Arguments about the existence of God are not confined to the West. Buddhist and Hindu philosophers in premodern India engaged in centuries-long arguments about the existence of a God-like being called "Isvara" and the religious epistemology used to support them. These arguments culminated in a sophisticated critique by the eleventh-century Buddhist intellectual Ratnakirti, one of the last great Buddhist philosophers of India. By focusing on Ratnakirti's arguments against his Hindu opponents, Parimal G. Patil summarizes South Asian intellectual practices and shows how the philosophy and intellectual history of religions was understood in precolonial South Asia.

Based at the famous university of Vikramasila, Ratnakirti brings the full range of Buddhist philosophical resources to bare on his critique of the Hindu "design-inference," the most important argument for the existence of Isvara in Medieval and early-modern India. At stake was nothing less than the nature of rationality, the metaphysics of epistemology, and the relevance of philosophy to the practice of religion. The first book to document Buddhist philosophy of religion in the final phase of Buddhism in India, Against a Hindu God transcends the disciplinary boundaries of religious studies, philosophy, and South Asian studies. Through a comparative approach to the philosophy of religions, it brings the remarkable work of philosophers like Ratnakirti to bear on contemporary conversations in religion and philosophy.

Against a Hindu God: Buddhist Philosophy of Religion in India, Parimal G. Patil, Columbia University Press, Hardcover, 400 pages, $75.00

Parimal G. Patil is Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy at Harvard University, where he has been teaching since receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2002. His primary academic interest is in the History of Philosophy in India and its relevance to more contemporary issues in Philosophy, South Asian Studies, and the Study of Religion. His first two books, Against a Hindu God (Columbia 2009) and Buddhist Philosophy of Language in India (Columbia 2010), focused on issues in Buddhist epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion during the final phase of Buddhism in India.