New Member Introduction: Dr. John Grimes

[Dr. M. Giridhar]

>    My name is John Grimes and I am currently teaching Hinduism and Buddhism
> at Michigan State University. I received my BA in Religious Studies at the
> University of California at Santa Barbara (under Professor Raimundo
> Panikkar) and my MA and PhD at the Radhakrishnan Institute for Advanced

        It is indeed a great pleasure to welcome Dr. Grimes to this list.
When the list was started, I had written to him (who I assumed was in
National University of Singapore) to join the list because I definitely
knew that the list would benefit from his scholarship.

        I highly recommend the book 'Ganapati: Song of the Self'. The book
is written with great devotion, unlike many other research books. This
book brings out the living tradition of worship and also describes Dr.
Grimes' own spiritual experiences. Some of them are absolutely
fascinating.

        In understanding advaita, one hurdle is differentiating between
the paramarthika and vyahavarika views in the scriptures and not to be
confused by it. The book 'Problems and Perspectives in Religious Language:
Advaita Vedanta Implications' is wonderful in clearing this confusion. The
book also examines the implications of statements found in Buddhism
(shunyata versus Brahman etc.). These two books can be, imho, understood
by all begineers in advaita.

         After reading the above two books, I became a "fan" of Dr.
Grimes and read his other wonderful works, Naiskarmyasiddhi and The Seven
Great Untenables (Saptavidhanupapatti).

        I hope that Dr. Grimes would spare some of his valuable time and
contribute to this list. I would be personally be grateful if he could use
his scholarship to translate some of Shankara's works or works on his
Ishta Devata, Lord Ganesha, which are available in the sanskrit document
site (ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu/private/sanskrit/index.html) and post them
on this list with discussion.

namaste.

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Giridhar Madras, Assistant Professor    Email: giridhar at chemeng.iisc.ernet.in
Department of Chemical Engineering      TEL     : 91 80 309 2319 (Work)
Indian Institute of Science                     : 91 80 338 4680 (Home)
BANGALORE 560 012, INDIA                FAX     : 91 80 334 1683

      Department home page address:  http://chemeng.iisc.ernet.in
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