Focusing on the rich and variegated cluster of Indic philosophical traditions as they developed from the late Vedic period up to the pre-modern period, Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy offers an understanding, according to each school, of the nature of free will and agency.

Acknowledgments ; Contributors ; Introduction ; Chapter 1 Agency in Samkhya and Yoga - Edwin F. Bryant ; Chapter 2 Free Persons, Empty Selves - Karin Meyers ; Chapter 3 Free Will and Volunteerism in Jainism - Christopher Key Chapple ; Chapter 4 Paninian Grammarians on Agency and Independence - George Cardona ; Chapter 5 Nyaya's Self as Agent and Knower - Matthew R. Dasti ; Chapter 6 Freedom Because of Duty - Elisa Freschi ; Chapter 7 Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose - Jay L. Garfield ; Chapter 8 Self, Causation, and Agency in the Advaita of Sankara Sthaneshwar Timalsina ; Chapter 9 The Linguistics and Cosmology of Agency in Nondual Kashmiri Saiva Thought ; Chapter 10 Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Ramanuja - Martin Ganeri ; Chapter 11 Dependent Agency and Hierarchical Determinism in the Theology of Madhva - David Buchta ; Chapter 12 Agency in the Gaudiya Vaisnava Tradition - Satyanarayana Dasa and Jonathan B. Edelmann ; Index

Questions about free will and agency have challenged and vexed the best philosophical-and theological-minds for millennia, yet the bulk of writing on the topic comes down to us from the intellectual traditions of the West. The erudite and insightful essays collected here help us to redress the imbalance, by concerted attention to the great intellectual traditions of India. No consensus on the age-old paradoxes emerges here, but these essays enable us to see more clearly what it means to be responsible ethical agents in the religious and political worlds we inhabit today.

"Questions about free will and agency have challenged and vexed the best philosophical-and theological-minds for millennia, yet the bulk of writing on the topic comes down to us from the intellectual traditions of the West. The erudite and insightful essays collected here help us to redress the imbalance, by concerted attention to the great intellectual traditions of India. No consensus on the age-old paradoxes emerges here, but these essays enable us to see more clearly what it means to be responsible ethical agents in the religious and political worlds we inhabit today." --Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University "No other book considers such a diverse array of historical and theoretical issues about the nature of self, agency, and freedom of action across this broad a sweep of classical Indian thought. Authored by an impressive mix of rising young and renowned senior scholars, and written with rigor and clarity, it offers an insightful investigation into varied perspectives within Indian traditions and a fascinating and provocative alternative lens to Western understandings." --Andrew O. Fort, Professor of Asian Religions, Texas Christian University