Divyadaan

This essay traces Girard's intellectual journey and shows how his central insight-that human desire is fundamentally imitative-not only shapes personal identity but also leads to rivalry and conflict. It begins by explaining the triangular structure of desire through the relation between subject, object, and model, and develops Girard's distinctions between external and internal mediation, mimetic rivalry, contagion, and metaphysical desire. It further demonstrates the relevance of mimetic theory to consumer culture, social media and political polarization. Finally, the article offers a critical appraisal, highlighting both the interpretive power of Girard's framework and its limits, especially its tendency toward universalization and reductionism.

John Wippel, a Thomistic interpreter of the Gilsonian version of Existential Thomism states that the metaphysical thought of Thomas Aquinas has been a singular effort of the discovery of being as real or as existing which in turn makes it easier for us to understand being as being or ens commune. This task is processed through the intellect9s two operations, viz., its first operation, i.e., simple apprehension wherein we come to the knowledge of 8the essential nature of something9 or 8of what things are9 and its second operation called judgement. Further, it is only through a special kind of judgement known as separatio that we come to discover being as being or ens commune or being in general as Thomas Aquinas calls it.

Sara Grant (1922-2000), influenced by Adi Saṅkaracarya and shaped by Richard De Smet, rethinks key metaphysical categories-relation, non-duality, and personhood-without reducing Advaita to Western monism or Christian theism. This article examines her account of relation (saṃbandha) in Saṅkara's thought, situating it within the De Smet School and engaging concepts such as tādātmya, avidyā, adhyāsa, and lakṣaṇā. It argues that Grant develops a philosophically rigorous account of relation as epistemologically necessary and soteriologically significant, though not ultimately real, thereby opening new avenues for comparative philosophy and Hindu-Christian dialogue.