One day we will be able to assimilate the full range of human expression in a new ‘Mahabharata’ and create a science of flourishing for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Ever since Macaulay’s infamous Minute on Education, we Indians have struggled to form an equal relationship between our knowledge systems and the knowledge systems of western modernity. The book under review is a corrective; like Nagarjuna receiving the Prajnaparamita Sutras at the ocean’s bottom, we get to climb the Himalayas to see what Tibetans did with the knowledge they received across the mountains. This volume on ‘The Mind’ is the second book in an ambitious project conceived by the Dalai Lama to bring Indo-Tibetan knowledge systems to a broad global audience. The Buddhist accounts of the mind explained here are of great importance to many constituencies: philosophers and humanists of course, but also cognitive scientists, psychologists and the curious layperson interested in the mystery of consciousness.
Given the wide audience, this book desires and deserves, the editors have refrained from lengthy translations and the heavy critical apparatus associated with the humanities; instead, they introduce conceptual questions and arguments first and use translations to further their case.
(To be continued)