Books by Arvind Sharma

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

Written by a leading Hindu scholar, Hindu Narratives on Human Rights is organized around specific rights, such as the right to own property, the rights of children, women's rights, and animal rights. Within these categories and in light of the questions they raise, the book provides a guided tour of Hindu narratives on ethics, ranging from the famous religious epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, to various forms of secular literature drawn from almost a thousand years of Indic civilization. The realization that Hindu ethical discourse is narrative rather than propositional is a relatively recent one. Hence, the prevailing tendency in the West has been to overlook it in the context of the discussion of human rights. This book was written to correct that oversight. It shows that the presence of the universal in the particular in Hindu stories is a key to understanding Hindu thinking about human rights-and it indicates ways in which Hindu ethical discourse can interact creatively with modern human rights discourse.

Shows that religion is a force that can be harnessed for both good and evil. This book unleashes religion's true potential to do good by bridging the modern divide between religion and an ever pervasive secular society, a notion often loathed by individuals on both sides of the religious aisle.

All arts and sciences, in their own way, ultimately try to come to grips with reality. Over the decades spanned by John Hick's life, in the course of this grappling (reminiscent of Jacob's nocturnal encounter with the angel) philosophy became analytic, theology dialogical and religion comparative along one line of development.