The Indestructible Soul. The Nature of Man and Life after Death in Indian Thought by Geoffrey Parrinder (review)

386 BOOK REVIEWS tween living philosophy and rote learning (an Aquinas without enormous factual knowledge would have probably been something less than a colossus). The Darwinist survival of the fittest, moreover, is not "profoundly true " ; it comes down to the survival of the survivors-a profundity whose scientific value is zero. Furthermore, while admiring LatinAmerican provision for leisure, some may hesitate to hope to profit from " a richness of spiritual and religious traditions " in nations whose spiritual tone does not appear to be impressively high. Finally, in the light of unabated international tensions it seems pseudo-optimistic to see " mankind moving in the direction of' one world'," and it seems to savor of Teilhardian wish-thinking blind to the ineradicable countervaluational tendencies in human nature (called original sin by less enlightened generations) to summon philosophers to labor for the evolutionary (inevitably onward and upward) development of man. Generally, however, Kreyche's limpid, attractive prose exhibits a conceptual tidiness and precision accommodated to his popular aim. (A book of this sort, by the way, might be quite serviceable in introductory and other philosophy courses to sensitize students to the urgency of sound philosophizing.) In proclaiming to all the critical need of a rationally articulated life-philosophy, this work links us with the "Know thyself" of Socrates and one now lost tradition of the early Christian centuries and medieval period that saw in Philosophy a disciplining of the spirit, an indispensable means of purifying the soul toward an encounter or union with God (even speculative truth, Kreyche penetratingly remarks, heals the whole man). We are indebted to Prof. Kreyche for a vigorous rethinking of the truth that for Augustine, so for modern man, noverim me (the under~tanding of the meaning of man) must precede the noverim Te (a fulfilling knowledge and love) -but meditation on this latter may open the door to another book. Villanova University Villanova, Pennsylvania JoHN M. QUINN, O.S.A. The Indestructible Soul. The Nature of Man and Life after Death in Indian Thought. By Geoffrey Parrinder. New York: Barnes &Noble, 1973. Pp. 116. This terse study is a descriptive analysis of the concept of self (atman) in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. The self is central in Indian intellectual development as God is in the Semitic traditions; more importantly , the self is the subject for Indian meditation as God is the sub- BOOK REVIEWS 887 ject for Western meditational experience. In ten brief chapters Professor Parrinder examines the eternality and indestructibility of the self, its relationship to the Absolute, to life, death and rebirth, and its final goal. Much of the analysis is based upon primary sources from the scriptural and philosophical literature. Within Hinduism, for example, Parrinder draws amply upon the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the six philosophical systems with emphasis on Samkhya-Yoga. One of the finest chapters is on the nature of the self in terms of transmigration and rebirth. The substantial modification in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain views of self differentiate how these three religious traditions conceive of rebirth. The author deftly exemplifies that belief in rebirth was a stimulus to activity and did not lead inevitably to passivity as so frequently interpreted by non-believers. Also noteworthy is the de-emphasis of the no-self (anatta) theory in contemporary Buddhism of Southeast Asia. Several factors, however, could have contributed to further clarification of the concept under study. Parrinder does not employ the category of consciousness in his analysis of the self, and most scholars today would consider the use of this category somewhat imperative if intelligibility is to be found in this Indian concept. The language of consciousness may well be the sole philosophical modality to clarify the distinctive character of the Indian self for the Western reader. Likewise, Purusha (spirit) Prakriti (nature) would have become more intelligible if translated or at least understood within the context of consciousness. It would have been helpful, moreover, if an additional chapter clearly differentiating the Western notion of soul from the Indian notion of self were included. It is also unfortunate that contemporary Hinduism is so easily overlooked, for it is in twentieth-century Hindu thought that a high development of doctrine...