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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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A UNIQUE PHENOMENON |
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we can, however, do is emphasize again and again that Hinduism is
not a religion. Ren Guenon, one of the best-known European
traditionalist authors on various civilizations, writes in his book
Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines: "... the
term religion is difficult to apply strictly
outside the group formed by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which
goes to prove the specifically Jewish origin of the idea that the
word now expresses."1 He
adds: "In India we are in the presence of a tradition which
is purely metaphysical in its essence.... A fact which stands out
much more clearly here than in the Islamic tradition, chiefly owing
to the absence of the religious point of view, ...is the complete
subordination of the various particular orders relatively to
metaphysics, that is to say relatively to the realm of universal
principles."2
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