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The Wisdom of India: Ancient Images and Contemporary Challenges

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The Jewish Encounter with Hinduism

Part of the book series: Interreligious Studies in Theory and Practice ((INSTTP))

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Abstract

The encounter of cultures happens in rich and complex ways. It is also conceived in varying and changing ways. An encounter between cultures can never be reduced to one single dimension or factor that captures its import. Any attempt to frame the encounter, to highlight what another culture is or represents, to focus upon particular challenges and problematics is already informed by a conceptual agenda. How cultures are juxtaposed and how their point of encounter and ensuing challenges are conceived already betrays a certain understanding of what is important to a given culture. The changes in how one culture imagines another, how it portrays it, and what it deems important in it provide an important lens through which we learn about the imagining culture as much as about the encounter of the two cultures. Because cultures are complex, we may expect different and changing conceptions of how they interact and what they mean to each other as these emerge over time. Let us examine how such changes are expressed in the Jewish view of Hinduism.

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Notes

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© 2016 Alon Goshen-Gottstein

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Goshen-Gottstein, A. (2016). The Wisdom of India: Ancient Images and Contemporary Challenges. In: The Jewish Encounter with Hinduism. Interreligious Studies in Theory and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-45529-1_10

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