Meet the Faculty

Gerald J. Larson

  • Professor Emeritus, Department of Religious Studies

Education

  • Ph.D. at Columbia University, 1967

Contact Information

Background

Gerald J. Larson My main work through the years has been on classical Indian philosophy with special reference to Samkhya, Yoga, Vedanta and Buddhist/Jain philosophical traditions in which classical Indian philosophical themes relate to issues in traditional western philosophy, comparative or cross-cultural philosophy, comparative mysticism and theory of religion. In recent years I have ventured into modern or contemporary India Studies with special reference to India's current religious crises—see, for example, my most recent book, India's Agony Over Religion (State University of New York Press, 1995). Other books of mine include Classical Samkhya: An Interpretation of Its History and Meaning (Banarsidass, 1979), Samkhya: A Dualist Tradition in Indian Philosophy (Princeton University Press, 1986—with Ram Shankar Bhattacharya), and Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy (Princeton University Press, 1987—with Eliot Deutsch). Recent publications include the art exhibition catalogue "Changing Myths and Images: Twentieth Century Popular Religious Art in India" (IU Art Museum, 1997—co-authored with Pratapaditya Pal and H. Daniel Smith), the 1997 Oxford University Press (Delhi) edition of my India's Agony Over Religion, and the new printing of my Classical Samkhya: An Interpretation of its History and Meaning (Banarsidass, 1998).

Research Interests

  • Indian Philosophy
  • Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion
  • History of Religions
  • Classical and Vedic Sanskrit studies

Publication Highlights

Books

Classical Samkhya: An Interpretation of its History and Meaning (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1969, Second Revised Edition, Santa Barbara, Ross-Erickson Publishers 1979)

Myth in Indo-European Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1974)

India's Agony Over Religion (State University of New York Press, 1995)

Articles

"Religion as Understood in Hindu Culture and the West—I and II" (In Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Volume LII, Nos. 5 and 6, May and June, pp.191-195 and pp. 236-239, 2001)

"The Role of Indian Philosophy in the Next Millennium" (Bulletin of Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Vol. 61, December 2000)

"Relevance of Vedanata in the Next Millenium, I and II" (Bulletin of Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, June 2000 and July 2000, Vol.61, Nos. 6 and 7)

"The 'Tradition Text' in Indiana Philosophy for Doing History of Philosophy in India" (in Roger T. Ames, ed., The Aesthetic Turn: Reading Eliot Deutch on Comparative Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court, 2000, pp.59-69)