God, Īśvara, and the Brahman: A Case for a Post-Perennial Comparative Theology

Even though we encounter a common exchange between the categories of God and Īśvara or the Brahman in both scholarly works and faith communities, there are deeper and irreconcilable differences in these absolutes from two different cultures. A naive approach to flatten the cultural horizons has engendered more confusion than has created a cultural harmony. Any cultural acceptance based on misconceptions is destined to fail and if we seek to ground cultural understanding, we have to acknowledge their underlying differences. This paper seeks to underscore the central difference in two cultures by examining their absolutes.