Studies in Hinduism

René Guénon (1886-1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. Studies in Hinduism consists of articles published posthumously in 1966, to which has been added Guénon's separate study La Métaphysique orientale, the text of a lecture delivered at the Sorbonne. Here Guénon completes his presentation of Hindu metaphysics, which he considered the most primordial and comprehensive body of spiritual teaching possessed by the human race, one capable of illuminating the essence of every other Tradition. Of special interest are three chapters on various aspects of tantra (a doctrine profoundly misunderstood in the contemporary West), which Hindu authorities consider the spirituality most appropriate to the Kali Yuga, as well as a chapter on the sanatana dharma, the Hindu concept closest to the ancient and medieval Christian idea of the philosophia perennis, which led St Augustine to declare that Christianity has always existed, but only came to be so called after the coming of Christ. Included are extensive reviews of books on or by Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Rabindranath Tagore, Mircea Eliade, Paul Brunton, and others, as well as forty pages of reviews of books and articles by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Leading Indian thinkers have called René Guénon the most authentic expositor of Hindu metaphysics in any Western language.