Exploring Enduring Colonialism: Classical Presences and Modern Absences in Indian Philosophy

Enduring Colonialism: Classical Presences and Modern Absences in Indian Philosophy examines the apparent absence of new philosophical systems in India over the past several centuries, despite the rich and diverse traditions of Indian philosophical thought. The book explores the decline of traditional philosophical schools and Sanskritic studies, while asking how classical ideas continue to survive and shape contemporary Indian intellectual life.

Prof. A. Raghuramaraju examines the relationship between India and the West, particularly the different ways in which each civilisation has negotiated its past and its modernity. The book also considers the emergence of a contemporary philosophical consciousness in India and analyses Vaddera Chandidas’s Desire and Liberation: The Fundamentals of Cosmicontology as an important example of new philosophical thinking in contemporary India.

Through questions of absence, continuity, and the contemporary, the work invites a reconsideration of how Indian philosophy has evolved and how its classical traditions continue to inform philosophical inquiry today.