The ontological status of the world has been a subject of much philosophical speculation despite the fact that the world is an existential given. According to some philosophers, such existential givenness could turn out to be comparable to the earth’s apparent flatness, with the actual truth turning out to be the very opposite of what it seems. Philosophers often cite the experience of a dream to establish the plausibility of their position that the world might appear to be real while it is being experienced, and yet turn out to be ultimately false like a dream this motif plays a particularly important role in schools of philosophy in the East and the West which are idealistic in their orientation. This book explores the nuances of the theme of the world as dream in all its richness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Arvind Sharma
ARVIND SHARMA was born in Varanasi, India. He earned a B.A. in History, Economics, and Sanskrit from Allahabad University in 1958 and continued his interests in economics at Syracuse University, earning an M.A. in 1970. Pursuing a lifelong interest in comparative religion, Dr. Sharma gained an M.T.S. in 1974 and then a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University in 1978. He succeeded to the Birks Chair of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and was the first Infinity Foundation Visiting Professor of Indic Studies at Harvard University. He has published over fifty books and five hundred articles in the fields of comparative religion, Hinduism, Indian philosophy and ethics, and the role of women in religion. Widely cited as an authority on Hinduism, amongst his most note-worthy publications are The Hindu Gita: Ancient and Classical Interpretations of the Bhagavadgita (1986), The Experien-tial Dimension of Advaita Vedanta (1993), Our Religions: The Seven World Religions Introduced by Pre-eminent Scholars from Each Tradition (1994), The Philosophy of Religion: A Buddhist Perspective (1995), Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction (2000), and The Study of Hinduism (2003).
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