Bharati's The Light at the Center weighs neo-Vedanta; CCWV.LIFE

In 1976 Agehananda Bharati, an Austrian-born Hindu monk and Syracuse anthropologist, publishes The Light at the Center, a participant's audit of modern Hindu apologetics. Bharati argues that the neo-Vedanta presented to the West is a modern construction, shaped by the encounter with Western categories, and names its makers plainly. The critique is the classic inside statement of the problem this category poses.

Tagged: Eastern Pantheistic Monism

The Event

Date: 1976 (exact)
Era: The Construction Named and Weighed; Periodization of the construction and its sources
Location: Santa Barbara; today Santa Barbara, California
Traditions: Eastern Pantheistic Monism
Streams: Eastern Pantheistic Monism
Key figures: Agehananda Bharati
Key texts: The Light at the Center

How the Tradition Tells It

Bharati wrote as both monk and anthropologist; Hindu scholars have answered his audit, and the record states his charge without adopting it.

Connections

Illustration for Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy

History Event Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy 1945 audits the synthesis the perennial philosophy popularized

Primary Sources

Bharati, Agehananda. The Light at the Center. Santa Barbara: Ross-Erikson, 1976.

Secondary Sources

Clarke, J. J. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought. London: Routledge, 1997.
Halbfass, Wilhelm. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and 'the Mystic East'. London: Routledge, 1999.

Provenance: HIST-1382; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.