Understanding Sankara (Essays by Richard De Smet)

Richard De Smet (1916-1997) taught Indian Philosophy at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune. Born in Belgium he joined the Jesuits in 1934 and came to India in 1946. He earned a PhD in 1953 from the Gregorian University, Rome for his thesis on the theological method of Sankara, proposing both that Sankara was a srutivadin, and that he used the method of analogy in his interpretation of the Upanisadic mahavakyas. De Smet was a life member of the Indian Philosophical Congress and the Indian Philosophy Association, and Founder-President of the Association of Christian Philosophers of Indian, and in these capacities carried out an ongoing dialogue with Indian philosophers and religious personalities. He died in 1997. Ivo Coelho is Reader in Gnoseology and Metaphysics at Divyadaan: Salesian Institute of Philosophy, Nashik, and editor of Divyadaan: Journal of Philosophy and Education.