Fritz Strack and Jens Förster - Hindu perspectives on evolution: Darwin, dharma, and design

Offering new insights into the contemporary creationist-evolution debates, this book looks at parallel debates within the Hindu cultural-religious traditions of India. To provide background for appreciating contemporary Hindu responses to Darwinism, the book examines ancient Vedic and classical Hindu or Dharmic views regarding the origin of the universe. Of special note are the diverse evolutionary views ranging from ideas of material evolution to devolution or manifestation of matter from a higher spiritual reality. At the same time, traditional Dharmic schools developed a number of creationist models of the universe employing sophisticated versions of the design argument often spiced with uniquely Hindu elements.

These traditional perspectives laid the groundwork for the rich variety of responses to Darwinism when it first became known in India. The book highlights the significance of the colonial context of India's encounter with the West. The oppressiveness of British colonialism resulted in considerable ambivalence towards modern science on the part of Hindu intellectuals grappling with the challenges of modernization, secularization, and westernization. Given the enormous prestige of modern science, Hindus could not and did not wish to ignore it, recognizing at the same time its corrosive potential to destroy traditional ideals and values. Their ambivalence manifested itself in the complementary trends of scientizing traditional spiritual ideas and of spiritualizing science. These developments led to notions of spiritual evolution transcending or completing Darwinian evolution, as well as to creationist rejections of Darwinism as non-scientific. Analysing critically the question of compatibility between traditional Dharmic theories of knowledge and the epistemological assumptions underlying contemporary scientific methodology, the book raises broad questions regarding the frequently alleged harmony of the Hindu Dharmic traditions with modern science, and with Darwinian evolution in particular.

C. Mackenzie Brown is Jennie Farris Railey King Professor of Religion at Trinity University, USA. His research interests include the relationship of Hinduism and modern science, with particular focus on creationism and evolution.

The Routledge Hindu Studies Series, in association with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, intends the publication of constructive Hindu theological, philosophical and ethical projects aimed at bringing Hindu traditions into dialogue with contemporary trends in scholarship and contemporary society. The series invites original, high quality, research level work on religion, culture and society of Hindus living in India and abroad. Proposals for annotated translations of important primary sources and studies in the history of the Hindu religious traditions will also be considered.

Epistemologies and the Limitations of
Philosophical Inquiry
Doctrine in Mdhva Vednta
Deepak Sarma

A Hindu Critique of Buddhist
Epistemology
Kumarila on perception: the determination
of perception chapter of Kumarilabhatta's
Slokarvarttika
Translation and commentary John Taber

Samkara's Advaita Vedanta
A way of teaching
Jacqueline Hirst

Attending Ka's Image
Caitanya Vai ava Mrti-sev as
devotional truth
Kenneth Russell Valpey

Advaita Vednta and Vaiavism
The philosophy of Madhusdana Sarasvat
Sanjukta Gupta

Classical Skhya and Yoga
An Indian metaphysics of experience
Mikel Burley

Self-surrender (Prapatti) to God in
Srvaiavism
Tamil cats and Sanskrit monkeys
Srilata Raman

The Caitanya Vaiava Vednta of
Jva Gosvm
When knowledge meets devotion
Ravi M. Gupta

Gender and Narrative in
the Mahbhrata
Edited by Simon Brodbeck and
Brian Black

Yoga in the Modern World
Contemporary perspectives
Edited by Mark Singleton and Jean Byrne

Consciousness in Indian Philosophy
The Advaita doctrine of awareness only
Sthaneshwar Timalsina

Desire and Motivation in
Indian Philosophy
Christopher G. Framarin

Women in the Hindu Tradition
Rules, roles and exceptions
Mandakranta Bose

Religion, Narrative and Public
Imagination in South Asia
Past and place in the Sanskrit Mahbhrata
James Hegarty

Interpreting Devotion
The poetry and legacy of a female Bhakti
Saint of India
Karen Pechilis

Hindu Perspectives on Evolution
Darwin, Dharma, and design
C. Mackenzie Brown

C. Mackenzie Brown

First published 2012

by Routledge

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2012 C. Mackenzie Brown

The right of C. Mackenzie Brown to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Brown, Cheever Mackenzie.

Hindu perspectives on evolution : Darwin, Dharma, and design/

C. Mackenzie Brown.

p. cm. -- (Routledge Hindu studies series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Evolution (Biology)--Religious aspects--Hinduism. 2. Hinduism--India.

I. Title.

BL263.B745 2011

294.524--dc23

2011030243

ISBN: 978-0-415-77970-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-13553-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by GreenGate Publishing Services, Tonbridge, Kent

For Andrew O. Fort