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Being Different: An Indian Challenge To Western Universalism (2011)

by Rajiv Malhotra(Favorite Author)

4.58 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

9350291908 (ISBN13: 9789350291900)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Harper Collins

review 1: I must admit, I started reading this book in a defensive posture. It's not easy to view one's culture through another's critical lens. But what good would there have been in being defensive and rigid for hundreds of pages? Malhotra pushes back against Wester modalities of reasoning in order to create the type of tension Martin Luther King, Jr. believed fostered discussion and understanding. His writing is forceful, clear, and sympathetic to Western audiences without compromising Hindu beliefs.By the end, this book wasn't about converting; rather, it was about celebrating difference. And if I still cling to the flower of my own culture, I walked away from this book with a better appreciation of the other flowers in the world's garden.
review 2: The book exp... morelores the religious and philosophical differences between western and Indian civilization. It points out various contradictions between the two and goes on to show that trying to merge them into a universally acceptable system will only serve the interests of the dominant one and lead to the annihilation of the other.There is also a chapter on the non-translatable nature of Sanskrit which explains how the knowledge of ancient Sanskrit texts may be misunderstood by reading only the translation. less

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