The astronomical knowledge codified in the Vedaanga Jyotisha is entirely traceable to Vedic sources. Furthermore, in view of the works of Seidenberg on the ritual origin of geometry, and of Kak on the astronomical code in the Vedas, it is argued that the Mesopotamian origin for Vedaanga Jyotisha proposed by Pingree is not justified.

This paper examines Kant's moral theory and compares it with certain key aspects of oriental (especially Buddhist) moral philosophy. In both cases, we focus on the suggestion that there may be a connection between a person's physical health and moral state. Special attention is paid to the nature of pain, illness, and personal happiness and to their mutual interrelationships.

This paper focuses on a specific area of interest within the philosophical system of Schopenhauer and Buddhism which is human rights, the concept of compassion and the issue of the pure motive behind human action. Both theories express pessimism regarding the transitoriness of life and the pain caused, and how this deprives man of inner peace. The common acknowledgment of the fact that human life entails great suffering guides the two philosophies into an awareness of the need for salvation. In their metaphysics, there is a number of similarities that conclude to the point that moral truthfulness is a principal virtue in human life, practically indispensable for right living. In this particular context, while compassion is highlighted as the main ethical factor, it is a question of paramount importance in these doctrines whether the motive behind the action is a motive concentrated on the Self or purely on the Other.

The paper has two main parts. The first part is devoted to the traditional Hindu viewpoint on the existence and permanence of the self as an immaterial substance. Various arguments offered by Hindu philosophers against the materialist view that the body is the self as well as arguments against the Buddhist view of the self as a stream of constantly changing states are discussed critically with reference to recent philosophical perspectives. The second part is devoted to the doctrine of karma and rebirth. A number of traditional arguments for the doctrine are studied analytically and critically as well as relevance of the doctrine for addressing the problem of evil that for many is a serious issue facing the creationist position. Finally, the major arguments of Plato who also held that the self is eternal and goes through reincarnation are critiqued from a comparative standpoint.

‘Necessity of Religion’ means that in the nature of man as an intelligent self-conscious being there is a necessary spiritual urge which forces him to rise above what is material and finite and to find rest nowhere short of an Infinite and Absolute Mind. This does not mean that each and every man is religious and the fact that there are men who are not religious does not disprove the necessity of religion. Rather in the very notion of a spiritual self-conscious being there is involved what may be called a virtual or potential infinite. True it is that Nature and man are both finite. But it is the characteristic of a spiritual intelligent being to transcend its individual limitations and realize itself in that which lies beyond itself.

The basis of religion lies in the nature of man as a thinking self-conscious being. As a thinking being, I can make my individual self and the world, which is opposed to it, the object of my thought and have the capacity to transcend the opposition and rise to a higher unity in which both these -- the self and not-self are comprehended as elements. It is by thought that we transcend the limits of finitude and share in a life which is universal and infinite, in which religion may be said to consist. Thought or self-consciousness is a universal principle in us and being universal, enables us to rise above our particularity and participate in the universal and absolute life or God.

In the view of Spencer, Hamilton, Mansel and others, while the province of science is the known, the province of religion is the unknown and the unknowable. Ever addition to the gradually increasing sphere of science reveals a wider sphere of nescience, the unknown and unknowable background of the infinite and the absolute. Since to think is to condition and since the infinite and the absolute is unconditioned, to think or know the infinite or the absolute is to think the unthinkable or know the unknowable though we are compelled to accept the existence of the infinite and the absolute. But this viewpoint is contradictory. It is self-contradictory to hold simultaneously that human knowledge is confined to the finite and that we can know of an existence beyond the finite and that all human knowledge is relative and yet that we can know of the existence of the absolute. Objections to the scientific study of religion based on arguments from intuitive character of religious knowledge and arguments from authoritative nature of religious knowledge are also addressed.