Product Overview
This edited volume brings together key writings of Jesuit theologians and Indologists Pierre Johanns, Georges Dandoy, and Michel Ledrus. It focuses especially on their contributions to the Calcutta-based journal Light of the East (1922–1947), exploring Hindu advaita (non-dualism). As leaders of the Calcutta school of Jesuit Indology, these missionary-scholars played a pioneering role in early twentieth-century Catholic engagement with Indian religious thought.
Building on the vision of Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, a Bengali Catholic thinker who linked Thomistic philosophy with advaita, the Calcutta Jesuits developed a careful and respectful approach to Hindu spirituality. Their work laid important foundations for later figures such as Jules Monchinin, Bede Griffiths, and Richard De Smet, and remains one of the most rigorous bodies of comparative theological reflection on Hindu traditions.
This volume fills an important gap in the historical record of Jesuit interaction with Hindu philosophy between the World Wars. For the first time, it gathers essential primary sources—many long out of print—into a single, accessible collection, along with introductory context on the Calcutta Jesuits and their intellectual contributions.
