Beyond Orientalism

Beyond Orientalism: Essays on Cross-Cultural Encounter. Fred Dallmayr, New Delhi, Rawat Publications. 2001.

Introduction

…Nietzsche remarked: “Once you have discovered me, it seems to have been no great trick to find me; but now the difficulty is how to lose me.” Elaborating on [Friedrich] Nietzsche’s statement, [Martin] Heidegger made it plain that “losing” here was not a form of abandonment but rather a mode of remaining faithful or loyal to a work by pursuing its untapped potential or future possibilities….[Heidegger, What is Called Thinking? Trans. J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 52]—p. xiv.

…dialogical exchange means an effort at bridge building across a vast abyss, an effort which does not erase the abyss nor domesticate the “other shore.” In terms of self-other relations, dialogue means exposure to an otherness which lies far beyond the self (without being totally incommensurable); it signals an alternative both to imperialist absorption or domination and to pliant self-annihilation ( surrender to an “essentialized” other). Wedged between surrender and triumph, dialogical exchange has an “agonal” or tensional quality which cannot be fully stabilized; as a corollary of self-exposure, it requires a willingness to “risk oneself,” that is, to plunge headlong into a transformative learning process in which the status of self and other are continuously renegotiated.—p. xviii.

…Respecting poetic distance also implies a willingness to refrain from willful penetration, that is, a readiness to leave blank spaces intact and thus to honor the interlacing of said and unsaid and of word and silence—which is not synonymous with a simple abandonment of interpretation.—p. xix.

…[Indian poet and linguist A. K.] Ramanujan’s formulation, Indian culture, art, and literature are basically contextual or embedded in concrete life worlds, whereas Western thought and discourse lean toward decontextualization and thus a spectatorial “view from nowhere.”….—p.xxi.

Ch. 1. MODES OF CROS-CULTURAL ENCOUNTER. Reflections on 1492.

…We know today—historical evidence is overwhelming—that the expansion of Europe into the New World or rather the “conquest” of the Americas by European powers resulted in the course (p.1) of less than a century in the deaths by killing, starvation, and disease of some 70 million native inhabitants.1….—pp. 1-2

1. See Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 133-37. As Todorov writes (133): “if the word genocide has ever been applied to a situation with some accuracy, this is here the case. It constitutes a record not only in relative terms (a destruction on the order of 90 percent or more), but also in absolute terms, since we are speaking of a population diminution estimated at 79 million human lives.”

…the past is active or sedimented in the present….—p. 2

…What is obvious is that the [Christian] expansion occurred at an amazing speed and that in the end hardly a trace was left of earlier modes of worship or “pagan” beliefs (despite instances of local accommodation)….—p. 10

…Actually, conversion was an intrinsic feature of the Spanish invasion from the beginning and—next to the desire for plunder—served as its chief justifying rationale….—p. 11

…Despite its appealing “open-mindedness,” liberal tolerance tends to be purchased at a price: the price of a schism between form and substance, between public and private domains of life….—p. 24

Liberal neutralism prefers to leave cultural or religious differences untouched while encircling them with a band of abstractly formal procedures. In the words of [John] Rawls@, justice as fairness assumes “that deep and pervasive differences of religious, philosophical, and ethical doctrine remain” as “a permanent condition of human life.” Thus, (p.27) proceduralists take for granted existing contrasts between ways of life, while seeking to mitigate them through a thin consensual layer composed of shared general rules. Once this layer is removed, contrasting life-forms or beliefs face each other in unmediated fashion, which may result either in indifference or (more commonly) in mutual repulsion and conflict. The latter result is prone to obtain under conditions of scarcity and where cultural groups are struggling for predominance or hegemony within a circumscribed territory. In extreme circumstances, struggle entails the transformation of cultural difference into radical otherness, with the contending parties defining themselves through mutual exclusion.—p.28

@ John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 60-65, 126-27. [The author didn’t give any reference to this point by Rawls, but I found this from the notes—db]

…In the Communist Manifesto, Marx (and Engels) reduced relations between social groups to the antithesis between two main classes, one dominant and the other exploited: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. While previous centuries had been characterized by multiple and crisscrossing class relations—resulting in a mitigation of class division—the industrial revolution had finally sharpened social interaction into one decisive opposition between exploiters and exploited, an opposition which could only be resolved through revolutionary reversal.

In the words of the Communist Manifesto, the nineteenth century has yielded one distinctive effect: it has “simplified the class antagonism.” As a result, society as a whole is increasingly “splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other” in a relation of mutual exclusion (what game theorists would call a “zero-sum game”)…..—p. 29

…In the midst of the Catholic-Huguenot confrontation in France, Jean Bodin…later in his life…composed a treatise or colloquy titled Heptaplomeres@ which portrayed a spectrum of different faiths—Catholic, Calvinist, Jutheran, Muslim, Jewish, deist and (p.34) even Epicurean—as engaged in a week-long agonal dialogue or contestation. Undervalued in his age, the treatise set a standard for tolerant interreligious engagement which was rarely matched in later literature (and even less followed in practice0, though exceptions can be found….—pp. 34-35

@Regarding the Heptaplomeres, see Jean Bodin, Colloquium of the Seven about the Secrets of the Sublime, trans. Marion L. D. Kuntz (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).—notes. 35. p. 233

…In 1575, at the height of the Catholic-Huguenot conflict in France, Akbar established a “house of worship” (ibadat–khana) at Fatehpur-Sikri where Muslims of different sects, Jesuit fathers from Goa, Zoroastrians, Hindu pandits, and others gathered together to discuss religion with Akbar and among themselves. The outcome of these debates was a modified version of monotheism composed of strands from Sufism, Zoroastrianism, and Hinduism which Akbar himself professed—but without compelling adherence to his beliefs throughout his empire.—p. 35

In the concluding part of his lectures, [Theodore] de Bary reflects on the future prospects of cross-cultural relations in the global arena… “No new order can endure,” he writes, “that does not draw on the legacies of the past, but no tradition, whether Confucian, Buddhist, or Christian, can survive untransformed in the crucible of global struggle.”@ As he adds pointedly, this struggle or context cannot or should not involve a striving for planetary control or even extraterrestrial conquest; in our rapidly shrinking global village, what is needed most urgently is the cultivation of a sense of mutual responsibility and of a shared readiness to care for the well-being of this world and its people.—p. 36

@[Reischauer lectures in 1986 ‘East Asian civilization’, 123-24, 127, 138.] No reference is given to this quote. But page numbers of this lectures is mentioned in notes. 37, p. 234.—db

Ch. II. GADAMER, DERRIDA, AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF DIFFERENCE.

…This clue is that “one must seek to understand the other” even at the risk of self-critique and self-decentering, which entails that “one has (p.48) to believe that one could be in the wrong.” Regarding the accent on “difference,” Derridean deconstruction contained a valuable insight, but one what was entirely germane to hermeneutics properly understood: “Difference exists within identity; otherwise, identity would not be identity. Thought contains deferral and distance; otherwise, thought would not be thought.”11—p. pp. 48-49

11. [Hans-George]Gadmer, “Hermeneutics and Logocentrism,” in Diane P. Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer, Eds. Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 119, 125 (in the above citations, the translation has been slightly altered for purposes of clarity). Compare also [Hans-George] Gadamer, “Destruktion and Deconstruction,” in the same volume, 102-13.—p. 235

The ascendancy of science (meaning empirical science) both in the European and in the global context was a product of the modern epoch, particularly of the dismissal of classical and medieval teleology in favor of the cognitive and technical mastery of nature. Instead of being a participant in a broader cultural discourse, science emerged as the dominant idiom due to the scientist’s ability to distance the entire surrounding world into a pliant target of analysis and thus to act as a general overseer (or overlord)….—p. 51

…the broad backdrop of lived cultural experience from which science itself arises and without which its vocabulary would be unintelligible….—p. 51

…Unification would be a particularly dubious goal if it entailed the standardization of culture and language, at the expense of historical vernacular idioms….—p. 52

…It is this heterogeneity of cultures and historical trajectories in Europe which provides a lesson for the world today, precisely as an antidote to the leveling thrust of technical and industrial uniformity. As Gadamer@ adds, cultivation of native traditions is by no means incompatible with cross-cultural tolerance, provided “tolerance” is understood not as outgrowth of neutral indifference but as the appreciation of otherness from the (p.55) vantage of one’s own life world (and its prejudgments)….

@ Hans-George Gadamer, Das Erbe Europas: Beitrage (Frankfurt_Main: Suhrkamp, 1989). 58-62.

Ch. III. RADHAKRISHNAN ON BEING AND EXISTENCE

[Wilfred Cantwell] Smith would probably have been the first to acknowledge that “one sparrow does not make a spring”)….—p. 63

…Religiously a spokesman of “neo-Hinduism,” Radhakrishnan’s outlook sought to mediate precariously between India’s classical past and the democratic present, between ancient beliefs and contemporary understandings (a procedure that was likely to displease both staunch traditionalists and radical modernizers).2….—p. 64

…Eagerly pursuing the goal of dialogue and global understanding, Radhakrishnan was perhaps not always careful enough to guard against the pitfalls of syncretism or a facile synthesis. While seeking to arbitrate between diverse life worlds and thought forms, his writings were not always sufficiently sensitive to the difference or otherness of cultural idioms—or not sufficiently patient to allow mutuality to arise out of the agonal relation of different voices.—p. 64

“…our writings, though born out of ourselves, are worth more than what we are.”@ These lines are illustrative of the general tenor of Radhakrishnan’s work: his tendency to deflate subjective intentions and to debunk authorial conceit….—p. 65

@ Letter addressed to the editor, Paul A. Schilpp, “The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1952).—the reference about this work by Schilpp is taken from the notes 3, p. 238

…Michel Foucaultat one point termed Western man a “confessing animal,” arguing that the impulse to confess has been ingrained in Western life-forms at least since the early Middle Ages….4—p. 66

4. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), p. 59.

“…I am persuaded that there is more in this life than meets the eye…Chance seems to form the surface of reality, but deep down other forces are at work.”@….–p. 66

@ “The Religion of the Spirit and the World’s Need: Fragments of a Confession, “in Paul A. Schilpp, ed., “The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1952).—no pages number is given for this quote.—db

…The relevant point for Radhakrishnan was that philosophy must be seen as a “creative task” and that—although involving on one level a “lonely pilgrimage of the spirit”—on another level it is a “function of life” or a committed service to others.@—p. 66

…in the opening pages of “Frangments.” Pointing to the growing interaction or interpenetration of cultures in our time, the essay states: “With its profound sense of spiritual reality brooding over the world of our ordinary experience, with its lofty insights and immortal aspirations, Indian thought may perhaps wean us modern from a too close occupation with secular life or with the temporary formulations in which logical thought has too often sought to imprison spiritual aspiration.”@ While the world today may be drawn together by economic and technological forces, our moral and reflective sensibility is still struggling to keep abreast: “The world which has found itself as a single body is feeling for its soul.”5—p. 66

5. Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 9-12.—p.239

…As he [Radhakrishnan] adds in a genuinely Socratic vein: “There cannot be an authentic philosophical situation unless there is uneasiness about prevalent opinions. If we lose the capacity to doubt we cannot get into the mood of philosophic thought.”@….—p. 67

…In the words of the essay [Fragments of a Confession], “We live in a time when we have become the inheritors of the world’s thought,” having accumulated “much historical knowledge about religions and philosophies.”@ In this situation, the exclusive claims of any particular life-form or tradition are bound to erode. In fact, exposure to the multitude of available perspectives may be conducive to a thoroughgoing skepticism or relativism, or else to an unreflective and authoritarian traditionalism—neither of which appealed to Radhakrishnan….—p. 67

… “Philosophic experiments of the past have entered into the living mind of the present…Life goes on not by repudiating the past but by accepting it and weaving it into the future in which the past undergoes a rebirth. The main thing is to remember and create anew.”⁶—p. 67

“The Religion of the Spirit and the World’s Need: Fragments of a Confession, “in Paul A. Schilpp, ed., “The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1952), 8-10.

…Philosophical learning and insight, he adds, is more the result of “our encounters with reality” than of the mere “historical study of such encounters.”@….—p. 68

“…experimentalism clearly stands as a powerful antidote to any kind of scholasticism or the mindless repetition of dogmas.”⁶⁷—p. 68

@ “The Religion of the Spirit and the World’s Need: Fragments of a Confession, “in Paul 7. Schilpp, ed., “The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1952), 10. The same accent is evident in Radhakrishnan’s treatment of Hinduism as anchored in “religious experience.”
The Hindu philosophy of religion,” he writes, “starts from and returns to an experimental basis. Only this basis is as wide as human nature itself….By accepting the significance of the different intuitions of reality and the different scriptures of the peoples living in India, Hindusim has come to be a tapestry of the most variegated tissues and almost endless diversity of hues’. See The Hindu View of Life, (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1927) 16-17.—p. 239

…In Radhakrishnan’s words: “This world is not an illusion; it is not nothingness, for it is willed by God and therefore is real….The absolute alone has non-created divine reality; all else is dependent, created reality. This is the significance of the doctrine of maya.”11—p. 71

11“The Religion of the Spirit and the World’s Need: Fragments of a Confession, “in Paul A. Schilpp, ed., “The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1952), 39-41.

…In Heidegger’s Being and Time, [Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) human existence is differentiated from subhuman entities (like stones, plants, or animals) which subsist “without consciousness of their existence.” Human being or Dasein, in Heidegger’s view, includes “the power, the determination to stand out of existence and in the truth of being. If man fails to transcend his existential limits, he too would be condemned to death and nothingness.”12

To be sure, as Radhakrishnan realizes, human existence in Heidegger’s treatment (and in that of other existentialists) is marked not only by freedom but also by finitude, by embeddedness in temporality and worldliness….In Radhakrishnan’s view, however, this experience is not a terminal point but only a stepping-stone or a gateway toward a higher mode of self-awareness. By itself, the focus on dread and existential brokenness is likely to have a demoralizing effect; as such, it is not congruent with classical Hindu teachings. “Indian thinkers,” we read,

Will not view with sympathy the tendency which we find among a few existentialists to accept the human predicament of distress and crisis as final and even find satisfaction in it. The delight of some existentialists in anguish, their acceptance of anarchy as destiny, their contented contemplation of man’s disaster and nothingness, their preoccupation with the morbid and the perverse, their rejection of absolute and universal values—will not find much support in the writings of the ancient Indian thinkers.

Although tension, anxiety, and suffering cannot be denied in human life, they have to be seen as serving a dialectical and teleological purpose; for, without these factors, man “would not become aware of his utter nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness.” Thus, human suffering constitutes a passageway to deeper insight—in metaphysical language, to the transition (p.72) from existence to being. Man, Radhakrishnan comments, “must first experience the void, the nothingness, the sunya of the Madhyakama Buddhist, not for its own sake but for transcending, it, for getting beyond the world of samsara to the other shore of being.” In Heidegman shall attain to being or shall not, whether he shall annihilate nothingness and get beyond it.” What the overcoming of nihilism yields is an ascent to a “reality which is different from existence,” to a spiritual center transcending temporality or to a “time-transcending element.”13—pp. 72-73

12.“The Religion of the Spirit and the World’s Need: Fragments of a Confession, “in Paul 7. Schilpp, ed., “The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1952), 47, 49,51, 56.

13. ibid., 48, 50, 52, 56-57.

For Radhakrishnan, religion should be an enticement both to personal self-transcendence and to a concrete engagement with the sufferings of the world….—p. 73

…For Radhakrishnan, exegesis involves not merely the mindless repetition of ancient phrases but rather an act of creative application, that is, an endeavor to bring a text to life in the changed circumstances of the present….—p. 74

…In Radhakrishnan’s words: “The classics should be not only guardians of the past but heralds of the future. They are dead if they are mechanically and unthinkingly accepted; they are alive if each generation consciously decides to receive them.”…..16.—p. 75

16. Radhakrishnan, The brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960),11-12

….Even when theologically sublimated, a personal God is “only a realization of that which is beyond both being and its opposite non-being….We try to naturalize what is beyond nature.”18.—p. 76

18. Radhakrishnan, The brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960).

…In Radhakrishnan’s words: “The world is not a deceptive façade of something underlying it; it is real though imperfect. Since the supreme is the basis of the world, the world cannot be unreal: maya has a standing in the world of reality.”….19—p. 77

19. Radhakrishnan, The brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960), 137-38.

…As Radhakrishnan notes in his commentary on the text: “The Bhagavad Gita is both metaphysics and ethics, brahmavidya and yogashastra….; the truths of spirit can be apprehended only by those who prepare themselves for their reception by rigorous discipline.”@—p. 77.

@ The Bhagavad Gita (first ed. 1948; New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973).—no reference is given for this quote in the text.—db.

…God…in Augustine’s phrase ‘more intimate to the soul than the soul to itself.”….—p. 78

…The term avatara here [in Gita] means both the embodiment or incarnation of the divine in human form and the elevation of the human self to the level of divine spirituality. As Radhakrishnan explains, avatara involves not only or not so much “the contraction of divine majesty into the limits of the human frame as the exaltation of human nature to the level of godhead by its union with the divine.” Although the Gita, he adds, “accepts the belief in avatara as the divine limiting Himself for some purposes on earth,” it also lays stress “on the eternal avatara, the God in man, the divine consciousness always present in the human being.”@ The Gita, Krishna is not a stand-in or inferior place holder for the divine. Rather, he is identified with supreme being, with the changeless truth behind all appearances….—p. 78

@ The Bhagavad Gita (first ed. 1948; New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973). —no reference is given for this quote in the text.—db.

…In Radhakrishnan’s words:

…When his [Arjuna] whole being is bewildered, when he does not know the valid law of action, he takes refuge in his higher self, typified as Krishna, the world teacher, jagadguru, and appeals for the grace of enlightenment.21

…The lesson imparted by the teacher to Arjuna concerns basically the ascent of the contingent or empirical self toward atman, that is, toward union with the divine through self-transcendence….—p. 79

21. The Bhagavad Gita (first ed. 1948; New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973). 26, 30-37.

[So Krishna is the ‘higher self’ of Arjuna? I think Radhakrishnan tried to give his comments based on Advaita.—db.]

…Regarding jnana, the Gita details ways of avoiding bodily excesses and of training the mind through meditation to focus on being and thus reaching harmony with the divine….—p.79

…As Radhakrishana comments: Krishna “does not adopt the solution of dismissing the world as an illusion and action as a snare.”@ He recommends “the full active life of man in the world with the inner life anchored in the eternal spirit; the Gita is therefore a mandate for action.” In endorsing the path of karma yoga, the Gita opposes the notion of a ‘radical dualism’ (supported by the Samkhya school) between God and world, transcendent being and maya, a dualism that tends to downgrade active involvement as pointless in favor of knowledge and meditative liberation. On this point, Radhakrishnan even departs from the teaching of Shankara, who, while clinging to metaphysical monism, clearly subordinated action to contemplation….—p. 80

@ The Bhagavad Gita (first ed. 1948; New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973). —no reference is given for this quote in the text.—db.

…Emancipation or liberation from this perspective is not simply a matter of withdrawal or retreat but involves the task of transformation or transfiguration affecting human life as a whole: “Liberation is not the isolation of the immortal spirit from the mortal human life but is the transfiguration of the whole man; it is attained not by destroying but by transfiguring the tension of human life.”23.—p. 80

23. The Bhagavad Gita (first ed. 1948; New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973), p. 76.

…the same commentary states: “Liberation is a return to inward being, to subjectivity; bondage is enslavement to the objective world, to necessity, to dependence.”25.—p. 82.

25. See Radhkrishnan, The Brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960), 118-21; The Bhagavad Gita (first ed. 1948; New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973), 46-47.

…His “Fragments of a Confession” contains captivating passages on the role of karma yogins or detached agents in the world…They are meek, patient, long-suffering; they do not judge others because they do not pretend to understand them.”@–p. 87

…Gandhi’s conduct—and that of karma yogins like him—is not narrowly centered on selfhood, nor does it proceed from condescension or patronizing pity. Instead, it is anchored in “the conviction of the solidarity of the world, lokasamgraha,: the conviction that “vicarious suffering, not vicarious punishment, is a law of spiritual life.” In general terms, karma yogins preserve and redeem the promises of the past in their own age and with an eye to the future: they “bend to the very level of the enslaved to emancipate their minds and hearts; they inspire, revive and strengthen the life of the their generation.’31—p.87

31 “The Religion of the Spirit and the World’s Need: Fragments of a Confession, “in Paul A. Schilpp, ed., “The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1952) 65-66. See also Radhakrishana, ed., Mahatma Gandhi: Essays and Reflections on (p.241) Gandhi’s Life and Work (London: Allen & Unwin, 1939). The linkage between the overcoming of metaphysics and karma yoga is not fortuitous: once metaphysics is seen to be metaphorical (and not as the cognition of essences inhabiting a transcendent world), everything comes to depend on proper (nonpossessive) conduct in the world.—pp. 241-42

Ch. IV. HEIDEGGER, BHAKTI, AND VEDANTA.

…Perhaps, to avoid blatant cultural imperialism, we want to construct a neutral framework generally applicable to all cultures alike. But in constructing and applying this framework, are we not again trying to dominate and domesticate the world by excising precisely the difference or “otherness” of the other’s culture?….—p.89

…As a movement of living thought, he [J. L. Mehta] writes, cross-cultural understanding is concerned with a ‘mutual sharing of horizons,” not with “discovering a formula for the ‘other’ culture” or “grasping it in a concept.”@.—p. 98

@ No reference is given for this quote by the author. But this could be from: India and the West: The Problem of Understanding; Selected Essays of J. L. Mehta (Chico, Calif.: Scholar press, 1985). —no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 10 before this point.—db

…Although appreciating Edward Said’s critique of “Orientalism” as a corollary of Western colonialism and imperialism, Mehta is unwilling to discard the fruits of Western-style learning wherever they promote a broadening of horizons. The problem for the Indian, he writes, is not “finding out strategies for discrediting this scholarship” but rather discovering how to share in Western learning “without having to surrender his personal relationship to his own tradition”.@.–p.99

@ But this could be from: India and the West: The Problem of Understanding; Selected Essays of J. L. Mehta (Chico, Calif.: Scholar press, 1985). —no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 12 that follows this point.—db

Faithful to the demands of hermeneutical engagement, the alternatives for Mehta are not adoption of Western science and secularism versus their rejection in favor of a native traditionalism. Given the growing interprenetration of cultures, Indians, have no longer the option either to embrace Western reason as the “inner telos” of humankind or to “entrench ourselves into a specifically Indian philosophizing.” Instead, the only viable pathway is to try to “understand both (cultures) in their mutual otherness, to “learn the language of each” and thus to “evolve ways of thinking and talking which will be truly appropriate to our membership of both worlds.” The goal of such hermeneutical engagement for Mehta is not a bland universalism or homogenizing syncretism but rather the cultivation of respect for difference fostered by inobtrusive understanding: “No facile compromise or reconciliation, miscalled ‘synthesis,’ but a relentless exposure to the tension between the scientific consciousness and the legacy of the past is the way we can learn to address the right questions to our religious tradition and be rewarded by answers truly adequate to our present situation.”12—pp.99

“Problems of Inter-Cultural Understanding” and “Understanding and Tradition,” in India and the West: The Problem of Understanding; Selected Essays of J. L. Mehta (Chico, Calif.: Scholar press, 1985), 125, 159; “My Years at the Center for the Study of World Religions,” in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990),67

…For Mehta, neither the Vedic gods nor rita or vac were deified abstractions…Instead, they formed part of a poetic world disclosure, an inspired ‘aletheio–poiesis’ (which becomes intelligible from the vantage of Heidegger’s remarks on language).16.—p. 103

16. “The Rigveda: Text and Interpretation,” in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990),278, 281-82, 288-91. He writes (288)

In a remarkable lecture, “On the Way to Language,” Heidegger sought to think of language in such a way as “to bring language itself to speech as language,” language as it abides in its own manner of being, as language itself speaks in the speech of man. Heidegger also often pointed out that in disclosing to us things—whatever we speak about—language holds back the revelation of its own manner of being, conceals it….The Vedic poets knew about the play of concealment and revealment from their own experience….As a Rigvedic verse says: “The poets hide the paths of truth; they keep secret their hidden names” (10.5.2).—p.244

…Taking some cues from the later Heidegger, Mehta prefers to associate brahman with world disclosure or a kind of happening in which everything participates (without resort to metaphysical essences). Seen from this angle, brahman, is indeed being, but not in the sense “in which it is other than what it is being for or to,” not in the sense of “what knowing, thinking and speaking are about, other than them, as a reality confronting them,” but rather “inclusive of these as themselves modes of being.” To this extent, brahman is “sat, chit and ananda in one and as one, and my being is one with it.”@.–p. 106.

@ :Heidegger and Vedanta,” in India and the West: The Problem of Understanding; Selected Essays of J. L. Mehta (Chico, Calif.: Scholar press, 1985). —no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 20 that follows this point.—db

…In the midst of the “most dramatic changes and ruptures” in their history, and despite” so many broken threads,” he observes, the one thing “to which Hindus clung and never let go, to which they tenaciously held on by dint of continued creative transformation,” was their “immediate, living relationship with the sacred.”@ This clinging is sometimes chided or condescendingly mocked by Western scholarship as a failure to rise from mythos to logos or from magic to reason. But from the vantage of our own time, the time of an emergent world civilization, the situation may appear in a different light….—p. 107

@ ‘The Hindu Traditon,” in Mehta, in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990). No reference is given for this but it could be from this book based on the notes 21 that follows this point.—db

…In clinging to the sacred and making room for the dimension of the holy, Indian tradition in Mehta’s view gives evidence of the persistence of thoughtful faith or a faithful mode of knowing, a mode that allows us to think “the holy and the true in their intrinsic, indivisible unity” and thus to experience “that integral plentitude, in that highest abode of Vishnu and seat of rita.”@—p. 108

@ ‘The Hindu Tradition,” in Mehta, in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990). No reference is given for this but it could be from this book based on the notes 22 that follows this point.—db

…Rama, the hero of the story, is entirely and preeminently human. But, Mehta asks, “what is it to be human? What is man that he should serve the gods and battle against demons, that in doing so he may shine forth in a light beyond him and fulfill and manifest the divinity in him?”@….—p. 109

@“My Years at the Center for the Study of World Religions,” in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990).—no reference is given for this but it could be from this book based on the notes 23 that follows this point.—db

…As he recognizes, the Mahabharata is a tale of dramatic turbulence and unmitigated violence, but it does not glorify the latter. Its central message, “repeated again and again,” he writes, is “that nonviolence (ahimsa) and compassion (anrisamsya) are the highest duties of man, states of being without which we fail to be completely human.”@–p. 110

. “The Discourse of Violence in the Mahabharata” (1987), in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990).—no reference is given for this but it could be from this book based on the notes 24 that follows this point.—db

…Far from merely recounting the story of an “internecine conflict between two groups of blood-relative,” the Mahabharata for Mehta reports the Pandava’s agonizing struggle against, and final victory over, a rebellious kshattra force, demonstrating in the end that kshattra divorced from brahma is “ruinous” while in the service of brahma it may guide to peace. This lesson in underscored in the final encounter of the Pandavas with Ashvatthama, when Krishna orders the former to put away their arms, an order only Bhima disobeyed:

Then Krishna and Arjuna step down from their chariot, throw away their arms, walk into the fiery circle of that ultimate weapon [of Ashvatthama] and forcibly make Bhima obey and stop fighting. Then the weapon became quiescent and inactive. In the very midst of the discourse of violence, what more eloquent testimony could there be to the power of nonresistance, or nonviolent resistance, which is the quintessence of Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence.24—pp. 110-111

24. “The Discourse of Violence in the Mahabharata” (1987), in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990) 255-56, 259-60, 270.

…Far from counseling a simple emotionalism, bhakti in the Gita is presented as a “gathering together of mind, intellect and heart in their unity,” a form of relationship with the highest in which “man’s whole being” is concentrated on this outreach or self-transgression. Replicating the ancient relation between Nara and Narayana, Arjuna in the Gita is “Krishna’s bhakta,” that is, his “dear friend” patterning himself completely on his beloved mentor….@—p. 112

@“Bhakti in Philosophical Perspective” (1986), in J. L. Mehta, Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1990). No reference is given for this but it could be from this book based on the notes 26 that follows this point.—db

According to Mehta, however, the preceding texts [Gita] offer only faint glimpses of bhakti—whose full depth or strength is revealed in the Bhagavata Purana. While in the Gita bhakti was more proclaimed than illustrated, and while the Vishnu Purana concentrated on an ideal meditative mode, the Bhagavata Purana offers a sustained paean to the “love of God.” In that Purana, the wise intellectual Uddhava travels as a messenger of his friend, Krishna, to the gopis in Vrindaban to persuade them to be content with mental exercises and meditation. But, Mehta notes, his message has little or no effect on the gopis whose “minds and thoughts are already in Krishna’s keeping” and whose aching hearts remain “utterly absorbed in their beloved” who has parted from them and yet is with them” in the mode of absence, as a trace of his presence.” At this point, Uddhava the messenger becomes himself the recipient of a message or a truth which had been hidden (p.112) from him before: for he comes to realize that loving Krishna as the gopis do is “the real thing,” the ultimate goal to be pursued even by sages and saints. What Uddhava experiences” in the depth of his being,” goes beyond his cognitive awareness, for now “he longs to kiss the dust under the feet of the gopis of the Braja and wishes it were possible for him to live in Vrindaban even as a plant in the vicinity of the gopis.”@—pp. 112-13

…bhakti transcends the traditional distinction between the three mental faculties of knowing, willing, feeling; to this extent, it even transgresses the differentiation between three distinct types of yoga (with bhakti being one of them). As he {Mehta} writes… “the way to what is closest to ourselves is the longest way back.”@—p.113

@“Problems of Inter-Cultural Understanding” and “Beyond Believing and Knowing,” in India and the West: The Problem of Understanding; Selected Essays of J. L. Mehta (Chico, Calif.: Scholar press, 1985). —no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 28 following this point.—db

…The religious tradition of India, Mehta affirms, has been in the past an “open temple” which allowed itself to be touched by “Greek power and beauty,” by the thought currents of neighboring China, as well as the divergent influences of Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. The present encounter with the West, while wrenching in many ways, also allows Indian to distance themselves from tradition and thus to recapture the past freely and with renewed vigor. Now, we read, the Indian

can joyfully let his religious imagination be enlarged and vivified by the heritage of the Greeks, by the vision of Christianity, and the message of Islam, and he can freely seek to appropriate through creative reinterpretation the tradition of which he is both a product and a trustee. He can accomplish this, but only to the extent that he can see himself and his tradition in the wider inter-religious context of world history.@

Thus, faithfulness to tradition and openness to the other, the unfamiliar, perhaps even the threatening, here go hand in hand….—p. 114

@ India and the West: The Problem of Understanding; Selected Essays of J. L. Mehta (Chico, Calif.: Scholar press, 1985). —no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 28 before this point.—db

Ch. V. EXIT FROM ORIENTALISM

There was a time when cross-cultural understanding was largely a matter of expertise. Study and comprehension of non-Western cultures, including the “Orient,” was consigned to an array of area specialists ranging from philologians to historians and cultural anthropologists. Armed with the arsenal of Western philosophical and scientific categories, area studies pursued a somewhat predatory aim, that of incorporating or assimilating non-Western life-forms into preestablished frames of reference (unless they were relegated to a mysterious otherness beyond the pale of knowledge). To be sure, incorporation of this kind was not a purely academic exercise, but was buttressed and fueled by concrete political and economic ventures of that time, especially the administrative needs of colonial empires….—p. 115

…Orientalist discourse was part and parcel of a “Eurocentric” world view….—p. 115

…Is it sensible to equate traditional learning—however flawed—simply with colonial oppression?…In our globalizing context, is there not still room and need for cross-cultural understanding—beyond the confines of Eurocentrism and logocentrism? And does such understanding not involve or presuppose a patient learning process, a sustained effort of receiprocal interrogation, which, in turn, can hardly disdain some of the resources (philological, historical, anthropological) of traditional scholarship?—p.116

…the formidable obstacles and complications besetting…to the role of Western Indological scholarship itself and its bent to compress Indian culture into Western categorical frameworks (or else to treat it as an essentialized counter-image of the West)….—p. 117

…In Halbfass’s view…One of the main problem of Said’s conception is the blending of “highly selective historical observations” with broad philosophical and metaphysical “generalizations,” with the latter often riding roughshod over the task of concrete historical interpretation. Resulting from the merger of “very specific and very general traits,” Orientalism is in danger of appearing as a “historical and conceptual hybridization that is no less a construct and projection than the so-called Orient itself.”@—p. 118

@ Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991)9-12.he notes 2e notes 28dition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991)shi —no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 5 following this point.—db

…With regard to Eurocentrism, the remedy is sometimes sought in the simple cancellation of Western categories; but in this case the recovery of indigenous authenticity is still ascribed to Western largesse (now in the mode of self-denial): “The attempt to eliminate all Western constructs and preconceptions and to liberate the Indian tradition from all non-Indian categories of understanding would not only be impractical, but also presumptuous in its own way….This self-abrogation of Eurocentrism is at the same time its ultimate affirmation.”5.—p. 118

5. Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991)9-12

…On the one hand, Hindu life was never the “dogmatic and institutional identity of an ‘organized religion,’” but on the other hand, it is “neither an “Orientalist construction,’ nor can it be reduced to a brahminical fiction or projection.” This broad contextuality was shared both by “sectarian” movements like Shaivism and Vaishnavism with their specific theistic assumptions and by such “supra-sectarian” thinkers as Bhartrhari, Kumarial, and Shankara. In all these cases, understanding dharma requires a step beyond Orientalism and anti-Orientalism. To quote Halbfass:

The modern idea of “Hinduism,” or of the “Hindu religion,” is a reinterpretation of the traditional ideas and, in a sense, a hybridization of the traditional self-understanding. Yet it is by no means a mere adaptation of Western superimpositions. It is also a continuation of the tradition, an expression and transformation of that self-understanding which articulates itself in its commitment to the Vedic revelation.6—p. 119

6. Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991)14-16.

Another, still more pervasive strand in Indian tradition is the legacy of the Vedas in which dharma is one ingredient. Here the contextuality is even more elusive given the factual neglect of the Vedas by broad segments of Hindu life and the distance of Vedic rituals from the popular Hindu pantheon….—p. 119

…Surveying this field, Halbfass agrees that the Vedas contain “no Hindu dogma, no basis for a ‘creed’ of Hinduism, no clear guidelines for the Hindu way of life.’” Yet…he also sees a discontinuous continuity at the heart of Indian culture. Despite the enormous heterogeneity of that culture, he notes, “an idea and vision of the Veda emerges not only as a focal point of Hindu self-understanding, and a center for the precarious unity and identity of the tradition, but also as a prototype for its inner variety and potential universality.”$—p. 120

$ Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991) 40-41. —no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 8 following this point.—db

…Halbfass notes… “that in approaching Indian thought, we carry with us our Western perspectives and presuppositions not merely as an impediment and aggravation, but as a necessary and positive ingredient of understanding itself.”$–p. 121

$ Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essayin Understanding (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988) 164-69. — no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 9 following this point.—db

…Yet understanding alone is no longer seen as adequate in the absence of critical distantiation and analysis; mere familiarization with Indian culture and traditions is said to be deficient unless it is “supplemented by conceptual analysis and clarification.” Such clarification and analysis, however, require a turn to resources beyond the pale of hermeneutical or dialogical inquiry: “Clarification implies a commitment to objective standards of precision and analysis.” Ultimately, this commitment leads to the demand for a neutral and universal standpoint from which all tradition can be objectively assessed without bias….

… “Is there,” Halbfass asks, “a truly common ground for a comparison of different traditions of thought and a neutral, universal medium through which they can communicate?” And he replies: “One important recent suggestion is that such a common basis is provided by logical and linguistic analysis (p.122) and exemplified by the methods of modern analytical philosophy of the Anglo-Saxon type.” It is in the context of linguistic analysis that the claim has been advanced that analytical methods (especially the use of symbolic logic) are “separated from the restrictions of the various existing languages” and their particular milieux and hence conducive to “a truly universal understanding of the different philosophical traditions.”12

One of the chief problems of these passages is the return of supposedly banished ghosts. Above all, the invocation of analysis “of the Anglo-Saxon type” tends to jeopardize the exit from Orientalism and Eurocentrism which Halbfass’s earlier studies had so diligently pursued….

Unable to resolve this dilemma, Halbfass’s argument finally ends in a halfhearted eclecticism. On the one hand, he strongly defends the “merits” of Anglo-American analysis. In the pursuit of objectivity, he notes, we should not underrate “the extraordinary instrumental value of modern formal and analytical models, including symbolic logic, in the interpretation of philosophical texts and traditions”; we should also acknowledge “the potential of orderly scientific progress” and thus be willing to face non-Western phenomena from the vantage point of “latest research.” On the other hand, objectivity may well be an elusive and perhaps even deceptive standard; we certainly should not construe the perfection of formal methods as “the implicit telos of Indian philosophy or as the goal and essence of philosophy in general.” In fact, analysis and the search for conceptual precision can be obtrusive and “interfere with the task of translating and understanding, and with our obligation to respect the Indian tradition in its own context and dimensions.” The upshot of these divergent instructions is an agnostic compromise: “At the end, we do not have a well-defined method, and perhaps not even a definite perspective, for our exploration of the Indian texts and teachings. Our procedure will be eclectic.”13—pp. 122-23. {But where is such neutral and universal stand point and who is to form and frame it as the normative to assess all traditions objectively? Why, as an Indian (also as a Tamilian), I need such non-Indian objectivity to understand my life as an Indian and Hindu bhakta of Muktinath? Cannot I live my life without the need of such external categories?—db}

12. Wilhelm Halbfass, On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaisesika and the History of Indian Ontology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 12-14.

13. ibid. 13-15.

…Yet, reason (yikti, tarka) for Shankara cannot be entirely self-sufficient; proceeding from an agent “within” the world, reason cannot at the same time survey or thematize the boundaries of that world or the conditions of its own existence. To gain insight on that level, reason has to remember its embeddedness in being, which means it has to be attentive to what is “heard” or disclosed (shruti) in the “great sayings” of the Vedas. Unguided by such hearing, reasoning may lead to worldly cleverness, but a cleverness which gets entangled in its own confusions and contradictions. As Shankara repeatedly emphasized—especially in critiquing other schools—unguided reasoning is “dried up” (suska), that is, fruitless and groundless. Although useful for certain limited purposes, human reason is inherently unstable and unfounded, and ultimately even liable to refute and supersede itself, thus showing its incapacity to provide a “foundational” metaphysical grounding. To quote a passage from Shankara’s Brahmasutrabhasya: “Conclusions which are based on human reflection alone are unfounded….Conclusions at which expert reasoners have arrived with great effort of reflection are viewed as spurious by others, (p.125) even more expert ones….In this way, it is impossible to find a foundation for the conclusions of reasoning, because of the variety of human ways of understanding.”17—pp. 125-26

17. Wilhelm Halbfass, On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaisesika and the History of Indian Ontology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 146-47, 180.

…In a free variation on John Locke’s precedent, prominent Indian thinkers in recent times have advocated the basic “reasonableness of Hinduism,” mainly in an effort to render the latter more palatable to Western intellectuals. As Halbfass curtly observes, such portrayals “should not primarily be seen as contributions to historical and philosophical research”; bent on adjusting Advaita Vedanta to the demands of the modern world, their scholarship is overshadowed by their “apologetic goal.” Unfortunately, Halbfass’s own position is not very distant from, and often stands in close proximity to, the neo-Vedantins. Repeatedly he expresses his inability to embrace or share Shankara’s conception. “It is obviously impossible for a modern Western reader,” he states, “to follow Shankara into all the details of his Vedic exegesis.” Elsewhere he chides Shankara precisely for his truncated rationalism: “With this radical commitment to Vedic revelation, Shankara withdraws ultimately from the open arena of philosophical debate, which the philosophers of the Purvamimamsa, in particular Kumarila, had entered so resolutely.”$—p. 127

$17. Wilhelm Halbfass, On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaisesika and the History of Indian Ontology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). no reference is given but this could be from this book based on the notes 20 following this point.—db

…As he notes in India and Europe, cross-cultural understanding or dialogue today is complicated by Western hegemony and the ongoing process of Westernization of the globe. “The conditions and perspectives of the two sides of the encounter are fundamentally different,” he writes pointedly; “the relationship is an asymmetrical one.” Basically, modern India “finds itself in a historical situation created by Europe [or the West], and it has difficulties speaking for itself.” As a result, understanding under present conditions requires a special effort to transcend Eurocentrism or “what is European” (das Europaische) in the direction of greater reciprocal openness. For “in the modern planetary situation, Eastern and Western ‘cultures’ can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a Westernized world, under conditions shaped by Western way of thinking”25 {and language}.—p. 130

25. $ Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essayin Understanding (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988) 369, 375, 340-41.

…While subordinating equality to contextuality, Indian thought also recasts the notion of liberty by severing it from all individualistic, egocentric, or anthropocentric designs. Ultimately, especially in Shankara’s “soteriontology,” freedom means liberation from separation and self-centredness and hence release into the “world frame” of brahman ….—p.132 {Neither to become master of the world nor to be liberated from the self in us, but to become humble enough to serve everyone—everything (including animal and nature) should be the mark of LIBERATION.—DB}

…For Shankara, it is true, all caste barriers and social distinctions were ultimately rooted in maya or samsara which the self was meant to transcend; but again, transcendence here did not signal dissolution into sameness, but freedom in the midst of difference….—p. 133

Ch. VI. WESTERN THOUGHT AND INDIAN THOUGHT. Some Comparative Steps.

…In large measure, the new world order can be seen as a codeword for a universalized identity crisis, whose severity, to be sure, varies from place to place. Although by no means immune from this crisis, Western culture tends to enjoy a cushion of complacency provided by its hegemonic position.—p. 135

..Even without specialized study, we all realize that Western thought and Indian thought are not holistic structures readily reducible to a single denominator. A brief glace at history reveals Western thought to be an enormously complex fabric of heterogeneous strands that range from Platonism and Aristotelianism over Stoicism and Scholasticism to modern empiricism, rationalism, materialism, idealism, and pragmatism (to mention only some perspectives). The same complexity prevails on the side of Indian thought. Apart from the great religious-metaphisical divisions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, there are the famous philosophical “schools” (Daya Krishna prefers to call them “styles of thought”4) whose tenets are continuously rehearsed in pertinent textbooks: there we read about the Samkhya school with its dualism of spirit and matter, about Vaisesika with it focus on empirical particularism, about Nyaya with its accent on logical atomism, and Advaita Vedanta with its celebration of metaphysical monism, about Mimamsa with its stress on exegesis, and about Yoga with its devotion to spiritual practice. Using Western-style terminology, one might say that the classical Indian schools range from idealism to empiricism, from essentialism to nominalism, from universalism to extreme particularism and even atomism, and from theism (in its varieties of mon0-, poly-, and henotheism) to extreme modes of agnosticism.

As it appears from this overview, distinctness is in danger of being drowned in multiplicity and also in a kind of nondistinction that frustrates comparison….—p. 137

4. Daya Krishna, Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991). p. 13.

…let us single out a few comparative (p.137) approaches which are dubious or unhelpful because of their stereotyped treatment of distinctness.

One such approach—supported by professional philosophers and also enjoying a kind of popular vogue—is built on the premise that Western thought is rational and scientific while Indian thought is intuitive and mystical. In my view, this approach is a bad case of “Orientalism” (in the sense articulated by Edward Said [Edward W. Said, Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books, 1969.])…Apart from its “Orientalist” flavor, the approach is unhelpful for comparative purposes because it construes distinctness in too steep or exclusivist terms to permit cross-cultural learning or contestation. In addition, the approach neglects long-standing and important counter-trends on both sides of the cultural divide….—p. 138

[Except for the specialists, most of the Western thoughts came to India via English language, which has limitation and puts limitation to common Indians. Whereas many Indian thoughts are ‘multi-centred’ with regional, linguistic, cultural, social and other variances. So all attempts to understand, compare and derive some pan-world philosophy is a difficult (and may be an impossible) task. Even this so called ‘western thought’ is multi-centered with its own categories.—db]

…Western thought, one can hardly forget, has been deeply marked by Christian spirituality, and the Protestant Reformation as well as Enlightenment (p.138) thought cannot be understood in abstraction from these Christian-spiritual roots….—pp. 138-39

…Despite a certain respect, perhaps even reverence, shown to classical sources, none of the mentioned schools or “styles of thought” rely in their arguments simply on past authority; in fact, he [Daya Krishna] notes (perhaps overstating his case), the major writings of these schools” “are not, even in form, a commentary upon Vedic texts.”$ ….—p. 139

$ Daya Krishna, Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991), [p.8?] No reference is given for this but it is from this book based on the notes 8 following this point.—db

Another characterization that Daya Krishna considers mythical and that he spends considerable effort in combating is the view that Indian thought or philosophy is uniquely geared to liberation, releasement, or moksha. In his treatment, this view is a “complete misunderstanding” of the actual situation. Moksha, he notes, is neither the “exclusive” nor the “predominant concern” of Indian philosophy; actually, many of the Indian schools and thinkers “are not concerned with it even marginally.”. On this point, I am much more hesitant to follow Daya Krishna’s lead. It seems that the notion of ‘moksha’ touches on deep issues in philosophy as such, particularly on the theory-praxis mexus. In his dismissal of the notion, Daya Krishna may be swayed too much by his sympathy for Western “analytical” philosophy with its narrow focus on rational cognition (and its neglect of theory-praxis relation).8 Curiously, I tend to embrace his objection—but for different, even opposite reasons. All genuine philosophy (and not just its Indian variant) is on some level concerned with moksha—a fact that renders the latter again an element not of distinctness but of nondistinction unhelpful to comparative inquiry.—p. 139

8. Daya Krishna, Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991), 8, 29-30. The “analytical” (or positivist) attachment to the theory-praxis or fact-value division surfaces clearly in Daya Krishna’s account when he opposes “intellectual difficulties of a purely rational and cognitive kind” to the “practical pursuit of ends which are non-cognitive, non-intellectual, and non-rational in nature” (20). The claim that “philosophy proper” can be divorced from “spiritual liberation” (32) and the implication that Western thought deals with the former and not the latter are rendered at least dubious by the examples of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Kant, and Hegel.—p.250

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