ABSTRACT
The consideration of religious experience as a category for philosophical and historical inquiry is a relatively recent phenomenon. In any case, what is clear in the Indian situation is the freedom, up until this century, from the pressure found in Europe after the Enlightenment which demanded a systematic analysis of ‘religious experience’ for theoretical or polemical purposes. The chapter examines the historical development of the Western analysis of religious experience, for even Indian apologists, such as Radhakrishnan and Sharma, often uncritically adopt the Western analysis of religious experience and buy into some of its assumptions. It considers the distinction between internalist and externalist epistemologies as an interpretative tool in an important stream of Indian thought, Vedanta. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
