Customer Reviews:
 Good and useful work; it does need some editing though July 23, 2008
Most people would probably agree that any serious attempt to learn Indian Philosophy requires some knowledge of Sanskrit, at least enough to recognize a verb form and consult a full Sanskrit Dictionary. However, when dealing with philosophical texts written in English,
in which frequent use of Sanskrit philosophical terminology is adopted, to use a full dictionary
such as Monnier-Williams or Apte becomes unpractical. This is a particularly serious
problem when one attempts to read philosophical essays written in English
by Indian scholars, who often take for granted a lot of terms considered well-known
among educated Indians. Unfortunately in the West even some readers who consider themselves quite educated on Indian philosophy may be
surprised, when reading academic books written by Indian scholars,
by the amount of Sanskrit terms that they never met before.
Prof. Grimes has come with a wonderful and excellent tool to help western students of Indian Philosophy:
a very well-designed, well-conceived, well-researched, _concise_ Dictionary of Indian philosophy. This work defines a substantial amount of Sanskrit terms, ordered according to the Roman alphabet, in transliterated form, followed by the term written in
Devanagari and by a short but precise English translation and explanation. This generally varies in length from few lines to a little more than a page.
For the very small size of the Dictionary, I am quite amazed by the
amount of information that Prof. Grimes was able to put in, even emphasizing different uses of the same term
made by different philosophical schools. To retain precision in a very short definition
is a remarkable achievement, and only a scholar who has a profound knowledge of such
terms could keep the balance between compactness and accuracy.
A much larger Dictionary with long articles on each term would have a different purpose:
Grimes' Dictionary is really a fast and efficient tool to read a book of Indian philosophy without being lost in the analysis of each term, but attempting to retain the main flow of the text.
At the end of the book, a number of charts with names of authors, scriptures, schools, classifications,
and even Chakra-related terminology is provided.
Any student of Indian Philosophy, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Yoga, will find this book an invaluable companion.
The only shortcoming of this book is the colossal amount of typos and inconsistencies present in the Devangari.
Errors or oddities appear from the very start.
In the transliteration scheme (page xii), the retroflex `.th' is inexplicably written as dental `t-ta' plus `ha'.
The virama sign, put below a consonant to suppress the intrinsic `a' sound, is
correctly made from upper left to lower right below the consonant in this scheme, and so it appears in few words, such as abaddham. But throughout the text, the virama direction is
reversed (in words like atman) making it too similar to the sign used to insert an `r' sound after a consonant.
But in the word aayus, the virama is again drawn like
in the transliteration table (and in standard devanagari). Later, all the words starting from dv are misspelled as db, in the Devanagari. Another error: the word s'akti is misspelled, since the k-t consonant cluster is represented as t-t.
In the following compound words of s'akti
(such as s'aktipata) the kt is written correctly, but the notation adopted
to represent the kt cluster is soon abandoned and, few pages later, in the word s'iva-s'akti
a different (albeit correct) representation of kt is used.
Clusters should really be represented with the same notation throughout a text for consistency.
The presence of inconsistent notations and, even worse,
misspelled words, is a serious problem in a Dictionary.
I obviously cannot even conceive the idea of Professor Grimes (who has taught in
Universities in India) being responsible of all this typos. I presume instead that
this sloppiness comes from the Publisher, which is however very surprising, being SunyPress!
I urge the Publisher to consider reprinting this otherwise excellent book and suppress
these errors and inconsistencies in the Devanagari,
so as to retain the very high standards to which SunyPress has
always adhered. If a reprint is not possible, at least a few pages of `errata corrige'
should be attached to the new books for sale, and put online for interested readers.
Despite this shortcoming, I want to reiterate that this is an excellent work, and that
I recommend it as an invaluable companion to anybody interested in Indian philosophy.
Helpful for Quick Reference and for Students November 22, 2000
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
While not comprehensive, this book is a concise "...introduction to the basic terms found in the major schools of Indian Philsosophy." (From the Preface) I find this statement to be true. As a quick reference this book is very helpful. It contains most of the terms of Indian Philosophy one would need to know, and in many cases it provides a multiple definitions. Sure, some definitions seem simplified, but that is due to their nature, the limitations of the English Language and our own Philosophical Concepts, and to the scope of the book. Dr. Grimes clearly states the aim of the book in the Preface. It is to define "...most terms", and to do this in a 440 page paperback one needs to be brief. Presumably Scholars of Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy should have other References to consult, but I think it still is helpful also to them, because it is easy and quick to use. Sanskrit Students will also benefit because all terms are given in the Devanagari Script and in Romanized Transliteration. I use this book and recommend it.
 Helpful for the spritual reader June 3, 2000
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
It helps me to find a translation of certain spritual sanskrit terms. If different schools hold a differnt meaning for the term, the meanings are listed separately for each school. It has to be said that if one would want to find really everything, one would have to buy Monier Williams super large sanskrit english dictionary. However, for a spiritual reader like myself, Grimes book is just great.
 Very basic, incomplete and cautiously useful for the novice December 21, 1998
9 out of 20 found this review helpful
By the title, I assumed that you could find the meaning of most shlokas based on hindu philosophy. Wrong! I have been trying to use it for the last three months and never found any word or phrase that I was actually looking for. For those totally unaware of Hindu philosophy it may be cautiously useful. The author has tried to be thorough, but it is apparent he does not understand the Hindu philosophy in his bones. Put another way, he has a lot of "book knowledge," but nothing deeper, which clearly shows in his descriptions of words and phrases. Generally disappointing!
Excellent Sourcebook July 28, 1997
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Here is a wonderful sourcebook for transliterated(i.e. roman lettering) terms with definitions in English for the new Vedanta or Sanskrit scholar or spriritual seeker.
In addition, the Devanagari script(i.e. Sanskrit) is in a nice, clear printing.
I have only found smaller wordlists up to now, and not with Devanagari accompaniment.
I rate it 9 due to the higher, paperback price of, I believe, $26.95.
Oh, by the way, I plan to buy it as soon as the rent's covered.
Namaste.
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