As a working hypothe­sis, the following description was used to launch the project:

[Guest guest]

Preface to the Series

 

THE PRESENT VOLUME (of Hindu Spirituality Vol. II) is part of a

series entitled World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the

Religious Quest, which seeks to present the spiritual wisdom of the

human race in its historical unfolding. Although each of the volumes

can be read on its own terms, taken together they provide a

comprehensive picture of the spiritual strivings of the human

community as a whole--from prehistoric times, through the great

religions, to the meeting of traditions at the present.

 

Drawing upon the highest level of scholarship around the world, the

series gathers together and presents in a single collection the

richness of the spiritual heritage of the human race. It is designed

to reflect the autonomy of each tradition in its historical

development, but at the same time to present the entire story of the

human spiritual quest. The first five volumes deal with the

spiritualities of archaic peoples in Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania,

and North and South America. Most of these have ceased to exist

as living traditions, although some perdure among tribal peoples

throughout the world. However, the archaic level of spirituality

survives within the later traditions as a foundational stratum,

preserved in ritual and myth. Individual volumes or combinations of

volumes are devoted to the major traditions: Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist,

Confucian, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. In­ cluded within the

series are the Jain, Sikh, and Zoroastrian traditions. In order to

complete the story, the series includes traditions that have not

survived but have exercised important influence on living traditions--

such as Egyptian, Sumerian, classical Greek and Roman. A volume is

devoted to modern esoteric movements and another to modern secular

movements.

 

Having presented the history of the various traditions, the series

devotes two volumes to the meeting of spiritualities. The first

surveys the meeting of spiritualities from the past to the present,

exploring common themes that can provide the basis for a positive

encounter, for example, symbols, rituals, techniques. Finally, the

series closes with a dictionary of world spirituality. Each volume is

edited by a specialist or a team of specialists who have gathered a

number of contributors to write articles in their fields of

specialization. As in this volume, the articles are not brief entries

but substantial studies of an area of spirituality within a given

tradition. An effort has been made to choose editors and contributors

who have a cultural and religious grounding within the tradition

studied and at the same time possess the scholarly objectivity to

present the material to a larger forum of readers. For several years

some five hundred scholars around the world have been working on the

project.

 

In the planning of the project, no attempt was made to arrive at a

com­mon definition of spirituality that would be accepted by all in

precisely the same way. The term " spirituality, " or an equivalent, is

not found in a number of the traditions. Yet from the outset, there

was a consensus among the editors about what was in general intended

by the term. It was left to each tradition to clarify its own

understanding of this meaning and to the editors to express this in

the introduction to their volumes. As a working hypothe­sis, the

following description was used to launch the project:

 

" The series focuses on that inner dimension of the person called by

certain tradi­tions " the spirit. " This spiritual core is the deepest

center of the person. It is here that the person is open to the

transcendent dimension; it is here that the person experiences

ultimate reality. The series explores the discovery of this core, the

dynamics of its development, and its journey to the ultimate goal. It

deals with prayer, spiritual direction, the various maps of the

spiritual journey, and the methods of advancement in the spiritual

ascent. "

 

By presenting the ancient spiritual wisdom in an academic

perspective, the series can fulfill a number of needs. It can provide

readers with a spiritual inventory of the richness of their own

traditions, informing them at the same time of the richness of other

traditions. It can give structure and order, meaning and direction to

the vast amount of information with which we are often overwhelmed in

the computer age. By drawing the material into the focus of world

spirituality, it can provide a perspective for understanding one's

place in the larger process. For it may well be that the meeting of

spiritual paths--the assimilation not only of one's own spiritual

heritage but of that of the human community as a whole--is the

distinctive spiritual journey of our time.

 

EWART COUISINS