How can religious liberty be guaranteed in societies where religion pervades everyday life? In The Wheel of Law, Gary Jacobsohn addresses this dilemma by examining the constitutional development of secularism in India within an unprecedented cross-national framework that includes Israel and the United States. He argues that a country's particular constitutional theory and practice must be understood within its social and political context. The experience of India, where religious life is in profound tension with secular democratic commitment, offers a valuable perspective not only on questions of jurisprudence and political theory arising in countries where religion permeates the fabric of society, but also on the broader task of ensuring religious liberty in constitutional polities. India's social structure is so entwined with religion, Jacobsohn emphasizes, that meaningful social reform presupposes state intervention in the spiritual domain. Hence India's "ameliorative" model of secular constitutionalism, designed to ameliorate the disabling effects of the caste system and other religiously based practices. Jacobsohn contrasts this with the "visionary" secularism of Israel, where the state identifies itself with a particular religion, and with America's "assimilative" secularism. Constitutional globalization is as much a reality as economic globalization, Jacobsohn concludes, and within this phenomenon the place of religion in liberal democracy is among the most vexing challenges confronting us today. A richly textured account of the Indian experience with secularism, developed in a broad comparative framework, this book is for all those seeking ways to respond to this challenge.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871.

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Excerpt from The Wheel of the Law: Buddhism, Illustrated From Siamese Sources by the Modern Buddhist, a Life of Buddha, and an Account of the Phrabat All Buddhists, throughout the wide range of countries where the doctrines of Buddha prevail, call their religion the doctrine of "The Wheel of the Law." I have adopted the name for this book, because it is peculiarly appropriate to a theory of Buddhism, which the book in some degree illustrates. I refer to the theory that all existence of which we have any conception is but a part of an endless chain, or circle, of causes and effects; that so long as we remain in that wheel there is no rest and no peace; and that rest can only be obtained by escaping from that wheel into the incomprehensible Nirwana. Buddha taught a religion of which the wheel was the only proper symbol; for his theory, professing to be complete, dealt with but a limited round of knowledge; ignored the beginning, and was equally vague as to the end. He neither taught of a God, the Creator of existence, nor of a heaven, the absorber of existence, but restrained his teaching within what he believed to be the limits of reason. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.