Eastern Philosophy for Beginners

I loved this book. Not only is it thorough in its facts and history, and hilarious at times, but it is also critical on various issues. The author has done an excellent job at illustrating Eastern Philosophy without sacrificing his intellectual rigor as well as spiritual truthfulness.

This book made me aware of how much I do not know about Eastern philosophies and religious systems. For, instance, I had thought that vegetarianism originated with the Hindus. In fact, as Powell points out, the Hindus adopted it from the Jains. This book packs a lot of insight into a deceptively facile genre.

This book gave me some good ideas for my Religious Studies paper. Actually, it gave me more good ideas than the books assigned by my professor! Also, the many illustrations, especially the 19th century engravings, made me feel as if I was walking through ancient India and China. My favorite section was "The Incredible Lightness of Beijing." The books approaches Asian Religions historically, with the major focus being on India and China. This is a fine, clearly written and insightful book.

I liked this book because it will push almost everyone's buttons. First of all, Indians don't like to hear that their Vedic culture had its origins outside of India. Powell shows that it did. Hindus don't like to admit that vegetarianism came from outside of Hinduism. Powell shows that it came from Jainism. As an aside, Powell's contention that the Hindu Goddesses such as Saraswati are not central in Hindu theology is correct. The Gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are central. Powell's point is that before the patriarchal Aryan influence, India may have had a form of Goddess worship in which a Goddess was central, as in some other cultures. They are not central, however, in Hinduism. Although there is much attention given to Goddess worship in India, it is nevertheless a culture, as Powell points out, in which widows were expected to jump into the funeral fire to join their deceased husbands. Some of these husbands were rajas and some of them had hundreds or even thousands of wives. If Goddess worship were central in India would women need to prove their purity and sanctity by burning themselves to death in their husbands funeral pyres?Powell is irreverent and informative. His approach is mainly historico-comical. However, he leaves most of the humor up to the illustrator and focuses instead on systematically presenting rather complex ideas. Furthermore, the illustrations imply that the entire narrative (in the form of a conversation between the Hookah-Smlking Caterpillar and Alice in Worderland) is just a pipe dream--that any representation of the Orient--including this one--is fated to be just a representation--not the Orient.

Jim Powell, who also seems to be the author of Derrida for Beginners as well as Postmodernism for Beginners, has written an introduction that is lucid, well-written and insightful. Most scholars of religions tend to feel that categories such as Hinduism, Buddhism etc. are almost meaningless abstractions, because they are too broad. One of the nice things about this book is that it shows how the various traditions changed over time and were deeply influenced by other traditions. For instance, Powell notes the influence of Christianity on modern Hinduism, and the influence of MTV in contemporary China. The poetry of Powell's descriptions is often quite nice, for instance his description of Shiva. An excellent introductory read for those new to the study of Eastern Philosophy as well as those who fancy they know something about this vast field. Though it IS introductory, it is nevertheless brimming with a major insight in every section.