Harish Damodaran

A unique feature of all the different schools of Indian philosophy is that, irrespective of being orthodox or heterodox, they always struggle to answer the problem of the bondage and the liberation. Both the philosophies; Advaita and Saiva Siddhanta are no exceptions. Together they accept the existence of the bondage that keeps the individual self away from the realization of the absolute self and strive to find the most probable way of breaking down the bonds for gaining the ultimate freedom. This book is a critical approach to compare the ways in which both the schools of Saiva Siddhanta and Advaita attempt to solve the vital problem of bondage and liberation.

Saiva Siddhanta is a special philosophy of Saivism. Saivism is a general name used to denote a number of Indian schools of thought that regard Lord Siva or Paramesvara as the supreme deity. Saivism is one of oldest schools of thought in the world. Even today, it is alive as an inspiring and inviting way of philosophizing and practiced as a religion by millions of people, not only in India, but all over the world. It stretches out across the sea to Farther India and the Archipelago and the mountain to central Asia. No other single religion, alive or extinct, in the entire world can boast of such an antiquity, as Saivism owns. This book is but an attempt to introduce the Philosophy of Saiva Siddhanta in order to serve the purpose of beginners- a work for the beginner and of course, by the beginner.

Advaita Vedanta is one of the most influential Schools of Philosophy in India. It reached its zenith of glory with its main proponent Jagat Guru Adi Sri Sankaracharya, a sage who lived for just 32 years but worked miracles like commenting on important texts of Vedanta, conducting arguments with scholars, and traveling all over India establishing the unity of the Nation. Advaita Vedanta has thousands of books written on its various topics. However, there are not many that may be of some help to the beginners who are interested in Indian Philosophy, religion and culture. This book in an attempt to introduce Advaita Vedanta to beginners especially, non-Indians.

By the term, 'New Science' I mean, the physical science that developed during the dawn of the twentieth century. The era is marked by a number of epoch-making discoveries that shook the very foundations of the deterministic, Newtonian Science. They include the works of Bohr, Einstein, de Broglie, Schr dinger, Heisenberg etc. The era is characterized by two new fields of inquiry: Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of Relativity. The former threatened the deterministic nature of Science in the micro world whereas; the other challenged it in the macro Universe. Obviously, Science has been changing. Changing for a new beginning; a new trend that makes today's Science a New Science, whose future is, even today, too early to infer or even to predict. This book, I intend, is to take the reader for a ride through the realms of wonders that the New Science unveils to us.