Being different: an Indian challenge to western universalism by Rajiv Malhotra

Includes bibliographical references and index.

India is more than a nation state. It is also a unique civilization with philosophies and cosmologies that are markedly distinct from the dominant culture of our times -- the West. India's spiritual traditions spring from dharma which has no exact equivalent in Western frameworks ... Rajiv Malhotra addresses the challenge of a direct and honest engagement on differences, by reversing the gaze, repositioning India from being the observed to the observer and looking at the West from the dharmic point of view. In doing so, he challenges many hiterto unexamined beliefs that both sides hold about themselves and each other. He highlights that while unique historical revelations are the basis for Wester religions, dharma emphasizes self-realization in the body here and now. He also points out the integral unity that underpins dharma's metaphysics and contrasts this with Western thought and history as synthetic unity.