I liked the book of the world-renowned Jesuit Indologist, Richard De Smet,
Brahman and Person: Essays by Richard De Smet. It was edited by Ivo Coelho.
Brahman and Person is a collection of fourteen essays by the late Richard De
Smet, SJ (1916-1997) on the topic of person in Indian thought. Overturning the
current interpretation, R.De Smet proposes that the nirguna Brahman can be
regarded as properly personal, provided person is understood in the original
and classical sense that emerged in the Christian efforet to speak about the
mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Instead, the rendering of saguna
and nirguna Brahman as personal and impersonal originated with the Western
translators of Sanskrit works, who were influenced by an individualistic idea
of the person and the consequent restriction of its application in the human
being.
R.De Smet also dedicates attention to the question of the human person in
Indian and Western thought over a number of essays, proposing that a peroperly
holistic and organic notion of the human person can be found especially in the
thought of Sankara.
This collection of essays by an eminent Indologist constitutes an important
contribution not only to Indological studies but also to cross-cultural and
interreligious dialogue.
Richard De Smet taught at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeet, Pune. Born in Belgium in 1916,
he joined the Jesuits in 1934 and came to India in 1946. He earned a PhD in
1953 from the Gregorian University, Rome, for his thesis on the theological
method of Sankara, proposing both that Sankara was a srutivadin, and that he
used the method of analogy in his interpretation of the Upanishadic mahavakyas.
R.De Smet was a life member of the Indian Philosophical Congress (IPC) and the
Indian Philosophical Association (IPA), and Founder-President of the
Association of Christian Philosophers of India (ACPI), and in these capacities
carried out an ongoing dialogue with Indian philosophers and religious
personalities. He died in 1997.
