Classical India Research Articles

Epistemic Pluralism: From Systems to Stances

AbstractDrawing on insights from the epistemological work of the Jaina philosophers of classical India, I argue in defense of epistemic pluralism, the view that there are different but equally valid ways of knowing the world. The version of epistemic pluralism I defend is stance pluralism, a pluralism about epistemic stances or perspectives, understood to be policies or stratagems of knowing. I reject the view that the correct way to characterize epistemic pluralism is as consisting in a pluralism about epistemic systems.

The economic power of women in early South Asian Buddhism

This article serves as a contribution to the financial primacy of Buddhist women in early historic South Asia. Presented here is a single case study from the first century bce monastic stūpa site from Central India called Sanchi whereby gender demographics are analysed over two subsequent stages of funding. Investments by women not only fuelled the construction of the built landscape but, as time went on, female donors were crucial to the economic solvency of the monastic institution at Sanchi. Such a micro-history of Buddhist women from classical India illustrates the agency of women during Buddhism’s formative years.

Growth of Life Insurance Business in India: A Study

In India, insurance has a deep-rooted history. It finds mention in the writings of Manu (Manusmrithi), Yagnavalkya (Dharmasastra) and Kautilya (Arthasastra). The writings talk in terms of pooling of resources that could be re-distributed in times of calamities such as fire, floods, epidemics and famine. This was probably a pre-cursor to modern day insurance. Ancient Indian history has preserved the earliest traces of insurance in the form of marine trade loans and carriers’ contracts. Insurance in India has evolved over time heavily drawing from other countries, England in particular. Life Insurance in its modern form came to India from England in the year 1818. Oriental Life Insurance Company started by Europeans in Calcutta was the first life insurance company on Indian Soil. All the insurance companies established during that period were brought up with the purpose of looking after the needs of European community and Indian natives were not being insured by these companies. The insurance sector has gone through a number of phases by allowing private companies to solicit insurance and also allowing foreign direct investment. India allowed private companies in insurance sector in 2000, setting a limit on FDI to 26%, which was increased to 49% in 2014. However, the largest life-insurance company in India, Life Insurance Corporation of India is still owned by the government and carries a sovereign guarantee for all insurance policies issued by it. The present study examines the growth Life Insurance business in India. Popular financial tool like CAGR is used for the study along with some popular statistical tools like t-test and ANOVA. Secondary data published by IRDA and the Annual Reports of LICI is used for the study for a period from 2008–09 to 2016–17. The study is empirical in nature.

Does a Philosophical Probe into Our Experience of Temporal Passage Determine Its Status?

The age old conflict between logical analysis and phenomenological study revealed by different philosophical treatments of our experience of temporal passage are discussed in the present paper. Temporal passage is found to be problematic because philosophers entertain conflicting views regarding the status of the passage of time. As logical analyses prove temporal passage as unreal or illusory and phenomenological study of our experience of temporal passage considers it to be a fundamental structure of our life, the conflict regarding the status of the passage of time emerges. In this paper our aim will be to explore gradually different logical analyses of our experience of temporal passage provided by philosophers of both classical India and the West on the one hand and also to discuss some of the phenomenological treatments of our experience of temporal passage provided by some continental philosophers to show the conflict between the results of these two philosophical treatments. Finally, we would like to state that since this conflict culminates into the conflict between reason and experience, it is not possible to resolve the conflict in the present life form in which both these categories have their distinctive roles to play.

External-World Skepticism in Classical India: The Case of Vasubandhu

The Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (c. 400 ce) has seldom been considered in conjunction with the problem of external-world skepticism despite the fact that his text, Twenty Verses, presents arguments from ignorance based on dreams. In this article, an epistemological phenomenalist interpretation of Vasubandhu is supported in opposition to a metaphysical idealist interpretation. On either interpretation, Vasubandhu gives an invitation to the problem of external-world skepticism, although his final conclusion is closer to skepticism on the epistemological phenomenalist interpretation. The article ends with reflections on what light Vasubandhu might shed on the issue of whether skepticism is a natural problem in epistemology as well as why, despite Vasubandhu, the skeptical problem was not a central issue in the later Indian tradition.

Silence or Silencing? Revisiting the Gārgī-Yājñavalkya Debate in Chapter 3 of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad

The presence of women in the philosophical scene of classical India is sporadic. The present paper focuses on an Upaniṣadic story highlighting the contribution of such a rare woman, namely the debate between Gārgī and Yājnavalkya at King Janaka’s court in chapter 3 of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad. I offer a close reading of the debate, drawing on Śaṅkara’s commentary, with the intention of spotlighting Gārgī’s voice, a single female voice in an all-male arena. My analysis is supplemented with a quick visit to Mahasweta Devi’s gut-wrenching story Draupadi (1997). My silence-silencing argument is this: Silence holds a central place in classical Indian philosophy, as the story under discussion illustrates. It is an expression of a dramatic transformation in which the human person “recovers” his/her innermost essence, the ātman, no longer identifying with worldly aspects of her/his being. But according to Mahasweta Devi and Daya Krishna, each in her and his distinct context, this beatific silence can turn into an act of brutal silencing. This is to say that in the name of spiritual quest, the here and now, the social dimension, is often “forgotten”. The twist is that what is seen from one perspective as a benevolent silence is from another perspective, a symptom of blindness to the world one lives in. For Mahasweta and Daya Krishna one’s visit, or recurrent visits to “realms beyond” are empty unless they have ethical impact upon one’s return to the now and here.

Eigengesetzlichkeit: The Relationship between Religion and Politics in India and in the Occident

Max Weber's studies of Asian traditions were intended to further a better understanding of the Occident. They may also have contributed to comparative concept building. The analysis starts from Weber's comments on the lack of a universally valid ethic in classical India, on conflicting ethics and the sources of Indian law, the secularization of the political domain and particularly the ethics of the kṣatriyas (warriors), seen as power politics and warfare: their svadharma. Weber's perhaps overstated view of the Indian situation, resulting, as it may be conjectured, from his desire to find a paradigm for the situation in Germany, led him to the formulation of the concept of Eigengesetzlichkeit. Its several meanings and its various English translations are discussed. Once formulated, the concept was then used by Weber himself and by his contemporaries with regard to the ‘battle of the gods’: the tension between and then the separation of the religious and the political domain in the Western tradition since Antiquity and then in the Lutheran Germany of his time.

Indianismos na poesia brasileira e goesa: os casos de Gonçalves Dias e de Paulino Dias

Quer na crítica literária brasileira, quer na goesa, o que foi designado como "indianismo" possui referentes e cronologias distintas. A presença do índio na nascente literatura brasileira é um fenômeno de seu primeiro Romantismo. Quanto à paixão pela Índia clássica na poesia de língua portuguesa escrita em Goa, seu auge ocorre na virada do século. O presente ensaio tem como objetivo compreender este fenômeno como uma manifestação transnacional do discurso nativista nos territórios de língua portuguesa. A fim de entender a poesia indianista, há que estudar seus significados socioculturais e investigar as maneiras pelas quais as formas literárias europeias são transformadas por ela, o que será feito através de uma leitura cuidadosa de poemas de Gonçalves Dias e de Paulino Dias.

The Field of Visual Art in Classical India

The objective of this paper is to identify and define the main differences in modern Western and Classical Indian approaches to the theory of art, and by extension to the work of art itself. It is important in research on the history of art to avoid a cultural bias resulting from different theoretical approaches towards art and the basis of visual culture. Three main areas are examined: the classification of art or art disciplines, the theory of the senses and strategies in the perception of art. The first part analyses concerns about the origin of art, its boundaries and inner divisions. This serves top identify the scope of the Field of Art, connections between disciplines (theatre, music, painting, sculpture, etc.), and their position in the Art World. The following Sanskrit treatises serve as a basis: Nāṭya-śāstra, Kāma-sūtra, Viṣṇu-dharmottara-purāṇa. A significant distinction can be found in the theory of the senses. Based on Saṃyutta Nikāya , Nyāya-sūtra, Vaiśeṣika- sūtra, etc. classical concepts of sensual perception and their roles are examined, with special emphasis on the position of the mind (manas) as a sixth sense or inner organ linked to senses. With that background, a brief analysis of the theory of taste (rasa), including the roles of emotion (bhāva) and mind (manas), is presented.

Everyone's ‘GOD’ is a ‘DOG’ from Other's End: ‘Casteism’ in India: A Different Perspective

This argumentative article challenges the idea that the Hinduism is Brahmanical in nature, and Brahmans are the root of all evils in India. It argues that Hinduism is the religion of well-off trading class with the examples so cited from the History of ancient India. It rejects the confirm bias among the foreign nationals, especially Chinese people, based on a logical argument that the caste system in India is no more prevalent, and has changed its nature with the changing paradigm.

The Theater and Classical India: Some Availability Issues

Quite apart from urgencies arising within the theater as an enterprise, it is independently necessary to bring the tools of speech-act theory to bear on the theater. This essay begins by redescribing the foundational moves of that theory in terms of drawing successive core-supplement boundaries. A third move, proposed here, extends this strategy of expanding the core in a performative direction. So extended, the central theoretical concern of speech-act theory converges with what one major tradition articulates as the way forward for theatrical performance. That tradition — which has traveled from Stanislavski’s Russia, via Grotowski’s Poland, to Badal Sircar’s India — is in the business of giving democracy theatrical teeth. While Sircar does not explicitly claim a classical Indian ancestry for his work, serious Indology will find it easy to place him in that context.

The Identity of Prakāśāditya

AbstractOne of the enduring open questions in ancient Indian history is the identity of the king who identifies himself on the reverse of his gold coins as prakāśāditya. Most authors have assumed that he was a Gupta king. This paper reviews the various proposals on the identity of Prakāśāditya, arguing why we can be quite sure, as suggested by Robert Göbl, that he was in fact a Hun king and not a Gupta. Then, by presenting a near-complete reading of the obverse legend, it is shown that it is virtually certain that he was in fact the Hun king Toramāṇa, as Göbl had speculated. Implications of this finding are then considered.

Rural Development: No more a Day-Dream

Self-reliant villages are an age-old concept. If we peep into the history of ancient India, we come to know that once upon a time, our villages were self-reliant. There was 'Barter' system present, which was beneficial to make the villages self-reliant. Therefore, as a result, the people were happy. After the invasion of Aryans, the barter system and thereby self-reliance of the villages was disturbed. Entire social system was changed and the independent people became slaves of the system. Now there is a need of time that we should once again go back to our proud historical system to become self-reliant. Of course, the ways would be different. In today's world of currency economy, we may not achieve hundred per cent barter system. But definitely we can go closer to the system and can have the golden combination of modern technology with historical and proven economic exchange system. One Village One Product (OVOP) can be one of the ways to make rural life sustainable and to improve Human Development Index (HDI).

An Anthropologist Looks at History: An Enquiry into the Anomalies of Ancient Indian History and Culture

There are altogether nine ancient civilizations in the world, viz. the Babylonian or Mesopotamian, the Indian and the Chinese (in Asia), the Egyptian (in Africa), the Greek, the Roman, and the Cretan (in Europe), the Mayan (in Mexico, North America), and the Inca (In Peru, South America). Of all the above, it's only the Indian and the Chinese civilizations are such that the elements of their ancient cultures and traditions could be found still perpetuating among the contemporary populations. And among the rest; it could to be found in their ruins only. The dimensions of ancient Indian civilization have been interpreted mostly by the historians; and primarily by the British ones. Such interpretations are found necessarily loaded with all sorts of biases. In the present paper, the author has attempted to point out some of the anomalies of ancient Indian history and culture generated by the biased interpretation of some eminent historians and Indologists. Such interpretations have done great injustice with the pre-eminence of Indian civilization on the one hand; and on the other, they have also given rise to the divisive forces in the society that still plagues the country.

Hindu Activism and Academic Censorship in India

It is rare indeed that ancient Indian history makes the news, but this is precisely what happened in February 2014. 1 All online resources were accessed in July 2014. From The New York Times to The...

Buddhist Landscapes in Central India: Sanchi Hill and Archaeologies of Religious and Social Change, c. Third Century B.C. to Fifth Century A.D. by Julia Shaw (review)

Buddhist Landscapes in Central India: Sanchi Hill and Archaeologies of Religious and Social Change, c. Third Century B.C. to Fifth Century A.D. Julia Shaw. London: The British Association for South Asian Studies, 2007. 359 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9553924-4-3. Hardcover: $99.00. For the scholar of South Asian art history, a visit to the Buddhist site at Sanchi in central India is akin to an encounter with a movie star. As the scholar circumambulates the main stupa (a domed structure designed to hold the relics of the Buddha or other esteemed members of the Buddhist community) and wanders among the other remains within the larger complex of this UNESCO World Heritage Site, the initial pleasure of recognition mingles with marvel at the great beauty and affective presence of these material remains. Lovely stone tree goddesses dangle from the first-century B.C.E.-first-century C.E. sandstone gateways. Crisply carved relief sculptures on these gateways invite the viewer to discover familiar stories, such as the Buddha's renunciation of the comforts of courtly life. Stone images of the Buddha from the fifth century A.D. quietly sit along the base of the much earlier stupa. The star-struck visitor encounters the polished remains of the famous stone pillar erected in the third century B.C.E. by the Emperor Asoka and the fifth-century C.E. Temple 17--perhaps the earliest extant freestanding temple in India! The ubiquity of Sanchi in introductory lecture courses and textbooks on South Asian art primes the art historian for such a visual experience of delight in recognition. Although the much-studied and well-known Buddhist remains at Sanchi occupy a prominent place within multiple fields of study, Julia Shaw shifts our gaze from the beloved artistic remains of this site to the landscape surrounding Sanchi and the nearby city of Vidisha in order provide a broader perspective on how this familiar monument functioned within the religious and social life of this region over a span of more than one thousand years. Shaw states that the primary aim of her fieldwork to achieve a less fragmented picture of Buddhist by combining the methods of landscape archaeology, and art and architectural history, while drawing on debates generated within religious studies and ancient Indian history (20). Begun in 1998, Shaws Sanchi Survey Project (SSP) mapped roughly 720 sq km of countryside and in the process revealed some 35 Buddhist sites, a network of dams, and numerous habitation settlements. Featuring almost 70 maps, charts, and tables and another 231 plates--including several never-before published photographs of sculptural remains --along with extensive appendices, this publication documents and analyzes many of the findings of the SSP. Indeed, Shaw has collected an enormous amount of data and clearly wrestled with how to include as much of that data as possible in this book while still presenting her overarching conclusions in a fashion that might be accessible to scholars across multiple disciplines. In her preface, Shaw mentions plans for a web-based version of the extensive database she has created, but at the time of this review, this website was not yet available. Nevertheless, the importance of the information gleaned through Shaw's fieldwork cannot be overstated. As she notes in her introduction, Shaw's intention to evaluate the underpinnings of religious change required her to reconsider certain conventional approaches to the study of ancient South Asian religions. Most notably, Shaw rethinks the emphasis on monumental sites that has colored much of the archaeology and art of ancient South Asia. By selectively drawing on new methodologies from the broader field of landscape archaeology, Shaw charts how she employed several approaches--including systematic village-to-village surveys and the analysis of satellite imagery--to expand the lens of previous archaeological investigations in this region. In particular, Shaw considered smaller, previously ignored sites and even non-sites, such as caves or the remnants of natural shrines, which have eluded earlier scholarly notice. …

War Magic and Just War in Indian Tantric Buddhism

Warfare was widespread in classical India. Although the Buddhists of India abhorred killing, they could not evade or ignore war altogether. From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, various types of war magic, together with justifications for their use, developed in tantric Buddhist communities. Defensive types of war magic adhered to pacifist ethics and aimed to avoid, halt, or disperse armies. Harmful war magic was applied in the context of the transcendent ethics of enlightenment. Even when warfare was fully incorporated into Buddhist soteriology, non-violence remained a paramount virtue, and the scope of a just war was very limited. The present survey of tantric sources shows that tantric Buddhist war magic emerged as a reaction to the inevitability of war and was applied in the hope of mitigating warfare's excesses.

Responsa in Hindu Law: Consultation and Lawmaking in Medieval India

The practice of legal consultation, especially petitions for legal opinions or responsa, has never been seriously investigated or even noticed in the Hindu law tradition. Practices of legal inquiry and response are well known in other legal traditions—for example, ius respondendi in Roman law, she’elot u-teshuvot in Jewish law, futyā in Islamic law, and consilia sapientis in Canon law. Following the expectations set up by such comparisons, I argue that legal consultation and responsa also formed a critical part of the institutional practice of Hindu law in classical and medieval India. The evidence for legal consultation in Hindu law includes direct and indirect historical records of responsa, depictions of legal inquiry and response in narrative texts, and key passages in the religio-legal texts called Dharmaśāstra. By incorporating legal consultation into an account of the development of law and religion in India, we can describe Hindu law in history in a way that better accounts both for the identification of this tradition as Hindu and for important, but poorly understood, legal practices that have usually been dismissed as mere custom.

Epistemology in Classical India: The Knowledge Sources of the Nyāya School. By StephenPhillips. New York: Routledge, 2012. Pp. x + 194. $130.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 39, Issue 2 p. 128-128 South Asia Epistemology in Classical India: The Knowledge Sources of the Nyāya School. By Stephen Phillips. New York: Routledge, 2012. Pp. x + 194. $130.00. Neil Dalal, Neil Dalal University of AlbertaSearch for more papers by this author Neil Dalal, Neil Dalal University of AlbertaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 June 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.12043_10Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume39, Issue2June 2013Pages 128-128 RelatedInformation

Book Review: Irfan Habib and Faiz Habib, Atlas of Ancient Indian History.

Book Review: Irfan Habib and Faiz Habib, <i>Atlas of Ancient Indian History.</i>