Session 5: DANAM Annual Book Review Panel: Theodor, Ithamar, The Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, Cambridge University Press, 2025
Presider: Veena Hward (vehoward@csufresno.edu), California State University, Fresno
Reviewers:
Jonathan Edelman (jonathan.edelmann@gmail.com), International Society for Science and Religion
Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh (nksingh@colby.edu), Colby College
Graham Schweig (gschweig@cnu.edu) Christopher Newport University
Stephanie Corigliano (stephanie.corigliano@gmail.com), Cal Poly Humboldt
Respondent: Ithamar Theodor (itamart@zefat.ac.il), Zefat Academic College, Safed
The Bhagavad-gītā is a world classic considered not only the "Hindu Bible" but sometimes the "Indian Bible" as well. Over the last 200 years or so, it has attracted much Indological attention; the present work continues this Indological scholarship, and particularly the works of R.C. Zaehner (OUP 1969) and Angelika Malinar (CUP 2007), which are profusely quoted and referred to. As such, it offers a systematic survey of the Bhagavad-gītā 's main topics and doctrines in an innovative way. In my book "Exploring the Bhagavad-gītā: Philosophy, Structure and Meaning" (Ashgate 2010 and later Routledge 2016) I have argued for a coherent structure underlying the Bhagavad-gītā, which I called "The Three Storey House" structure. This structure considers the Bhagavad-gītā to be based upon a hierarchical concept of reality, constructed by three tiers arranged one above the other, and connected by an ethical ladder, existentially leading one higher and higher through a gradual transformational process aiming at the upper tier. The present book develops this idea further thematically.
| Ithamar Theodor | theodor@orange.net.il | View |