The Journal of Hindu Studies 2011;4:111

Advance Access Publication 18 April 2011

doi:10.1093/jhs/hir014

Reason and Rationality in Hindu Studies

Jessica Frazier
Bimal Matilal cites a particularly arch exchange between the brahmin-turnedBuddhist monk Nagasena and the Indo-Greek King Menander. N@gasena explains
the difference between the debates of kings, and those of authentic truth-seekers:
When scholars debate, your majesty, there is summing up and unravelling of a
theory, convincing and conceding, there is also defeat, and yet the scholars do
not get angry at all.
When the kings debate, your majesty, they state their thesis, and if anyone
differs from them, they order him punished, saying Inflict punishment upon
him! (Bimal Krishna Matilal, 1999)

The distinction that N@gasena makes is, of course, intended to be provocative to

the king who has asked the question. But it also demonstrates the difference
between capricious rhetoric and earnest reasoning: the reasoner cares more for
truth than for pride or prejudice.
The articles in this issue of The Journal of Hindu Studies explore a number of
Indias long-standing traditions of good reasoningthe application of shared criteria and techniques for deriving valid new ideas. Such disciplines weave through
the fabric of Indian culture with a pervasive influence that Plato might have
envied. The systems of grammar and epistemology, theology and metaphysics,
medicine, mathematics, jurisprudence, political philosophy, and even aesthetics,
thrived for centuries, across regions and languages. The realisation that Hinduism
developed in vigorous culture of formal philosophical debate, scientific inquiry,
and sectarian competition has helped to focus scholarly attention on the lively,
questioning character of Indian intellectual history.
Traditions of reason in India
Recently, some have seen the Indian subcontinent as the scene of what Jonardon
Ganeri calls a Lost Age of Reason: an Indian Enlightenment with its own methods
and institutions, which seems to have been fatally interrupted by the first influences of colonialism. Thus the study of this area is not only looking at an aspect of
Hindu culture that has been neglected; it is also engaging in the practice of speculative history by asking what Indian modernity might have looked like, and how

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Reason and rationality in Hindu Studies

contemporary Indian intellectual culture builds upon these rational foundations

and might still draw from them.
Increased scholarly study of medical, aesthetic, legal, and other texts has revealed a rich culture of pan-Indian scientific traditions, ranging from thriving
traditions of Ayurvedic medicine to lost traditions of formal debate or aesthetic
theory. It is in order to reclaim that once-flourishing culture that scholars such as
Jonardon Ganeri, Sheldon Pollock, and Dominik Wujastyk have sought to cultivate
a renewed attention to the rich range of rational disciplines that existed in a
natural symbiosis with religious life, arts, and politics. These human and natural
sciences fed the purposes of the culture at large through calendrical and medical
aids, regulation of Indias growing states, education in universities and schools,
negotiation of competing metaphysical claims and textual interpretations through
public debates, and the development of the arts of music, theatre, and literature.
Like the physical infrastructure of a building, the sciences of debate, jurisprudence, philosophical inquiry, hermeneutics, statecraft, natural science, and aesthetics all stood as a support for Indias expanding cultural communities, uniting
diverse thinkers, facilitated by pan-regional languages in which thinkers from
diverse areas could collaborate. The writing of s@stras, manuals that sought to
capture and disseminate the principles of each science, testify to the
self-awareness of these rational traditions which applied agreed rules to
common goals and thus contributed to what Sheldon Pollock has called the
Sanskrit knowledge systems that united Indian cultures in a shared discussion.
Philosophers and intellectual historians such as Bimal Matilal, Jonardon Ganeri,
Stephen Phillips, Karin Preisendanz, and Johannes Bronkhorst have emphasised
the sophistication of Indias formal traditions of reasoning. The philosophical sciences of logic, empirical observation, inference and verification, and linguistics
and hermeneutics proceed by established methodologies. The Ny@ya and
Neo-Ny@ya schools in particular have been seen as a cornerstone of Indian reasoning and they were certainly influential in providing the shared methodology
necessary for a thriving tradition of rational theology, for Buddhist and Jain as well
as Hindu thinkers. But the shared metaphysical lexicon of Ved@ntic, S@m.khya,
Vaises.ika, and other schools also provided the medium for coherent philosophical
conversation. The analogy with the scholastic tradition of Neo-Platonic and
Neo-Aristotelian thought in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic cultures is striking:
reference to a shared resource of texts, terminology and ideas, and systematicity
in method facilitated a wide-ranging dialogue between diverse regions, cultures,
and religious perspectives. While key texts and terms remained consistent in later
periods, it was perhaps the relinquishing of systematicity as a goal in religious and
philosophical thinking in favour of a more free and individual style of reflection,
by prominent modern Hindu thinkers such as Swami Vivekananda, Dayananda
Sarasvati, and Sri Aurobindo, that led to the dispersal of the scholastic tradition of
Indian philosophy with its insistence on methodological and hermeneutic
accountability.

Jessica Frazier

Yet explicitly philosophical traditions were not the only venue for systematic
reasoning in the Hindu intellectual world. Intellectual historians such as Dominik
Wujastyk have identified systematic empirical methodologies at the root of Hindu
natural sciences such as medicine, veterinarian science, and astronomy. Medicine
leaps fully formed (Dominik Wujastyk, 2003) into the sam.hit@s of Caraka, Susruta,
and Bhela, and these compendious accounts of current practice describe a medical
culture in which competing theoriesemphasising breath, force, fluids, digestion
and metabolism, or the three humours, for instancewere debated amongst
practitioners (Meulenbeld). The existence of detailed means for testing hypotheses, and also for preserving ones reputation if failure threatened, attest to a
community that drew on a significant history of practice. Indeed, one of the earliest uses of the notion of pram@n. as, foundations of knowledge, is in relation to
the science of accurate diagnosis. Approximately two thousand years later, both
astronomy and the Indian medical sciences continue to be practised in contemporary Indian communities.
Vedic sciences, such as mathematics and astronomy, are often accessible to
modern scholars only through the allusive record of their practical application
to ritual. Indeed, it is for this reason that Pythagoras was credited for the geometric theorem to which he gives his name: Indian mathematicians discovered the
rule first, but felt no need to document their proof of it in an expositional text, as
their main goal was an applied one. Nevertheless, the religio-scientific wonder at
discovering the natural order of mathematics, which we see in thinkers like
Pythagoras and Plato, finds a parallel in the Vedic emphasis on the mathematical
patterns instantiated in rituals, and even in the Tantric use of yantras and numbers as tokens that were believed to possess intrinsic power.
Frits Staal has been an enthusiastic champion of the grammatical tradition,
asking us not only to consider the sophistication of the Sanskrit science of language, but also to ask what reasoning underlay the application of such extraordinary precision to the informal natural phenomenon of our speech. Grammar, for
Panini and his peers, was not merely a practical science; like the natural sciences it
entailed the empirical charting of natural lawsin this case, of sound and semantics. Grammarians were not marshalling possible uses of language into practical
forms. They too saw themselves as discovering truth in the underlying structures of
which natural language is only a crude representation.
Those who wrote on poetics similarly took to their subject like cartographers on
a voyage of discovery, attempting to map out the semantics of literary expression
and the nature of language itself, the science of emotional manipulation through
the theatrical arts, and in later philosophies of rasa. Thinkers such as
Abhinavagupta and R+pa Gosv@mi also mapped the terrains of aesthetic and emotional response. Bharatas compendious N@t.ya S@stra, which lays out principles for
theatre construction, stagecraft, costume, music, acting, and aesthetic effect, demonstrates the purpose of some s@stras to wholly capture and encompass a

Reason and rationality in Hindu Studies

discipline of Indian culture; it is almost as if their authors were aware of the

danger that the tradition might be dispersed over time and distance.
Turning towards more explicitly pragmatic and prescriptive sciences, others
have emphasised the importance of political philosophy and jurisprudence in
Indian culture. In the science of dharma, we find both texts that use explanatory
and prescriptive reasoning, such as the now famous Dharma S@stra of Manu, and
texts that use narrative reasoning to explain, explore, and recommend right
action, as in the Pancatantra or the Mah@bh@rata. Yet these texts represent only
the aspirational political theology of cosmopolitan society rather than its practice; it is precisely their ideational construction of an ordered society, supported
by reasoned roles, principles, and purposes, which sought to provide a dharmic
rationale to a complex Indian society. In this sense, we are reminded that dharma
itself is not seen as the mere apodictic expression of a divine will, but a rational
order to which we and the world naturally give assent.
Further, while Manus treatise has tended in the past to be seen as a religious
text, when viewed as part of the broader discussion of life-goals that included
k@ma, pleasure, and artha, success, it helps us to see the individual sciences, religious as well as secular, as part of a holistic Sanskrit intellectual culture with a
passion for enshrining its achievements within systematic scientific traditions.
Whatever changes these traditions encompassed, they attest to the obvious yearning of the Sanskrit world of letters to construct for itself a discursive universe that
transcends the vicissitudes of history (Minkowski, 2002).
India, reason, and the West
The academic recognition of these and other Indian rational traditions has effected
a major shift in academic views of Hinduism. Hindu thought had often been portrayed in the West as uncritically credulous in its adherence to revealed truths.
This tendency was seen as the sign of a culture that unquestioningly accepted
authority, as proved by the fact that it had allowed itself to be dominated by
other cultures (a feature that suggested a neat vindication of the colonial enterprise). Apologists for the British Empire portrayed Indian thought as standing in
contrast to the rigorous scepticism of the West, and this image, which made its
way into academic texts, provided an Orientalist counterpoint to the
Enlightenment ideals that dominated European modernity.
But the gradual acknowledgement that the Western tradition is paralleled by an
equally ancient and sophisticated Indian history of reasoning (as well as Chinese
and other traditions), speaks in support of those who have encouraged us to take a
historicist view of Western reason all alongthinkers such as Imre Lakatos,
Michel Foucault, and Thomas Kuhn. Cross-cultural perspectives reveal the
Western formulation of human reason, seen since Plato as an essential, universal,
and equalising human activity, to be contingent. In The Order of Things, Michel
Foucault used the imaginary example of Jorge Luis Borges imaginary Chinese

Jessica Frazier

Encyclopedia, full of unfamiliar classifications, to open up a critical paradigm for

thinking about the wider range of possibilities within which any particular notion
of reason stands. While logic reveals universal structures to which thought must
adhere, the activities of reason are diverse enough to invite widely varying methods and manifestations.
Foucaults analysis of the mediation of social power through philosophies and
sciences looms large in this volume. The articles by Patrick Olivelle and
Mandakranta Bose both note the ways in which texts mediate authoritatively
prescribed actions into the lives, and onto the bodies, of those who enacted
the Indian philosophies of law and dance, respectively. But while we only have
access to the prescriptive theoretical dimension of jurisprudence (which, as
Olivelle reminds us, is the only part of the legal process available to us in the
legal texts), Boses speculation on the interpretive practice of dancers in relation
to prescriptive aesthetics, exposes a two-sided process in which the individual
grapples with the imposed order mediated through the text. Foucault has
described the way in which, in the West, the latent struggle between social authority and individual reason can turn the process of reasoning into a
battle-ground. Yet, the battles that take place in the Indian tradition are formed
by quite different approaches to authority, and a Foucauldian analysis could be
done of the uniquely Hindu struggles that have taken place on the field of ideas.
Indeed, this is something to which Sheldon Pollock has contributed with his analysis of the way in which Sanskrit texts mediated authority in an exceptionally
diverse culture.
Indian notions of reason are themselves different from the post-Enlightenment
Western conceptions that still prevail in modern political thought. Arindam
Chakrabarti makes the point that Indian reasoning may be rational without displaying other characteristics of the Western model of reason, such as hedonism,
individualism, positivism, and the goal of domination (Chakrabarti, 1997). The
Platonic picture of reason as separate from the body and its passions, which has
been much criticised in the West by Nietzsche, Foucault, and also feminist philosophers of religion, is challenged by thorough study of the Indian traditions.
While championing a stilled form of consciousness, both Patanjalis yoga and
the metaphysics of the S@m.khya tradition contrast pure consciousness with
both mind and matter, placing mental activity on a worldly continuum with
physical reality. Indian also holds that good reasoning can be passionate reasoning,
for in some accounts the emotions are seen as integral to mental reflection; the
term hr.daya, often translated as heart, is actually used to refer to the seat of both
mental and emotional activity.
Further, in India, individual reasoning often preferred to thrive and innovate
under the auspices of traditional authorities, rather than in opposition to them.
The commentarial tradition has facilitated a notion of individual reason that functions by immersion in the overall dialectic of good thinking. Classical writers
tended to eschew individualistic frameworks of authorship, frequently

Reason and rationality in Hindu Studies

incorporating their individual commentarial contributions into the over-arching

identity of the darsana or samprad@ya. But in most cases there was no notion of
orthodoxy, no right of veto by a central authority, to prevent the tradition from
remaining alive and fluid through this generative activity of the individual pupil or
commentator. As Jonardon Ganeri puts it in this issue, healthy traditions are not
insular; rather, they are able to absorb and assimilate external influences. There
was no need to rebel against the tradition, because the tradition allowed for
innovation.
Thus this affirmation of reason-within-tradition did not imply a stultifying dogmatismrather such Indian traditions of reason tried to put the diverse multifaceted insights of the community of reasoning individuals into the service of a
greater understanding of the world, or a richer elaboration of its guiding principles. Through the meticulous hermeneutics of source texts, such elaboration
could even encompass a dialectical opposition to the founding principles of the
tradition, as when non-dual Advaitic thinkers sought to explain the one-ness of
reality by reference to its radical plurality. The commentarial convention secures
the individuals ability to challenge the conclusions of a school, turning it in new
directions, without undermining its value and authority in other ways. Individuals
are able to remain linked to a broader democratic community whilst remaining
under the broader umbrellas of canon and charisma. As Chakravarthi Ramprasad
has pointed out in respect of anek@ntavada, the doctrine of many-pointedness, this
is a tradition that is not disturbed by the thought that there may be many sides to
a single issue and many sides to a single truth (Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, 2007).
Critical thinking, intellectual freedom and verification
Study of Indian intellectual culture has identified not only distinctively Indian
traditions of reasoning, but also distinctively Indian methods of reasoning used
within them, many of which go beyond the empirical, inferential, and verificationist methods that are most common in the Western analytical model. While the
identification of such alternatives is sometimes impeded by the unfamiliarity of
the genre, nevertheless one could construct a taxonomy of some of the distinguishing features of Indian traditions of reason.
Philosophical dialogue, critical thinking, objectivity and public reason
Karin Preisendanz, for instance, has emphasised the conditions of cultural production that accompanied such traditions, from the proliferation of written texts,
to the style of inter-textual, inter-disciplinary, and inter-sectarian referential discourse that they contained. This dialogic inter-textual character of rational discourse is present not only in the compendious texts of the Upanis.ads and the
Bhagavad Gat@, but also in reference to other views and imaginary opponents or
p+rva-paks.ins in the work of medieval philosopher-theologians, and in the

Jessica Frazier

synthetic style of reflection adopted in the Pur@n. as and by some early-modern

bhakti theologians who claimed a Ved@ntic lineage but drew equally upon S@m.khya
metaphysics and tantric, Muslim, and other kinds of material. The tendency for a
particular doctrine to gain the upper hand tended to obscure other competing
views, a fact which led the Indian intellectual output to look slimmer than it really
was. But Johannes Bronkhorsts work on Greater Magadha, like that of scholars
working in Tamil and other vernacular languages, has helped to paint a picture of
India as a society of multiple cultural strands existing in a state of vigorous
interaction.
Yet however diverse, each of the voices in this community followed a consistent
methodology that ensured its rational character. Bimal Matilal highlights scepticismthe maintenance of a consistent questioning attitude and its attendant willingness to face objectionsas the feature that unites a range of Indian rational
traditions, from the Buddhism of Nagarjuna to the Advaitic thought of Sriharsa.
For Matilal, it was not the search for truth that was the defining mark of such
critical disciplines. Rather it was a more general concern with the justification or
rightness of certain principles, concepts or ideas (Matilal, 2004). This helpfully
illuminates the sense in which non-empirical sciences of aesthetics, statecraft, or
jurisprudence could also operate as rational traditions, arguing their positions and
striving for a consistent critical adherence to the best of human thinking. Unlike
epistemology and the natural sciences, they search not for truth but rather for a
sort of rational, publicly accessible reasonableness. In this way, rational argumentation acted as an invitation to future unknown participants to enter the conversation and check, change, accept, or perhaps reject what is expressed in them. Any
ideas that are reasoned, are implicitly making an appeal for universal assent.
Sheldon Pollock has pointed out the freedom of thought that Hindu intellectuals
enjoyed to a far greater degree than those of Christian and Islamic cultures: the
only censorship in India is failure of imagination, and the only dogma, uncritiqued
tradition (Pollock, 2001). This does not, however, mean that these free intellectuals were not committed to goals and authorities. Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
writes of the Indian traditions of reflection that there is no doubt that . . . to
seek knowledge was to seek it for the end that it would deliver (Chakravarthi
Ram-Prasad, 2007). Yet many people have assimilated Hans-Georg Gadamers point
that commitment to a particular end, or bias, does not automatically indicate a
conscious distortion of the perceived facts for personal purposes. All inquiries are
shaped by starting concepts and underlying goals which differ from those that
others would assume.
Thus in the present volume, Jonardon Ganeri has sought to lay a systematic
foundation for the recognition that rationality and prejudice can go hand in hand,
by employing Amartya Sens notion of positional objectivity as a way to make
sense of the distinction between good bias and bad bias. The truth-seeker starts
out with a question asked on the basis of a particular position, identifies certain
sources and methods of access to truth, and then builds conclusions that are

Reason and rationality in Hindu Studies

faithful to the information gained through them. Such inquiry is objective, even
though its valid conclusions may differ from those of other inquirers with other
starting points (i.e. it is objective in a way that is relative to ones position). The
thinker who is subject to bad prejudice, however, is not faithful to the sources
and rules that he has set up for himself. He lets his desire for a particular result
override his commitment to truth, and predetermine his conclusion. It is the
capricious and sophistic arts which are the counterpoints to traditions of
reasoning.
Many rational traditions subjected their theories to the test of best fit to empirical experience, which meant that they had to be able to stand up in public
arenas of dissemination, whether performed (in sung narratives or formal debates)
or private (in texts and private research). Here ideas had to be verified and confirmed. The narrative reasoning found in the arts also had its means of verification, with new ideas being informally vetted through the process of retelling or
omission as the sequence of performances unfolded. Far from the image of the
lone scholar agonising over difficult problems, this public process of collaborative
reasoning has produced some of the traditions most influential philosophical and
theological texts.
Alternative methods and models
Formal observational and inferential techniques were also complemented by other
methods of reasoning. One such method was the practice of classificatory analysis
to good effect, using categories to parse out the object of study. Others used
analogies to try out different explanatory accounts of the world. Narrative reasoning, used in stories to reveal the practical implications of given models and
principles, were particularly helpful for assessing the ethical, psychological, and
soteriological implications of certain beliefs. Phenomenological description of
mental states was also employed in a systematic way at an early stage in the
Indian tradition; it is used in a fragmentary way in the Upanis.ads and more systematically in texts such as the Yoga-S+tra, or in the later aesthetic treatises of
Abhinavagupta and others who attempted to catalogue the emotions.
Indian approaches, developing in both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, have
been particularly good at bringing the limits of reason itself into the sphere of
understanding. The assumption in early Ved@ntic and S@m.khya traditions that a
pure form of consciousness is possible, devoid of mental content, provided a platform on which to reflect on the limitations of thought, and to think about truths
that by their very nature are not accessible to thought. The Kena Upanis.ad says of
reality that He by whom it is not thought, by him it is thought; he by whom it is
thought, knows it not. It is not understood by those who understand it, it is
understood by those who do not understand it. It thereby invites rationality to
develop methods of transcending or cancelling its own normal action. One implication here (a conclusion often found in Taoist thought), is that reason can

Jessica Frazier

sometimes act most effectively in the world by suspending its own activity: observing but not analysing, holding contradictions together in the imagination to
achieve a multi-faceted viewpoint, or letting emotions and natural functions
follow their own implacable momentum.
One might also speak of the sacral or transformative reasoning of tantric liturgy,
the emotional reasoning of bhakti devotion, and the naturalisation of social kinds
through the system of defaults and exceptions used in Dharma-S@stra. In short,
the Indian arts and sciences are a rich resource for styles of reasoning - ways of
developing new material that is faithful to framework ideas and authorities, subject to systematic methodological traditions that unite new and old participants,
and accountable to the public reason of the community at large.
Five articles on reason and rationality in Hindu Studies
In the articles which follow, different methods and goals of reasoning are explored
through the disciplines of philosophy, philosophical theology, jurisprudence, and
aesthetics. Jonardon Ganeri, who has worked so extensively to encourage a
broader acknowledgement and understanding of Indian rational traditions, reflects here on the criteria of philosophy.
Drawing on his prolific study of Indian philosophical thought, Jonardon Ganeri
seeks to provide a hermeneutic framework for understanding Indian notions of
rationality and objectivity. A philosophy that does not assume metaphysical realism can still eschew relativism by pursuing positional objectivity; a search for
truth that is determined by its conditions of time, place, and culture. Ganeri discerns a certain organic pattern in the growth and decay of intellectual traditions,
progressing towards a particular form in which their guiding ideas can be fulfilled,
and even argues that the increasing shift of Indian philosophical reflection into
the lecture halls of the Anglo-analytic philosophical academy is a case of just such
an organic growth out of Indias colonial history. What emerges from his article is
a new appraisal of Indian philosophy as the site of a distinctive positional approach to truth which is both ancient and strikingly contemporary.
Patrick Olivelles article explores the reasoning behind the forms of penance and
punishment prescribed for different crimes in the Dharma S@stras. In it, he applies
Michel Foucaults critical analysis of social ideology to these texts, and shows that
they sought to mediate complex webs of power and legitimation within Sanskritic
culture. Utilitarian purposes for corporal punishment (it recognisably marks out
criminals), combine with an appeal to natural law; crimes are manifested on the
body, whether through humanly inflicted punishment (criminal penalties) or naturally inflicted punishment (rebirths in animal or deformed bodies). Classical texts
such as the Dharma S@stras have received much attention over the centuries, but
little attention of this subtle hermeneutic kind, which seeks exposition of the
implicit messages and effects of the text. In bringing Foucault, Peter Berger and
Thomas Luckmann, Pierre Boudieu into dialogue with this text, Olivelle reminds us

10

Reason and rationality in Hindu Studies

that the Vedic concern to establish order through ritual, language, and law is not
only a theological desideratum but a reflection of a basic and universal human
need for stability.
While most medieval Hindu intellectual history suffers from a lack of biographical and social information with which to illuminate the context in which the ideas
were disseminated, Jacqueline Suthren Hirsts article is an exemplary case of careful detective work that could only have been done by a scholar who has spent a
lifetime with the texts of a single figure from the past. Her aim is to reveal the
background personal emotions, social relations and intellectual context of
Sam.karas writing by using register theory to analyse Sam.karas impassioned
treatment of a particular sect. As she meticulously rules out the unlikely matches
and closes in on the identity of this sect about whom he is so derogatory, the
centuries seem to fold inwards and we are led towards the intriguing notion that
Sam.kara might already have encountered, in his lifetime, the earliest glimmering
of the philosophical position that would be his main competitor centuries after his
death. The exercise gives a striking sense of the crowded community of debaters in
which thinkers like Sam.kara lived, and brings to life the polemical content of what
for many seem to be merely propositional ideas.
Mandakranta Boses article on the interpretation of classical descriptions of
Indian dance is also a piece of textual detective work, in that it attempts to discover clues to the aesthetic taste that informed the detailed technical descriptions of Bharata. Like Olivelle, she shows that S@stra is a medium which begs the
question of the underlying rationale informing its rules. In this case, she must
uncover the sense of beauty that governed the art, and in doing so, we see that she
is following in the footsteps of dancers who must also have had to interpret such
texts in the light of aesthetic considerations. Her article provides a
thought-provoking window onto hidden processes of interpretive interaction
that went on between the sources, mediators, and receivers of tradition.
Finally, Tim Dobe explores the ways in which, in the midst of Hindu Renaissance
movements of reform and revival, a new theological authority is claimed by
Day@nanda Sarasvata. Using the model of Sarasvata as an Indian Lutheran
image that the Arya Samaj itself propagatedDobe analyses the rationales on
which he drew. Sarasvata appears both in Hindu terms as a r..si, an irascible individual whose insights are presented as a form of response to contemporary social
inadequacies in the maintenance of dharma, and in Christian terms as a protest
reformer who opposes egalitarian access to originary scripture to the hierarchical,
ritualistic rule of decadent religious leaders who he referred to as popes.
Ultimately, Hindu religious innovation is given a fresh identity as a form of
social protest, and conversely a distinctly Hindu form of protestant religion is
suggested. Dobes study is an important step forwarding in correcting the image of
the modern Hindu thinkers as unsystematic, irrational, and alienated from the
classical traditions. Rather he depicts Sarasvata as drawing on Vedic, Epic, and

Jessica Frazier

11

Puranic narratives of dharma and adharma, and frameworks of powerful and

personally authoritative protest.
In these studies in the history of Indian philosophical, legal, aesthetic and theological thought, we see glimpses of the wider framework of systematic reasoning
that underpinned the intellectual output of a vast culture. The formalisation of the
human relationship to truth in these disciplines helped all scientists, philosophers,
jurists, artists, and theologians to secure the conditions for a thriving intellectual
culture: participation in each tradition made available a range of authoritative
sources, reliable methods, clear motivations, textual and metaphysical resources,
discursive communities, and committed collaborators. It is clear that Hindu
thought cannot be properly understood without an awareness of this background;
for the religious cultures of India, these sciences, both prescriptive and descriptive, natural and super-natural in their remit, furnished the foundation on which
religious thoughts, arts, and practice were able to develop. They are essential to
the complex coherence of Hindu culture.
References
Bimal Krishna Matilal, 1999. The Character of Logic in India, Jonardon Ganeri and Heeraman
Tiwari (eds.), p. 33. New Delhi: Oxford University Press (Trans. From Tenckner, 1962).
Wujastyk, D., 2003. The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Meulenbeld, G.J. Studies on Indian Medical History, G.J. Meulenbeld, D. Wujastyk (eds.).
Minkowski, C., 2002. The Pandit as public intellectual: The controversy over virodha or
inconsistency in the Astronomical Sciences. In: A. Michaels. (ed.), The Pandit:
Traditional Scholarship in India, p. 2. New Delhi: Manohar Publications.
Chakrabarti, A., 1997. Rationality in Indian thought. In: E. Deutsch, R. Bontekoe. (eds.),
A Companion to World Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Companion to World Philosophy.
Chakravarthi, Ram-Prasad, 2007. Indian Philosophy and the Consequences of Knowledge: Themes
in Ethics, Metaphysics and Soteriology, p. xi. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Matilal, B.K., 2004. Logical and Ethical Issues: An Essay on Indian Philosophy of Religion, p. 53.
New Delhi: Chronicle Books.
Pollock, S., 2001. New intellectuals in seventeenth century India, The Indian Economic and
Social History Review, p. 30. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

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