Author Description

Review "Hegel's India takes the challenge of a detailed reading of Hegel's texts with a surprising result: behind Hegel's dismissal of India, there lies not only his profound fascination with India but also an uncanny proximity between India's ancient wisdom and Hegel's speculative thought. Hegel's India provides a model of how a dialogue between different cultures should be practiced, beyond the confines of Eurocentrism and historicist relativism." - Slavoj Žižek"This volume makes a compelling case for a reassessment and it does so at a time when Western philosophy faces renewed challenges for its Eurocentrism. Hegel's India belongs front and center within that debate for the new perspective it offers." - Robert Bernasconi "It is wonderful to have access to these writings in one volume. The introduction gives a tour d'horizon of the sources Hegel consulted and the interpretive controversies surrounding his work on India. Reading Hegel is always challenging. But an anthology of his work on India highlights how, even in his most prejudiced criticism, he could shine a light on unusual questions." - Pratap Bhanu Mehta, The Indian Express"This new book includes all of Hegel's essays on India, as well as explanatory essays about his writings, to reassess the significance of India in the philosopher's larger body of work." - The Caravan'This is an important book at a significant time. It makes some incisive points on how the Anglophone world has refused to, and continues to ignore, the contributions of 'far-reaching philosophical systems' that arose outside the so-called western traditions.' - Ajay Gudavarthy, The Book Review"Hegel's India opens up a new line of enquiry, namely how much of the dialectic between two philosophies helps us to understand the inner dialectic within one philosophy? This is the great merit of Aakash Singh Rathore and Rimina Mohapatra, who have helped us to go beyond the orientalist and power/knowledge frameworks, and think of philosophy in a new way." - Ranabir Samaddar, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research "Promises to be the most thorough and incisive treatment of the topic since Tibebu's Hegel and the Third World." - Makarand R. Paranjape"Intriguing and original" - Dilip M. Menon'Shedding new light on Indological and Hegelian studies... including translations of [Hegel's] lesser-known essays on the Bhagavad Gita and Oriental Spirit.' - The Hindu'A book that speaks of and to the times... Hegel's India makes Hegel both accessible and pertinent to the Indian reader who may be looking to constructively find distinctions between Indian philosophy, religious doctrine and hegemony.' - Navtej Johar, IIC Quarterly'This unique volume brings together Hegel's reflections and argues that Indian thought haunted him, representing a nemesis to his own philosophy.' - The Sunday Guardian'That [a] long-neglected essay [Herbert Herring's translation of Hegel's 1827 review of Humboldt's work on the Bhagavad Gita]... now appears in a good English translation is a boon to Hegel studies.' - Eric v.d. Luft, The Owl of Minerva 'Not only have Rathore and Mohapatra carefully collated Hegel's writings on India, including translations of hitherto unfamiliar texts, in their brilliant reinterpretation of these writings, provide a justification, which is both sympathetic and critical, of Hegel's engagement with India... Intellectuals and activists challenging entrenched casteism and the upsurge of Hindu fundamentalism in India will be eternally grateful for Hegel's India.' - Karthick Ram Manoharan, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books'There seems to be a fusion of horizons between the Hegelian absolute and Indian Brahman.' - Prasenjit Biswas, Jadavpur Journal of Philosophy 'A philosophical critique of Hegel will have to squarely confront this question, howsoever critical it may well be--and justifiably so--of Hegel's specific historical, sociological, and politico-theoretical forays. After all, at st