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Philosophy and Literature in India Anand Venkatkrishnan Course Syllabus Philosophy and Literature in India Anand Venkatkrishnan Course Syllabus Course Description Is philosophy literature? Is literature philosophy? What constitutes either of these seemingly disparate enterprises, formally and thematically, and what kinds of conjunctions can we imagine between them (philosophy in/of/as literature)? Can one translate these terms across cultures, ? Are they the sole prerogative of leisured elites, or can they harbor and cultivate voices of dissent? Above all, what does it mean to reflect on these categories outside the parochial context of the Western world? This course explores these questions by introducing some of the literary cultures, philosophical traditions, religious poetry, and aesthetic theories of the South Asian subcontinent. Students will encounter a variety of genres including scriptural commentary, drama and courtly poetry, and the autobiography. Readings, all in translation, will range from Sanskrit literature to Sufi romances and more. Books (all readings provided as pdfs) Behl, Aditya and Simon Weightman, tr. Madhumālatī: An Indian Sufi Romance. Oxford: OUP, 2001. Deszö, Csaba, tr. Much Ado About Religion by Jayanta Bhaṭṭa. Clay Sanskrit Library. New York: New York University Press and JJC Foundation, 2005. Hudson, Emily. Disorienting Dharma: Ethics and the Aesthetics of Suffering in the Mahābhārata. Oxford: OUP, 2012. O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984. Olivelle, Patrick, tr. Upaniṣads. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Recommended General Reading Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Oxford; Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995. NB: Readings marked with an asterisk ( * ) are not required, only recommended for personal edification. Class Requirements • Attendance and Participation ◦ Students will sign up to lead one discussion session based on the others' responses. • Weekly Responses on Class Blog ◦ These will be due the day before each class meeting. They will not be graded, but shared among the class for discussion. • Final Paper (8-10 pp.) or Presentation Schedule Week 1: The Veda and its (Dis)contents a. How to Live • Jonardon Ganeri, “A Return to the Self: Indians and Greeks on Life as Art and Philosophical Therapy,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 66 (2010): 119-135. • * Martha Nussbaum, “Introduction: Form and Content, Philosophy and Literature,” in Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (Oxford, 1992), pp. 10-22, 45-49. b. Dialogue and Danger • Patrick Olivelle, Upaniṣads, pp. 52-71 (Br. Up. 4.1-4.5), pp. 148-156 (Ch. Up. 6). • Steven Lindquist, “Literary Lives and a Literal Death,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79.1 (2011): 33-57. Week 2: Epics and Ethics a. Suffering, Social Status, and Narrative Strategies • Emily Hudson, Disorienting Dharma: Ethics and the Aesthetics of Suffering, pp. 3-46. • * Bimal Matilal, “Moral Dilemmas: Insights from Indian Epics,” in The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal: Ethics and Epics, ed. Jonardon Ganeri (Delhi: OUP, 2002), pp. 19-35. b. Virtue, Violence, and Women's Voices • Emily Hudson, Disorienting Dharma, pp. 97-105, 218-224. • Ruth Vanita, “The Self Has No Gender,” in Gandhi's Tiger and Sita's Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Culture (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2009), pp. 14-34. Week 3: Buddhism and Narrative Ethics a. Mo' Karma Mo' Problems • Śāntideva, “Ch. VIII: The Perfection of Meditation” in A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, tr. Vesna A. Wallace and B. Alan Wallace (Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1997), pp. 89-114. • * Charles Hallisey and Anne Hansen, “Narrative, Sub-Ethics, and the Moral Life: Some Evidence from Theravāda Buddhism,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 24.2 (1996): 305-327. b. Sex Changes and Storytelling • Eugene W. Burlingame, tr. Buddhist Legends: Part 2 (Cambridge: Harvard, 1921), pp. 23-28. • Paula Richman, “Gender and Persuasion,” in A Buddhist Woman's Path to Enlightenment, ed. Peter Schalk (Uppsala: Gotab, 1997), pp. 95-114. • * Robert Goldman, “Transsexualism, Gender, and Anxiety in Traditional India,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113.3 (1993): 374-401. Week 4: Classical Indian Philosophy a. Dialectic and Debate • Jonardon Ganeri, Identity as Reasoned Choice (New York: Continuum, 2012), pp. 1-29. • * Wilhelm Halbfass, “Darśana, Ānvīkṣikī, Philosophy,” in India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988), pp. 263-286. b. Truth and Truth-Telling • Jonardon Ganeri, The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of Self and Practices of Truth in Indian Ethics and Epistemology (Oxford: OUP, 2007), pp. 39-60, 97-103, 125-132, 140-153. Week 5: Classical Indian Literature a. Theorizing Literature • Sheldon Pollock, “Sanskrit Literary Culture from the Inside Out,” in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia (Berkeley: UC Press, 2003), pp. 39-61, 75-91, 114-131. b. Of the Standard of Taste • Sheldon Pollock, A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), pp. 1-26, 87-97, 110-118, 144-153, 181-186. Week 6: Ministry of Silly Talks a. Philosophy and Public Disputation • Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, Much Ado About Religion, Introduction, Acts I-II. b. Reasoning and Religious Pluralism • Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, Much Ado About Religion, Acts III-IV. Week 7: Don't Believe Everything You Think a. Sleep and Dreams • Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities, pp. 127-146, 172-189. • * David Shulman, “Dreaming the Self in South India,” in The Wisdom of Poets (New Delhi: OUP, 2001), pp. 213-251. b. Illusion and Reality • Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities, pp. 260-296. • * Robert Goldman, “The Serpent and the Rope on Stage: Popular, Literary, and Philosophical Representations of Reality in Traditional India,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 14 (1986): 349-369. Week 8: Poetry, Poetics, Poeisis a. All the World's a Stage • Phyllis Granoff, “Portraits, Likenesses, and Looking Glasses: Some Literary and Philosophical Reflections on Representation and Art in Medieval India,” in Representation in Religion, eds. Jan Assmann and Albert I. Baumgarten (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 63-90. b. Flights of Fancy, Imaginative Insights • David Shulman, “Singularity, Inexhaustibility, Insight: What Sanskrit Poeticians Think Is Real,” in More Than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India (Cambridge: Harvard, 2012), pp. 51-71. Week 9: What’s Love Got To Do With It? a. Love in the Time of Scholarship I • Aditya Behl and Simon Weightman, Madhumālatī, Introduction and pp. 28-57 (vv. 64-134). b. Love in the Time of Scholarship II • Behl and Weightman, Madhumālatī, pp. 93-101 (vv. 223-240). • Aditya Behl, “Desire and Narrative in a Hindavi Sufi Romance,” in India's Islamic Traditions, ed. Richard Eaton (Oxford: OUP, 2002), pp. 180-208. Week 10: Experience, Theory, Empathy, Transformation a. Dalit Lives Matter • Omprakash Valmiki, Joothan: A Dalit's Life, tr. Arun Prabha Mukherjee (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 19-27, 97-113. • Gopal Guru, “Archaeology of Untouchability,” in Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai, The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory (Oxford: OUP, 2012), pp. 200-222..
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