Unknown Pilgrims

Author(s): N Shanta
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications Delhi

Page 21

PRESENTATION
A Treatise of Spirituality
R. Panikkar
The Subject of this study is too important for me to content myself with a few vagues prolegomena. I feel personally involved in N. Shāntā's research and, having been invited to write an introduction, I propose to present to the reader both the author and her work. Thus I intend to:
1. introduce the book 2. indicate its approach 3. describe its character 4. sum up its content and 5. emphasize its importance
1. The author and background of this study
It appears to me undeniable that one of the most urgent and important tasks of today is to prepare ourselves for that mutation within humanity that is already under way, not only in the sphere of politics but also in that of religion and, in the final analysis, in that of the very nature of the human being. We are witnessing what is at the least the end of a culture and probably, I venture to suggest, the end of a period of human existence which has its beginning some six thousand years ago and which may be called the period of history (anything earlier being called pre-history). It is in this period that history plays the most important role in human awareness. However that may be, the foundations of the future are always latent in the past, and without a thorough knowledge of a tradition it is impossible either to pass it on and develop it further or to alter it. Any radical revolution requires a rediscovery of the roots of that which one desire to transform.
In our day human existence calls for far-reaching change in two widely differing areas: on the one hand, a revolution is required in the position of women and feminine consciousness in general and, on the