Barāy-i qarn-i bīst va yikum: Persian 1400

The topics discussed in this book are very diverse. Some of them are of special importance in the present time and some of them are of eternal importance. Daisaku Ikeda is from East Asia and Arnold Toynbee is a Westerner. In the last chapter of human history, the West has always been a pioneer and played a dominant role. In this book, Toynbee confidently predicts that in the future East Asia may take over from the West. He is generally more pessimistic than Ikeda because he believes that man will have to pay a heavy price to make those drastic changes in attitude, purpose, and behavior. Is Toynbee's pessimism simply due to his old age, or is it because he, as a Western man, partly shares Spengler's belief that we have witnessed the "decline of the West" in the 20th century? Despite the difference between the religious and cultural backgrounds of Toynbee and Ikeda, the agreement of their views and goals is evident in these conversations to a large extent. Both of them believe that religion is the main driver of human life and both of them believe that the ultimate reality of man is not a quasi-human godlike personality...