (established in 578 BCE with the fall of Baghdad) under Darius, Cyrus’ successor, included the Indus Valley and Greece. “The Iranians, who ruled the empire from the Mediterranean to the Indus, were themselves kinsmen of the Vedic Aryans,” Radhakrishnan writes. “The community of interest and ideas between the kindred peoples received emphasis during the centuries preceding the invasion of India by Alexander the Great, when Persia exercised sway over north-western India. While Indians took part in the invasion of Greece in 480 B.C., Greek officials and soldiers served in India also.”
It is clear that Radhakrishnan believes that Indian Vedic thought influenced Plato and the Greek thinkers before him, although he allows that “it is quite possible that the Greeks and the Indians reached similar conclusions independently of one another.” Radhakrishnan states that some of the Upanishads that “set forth the fundamental concepts of Hindu thought” are “pre-Buddhistic (900-to-600 B.C.)” and these are the beliefs that seem likely to have been incorporated into Greek thought and particularly “to the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries and the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato….” Radhakrishnan notes that the beliefs held in common “are those of rebirth, the immortality and godlike character of the soul, the bondage of the soul in the body, and the possibility of release by purification.” Drawing in particular from Orpheus and Pythagoras, Radhakrishnan sees the following as the Vedic origins of Plato’s thought: “The essential unity of the human and the divine spirit, the immortality of the human soul, the escape from the restless wheel of the troublesome journey, the phenomenality of the world, the contempt for the body, the distinction between knowledge and opinion" and these "contradict every single idea of Greek popular religion.”
By implication, Indian thought is for Radhakrishnan the foundation of Western religious philosophy and it may be. “Some of those whose tradition and training are limited to the European are apt to imagine that before the great Greek thinkers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, there was a crude confusion of thought, a sort of chaos without form and void. Such a view becomes almost a provincialism," Radhakrishnan writes, "when we realize that systems of thought which influenced countless millions of human beings had been elaborated by people who never heard the names of the Greek thinkers.”
In Radhakrishnan, the reader gets a sense that he is writing about what it means to be a Platonic man: “To be inspired in our thoughts by divine knowledge, to be moved in our will by the divine purpose, to mould our emotions into harmony with divine bliss, to get at the great self of truth, goodness, and beauty to which we give the name of God as a spiritual presence, to raise our whole being and life to divine status, is the ultimate purpose and meaning of human living.” It is frustrating, though, to read Radhakrishnan as he gives us a purified vision of an unreal world that leaves us and our world behind.
September 15, 2008
I think I have read too many books by people who read this book. I did not need to read it.
March 4, 2015
This is for the most part a discussion of the west through the lense of Hinduism while showing how India has influenced most of the major religions in the world. Not only does he prove how Plato and Pythagoreous were influenced by Hinduism, but how it influenced Christianity as well all the various "heresies" after Christ. Underneath the comparative analysis was a pleading for the need for a cosmopolitian perspective of life and they need to show the spiritual unity behind all religions and cultures- despite their superficial and political differences. A valuable book for the propagation of the Perrenial Philosophy.
May 16, 2010
This book is written by an Oxford scholar of Eastern religion. It compares and contrasts the foundational aspects of the Eastern and Western mind. Has a greater depth and objectivity compared with more popular works on the subject.
July 28, 2024
It is a fascinating and in-depth read for those who wants to delve deeper into the relation between the eastern and western thought, the religions of the east and west, the metaphysics and epistemology of those religions, and overall how one can learn from the others.
Radhakrishnan, despite being famous for his tenure as a second president of the independent India, is relatively unknown to the Indian masses as a scholarly figure having command on both western and eastern religions and thinking. This book is a prime example of how enriched his knowledge was. In his analysis, we can see the glimpses of the both worlds without exhibiting any bias towards any culture or religion. The book discusses how different the west and the east are in terms of their religious thoughts as well as the philosophical thinking processes related to the metaphysics. However, the book also explores the similarities between the two through the analysis of the historical exchanges of culture and knowledge. We see the influence of Hegel on Radhakrishnan, who sees the humanity as a world civilization moving towards a truth while learning from the philosophical and religious thoughts of the east and the west al0ng with the science.
In summary, this book provides an in depth analysis of how the human spirit as a whole is affected by different thinking processes of the past from different geographical regions, and how the current thinking of science interacts with these religious schools.
Radhakrishnan, despite being famous for his tenure as a second president of the independent India, is relatively unknown to the Indian masses as a scholarly figure having command on both western and eastern religions and thinking. This book is a prime example of how enriched his knowledge was. In his analysis, we can see the glimpses of the both worlds without exhibiting any bias towards any culture or religion. The book discusses how different the west and the east are in terms of their religious thoughts as well as the philosophical thinking processes related to the metaphysics. However, the book also explores the similarities between the two through the analysis of the historical exchanges of culture and knowledge. We see the influence of Hegel on Radhakrishnan, who sees the humanity as a world civilization moving towards a truth while learning from the philosophical and religious thoughts of the east and the west al0ng with the science.
In summary, this book provides an in depth analysis of how the human spirit as a whole is affected by different thinking processes of the past from different geographical regions, and how the current thinking of science interacts with these religious schools.
May 28, 2019
The book by a great scholar S. Radhakrishnan glorifies the idea of India. A nation who has carried the hopes of millions to get back the peace in society. A religion of tolerance which Vivekanand sais in his famous speech in the parliament of religion. The eastern religion has shown many phases of transition but remained tall and strong all the time and regularly taught the world the idea of tolerance.
July 10, 2019
Reading Radhakrishnan is a joy always. He had mastery over words. His writings are so beautiful that you can not put it down for a moment. In this book, he has presented some interesting facts about the eastern religion and their age longed civilization.
June 20, 2019
This one is a pretty classic book that describes the ideas of Indian philosophy at his best.
January 20, 2016
If there was a provision for 10 stars this book well deserves it. Written in impeccable English by a superhuman with extensive knowledge in Hindu as well as western philosophies, this book shreds to pieces the works of so-called indologists. The second part of this book is a detailed anthropological study of impact of Hindu philosophy and culture on the west. Sri Radhakrishnan's work is definitive guide to followers of philosophy.
April 8, 2011
Loathed. I gave up.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews