 With regard to the hermeneutics of modern cross-cultural thinking, in general I believe that the attempt to obliterate the borders that separate cultural spheres is as pernicious as is the attempt to hermetically seal them up. Of course, this goes for intra- as well as inter-traditional differences. Needless to say, defining, comparing, contrasting, and above all evaluating the relative worth of various traditions, remain undertakings fraught with theoretical, ethical and political pitfalls. The theoretical and cultural legacies of colonialism and Orientalism remain with us long after the political Empires have receded. Moreover, in these postcolonial times we all too often experience reactive fabrications of homogeneous cultural identity and assertions of counter-superiority, reactions which ironically reinforce the same kind of colonial divisions and obsessions with unadulterated self-identity that were in part imposed by, or imported from, the worst of the West.