This chapter explores the intersection of Hindu philosophy and practice with the development of artificial intelligence (AI). The chapter first introduces aspects of technological growth in Hindu contexts, including the reception of ‘Western’ ideas about AI in Hindu communities before describing key elements of the Hindu traditions. It then shows how AI technologies can be conceived of from a Hindu perspective and moves from there to the philosophical contributions Hinduism offers for global reflection on AI. Specifically, the chapter describes openings and contentions for AI in Hindu rituals. The focus is the use of robotics and/or AI in Hindu pūjā (worship of gods) and the key practice of darśan (mutual seeing) with the divine. Subsequently, the chapter investigates how Hindu philosophers have engaged the distinctive qualities of human beings and their investigation into body, minds and consciousness/awareness. The chapter concludes by raising questions for future research.

Three Indian religions are considered, in the likely order of their origin. In each case a history and analysis are first offered before a specific issue is addressed in more detail. For Jainism it is the question of reincarnation. Here it is suggested that similar concerns for justice underly both Jainism’s almost physical embedding of karma in the universe and western theism’s postulation of a doctrine of resurrection. If so, it is what is scientifically and metaphysically possible which is in dispute (the status of soul and body) rather than different moral values. With Buddhism its moral approach is considered, partly through using Gavin Flood’s comparative study on asceticism and partly through drawing parallels with the influence of Stoicism on early Christian ethics. Finally, the impersonal character of the divine advocated in Sikhism is given sympathetic treatment through considering some issues raised by Neo-Platonism. Each of these questions will be considered further in subsequent chapters.

It appears clear that Mani embarked on a public career as a preacher, healer and wise man, debating with leading sages of the time and gaining adherents from varied religious communities. He travelled widely within Iran and Mesopotamia and even beyond to India, and he sought to convert kings and members of the aristocracy at the courts of the Sasanian empire. This chapter examines Mani’s missions and the community he founded within the context of the intellectual, spiritual and doctrinal traditions with which he interacted, including Mazdayasnianism and Buddhism, and the scientific lore of the time. Consideration of devotional imperatives (hagiography) and the tropes of ancient narrative and romance strip away much literary artifice for the processes of historical reconstruction.

Chapter 9 describes the earliest extant Indian beliefs about the afterlife, which were superseded by the idea of individually accumulated metaphysical merit accompanied by the danger of repeated death, which develops into the idea of subjection in the hereafter to a repeated cosmic cycle. All this prefigures the combination of individually accumulated karma with the universal cycle of reincarnation (sam?sara), from which escape was sought by various forms of renunciation. An important factor in these developments was the individual accumulation and universal circulation of money.