The present paper explores and analyzes one intriguing form of death called self-willed death (Icchā maraṇa) as depicted in Mahābhārata in light of the contemporary debate between Bruce Sullivan and Phillip Ernest about the distinction between yogayukta and non-yogayukta forms of it. In the first part, the paper presents Sullivan’s distinction between yogayukta, one with disenchantment, world-weariness, and detachment with that of non-yogayukta, the one attached to glory, honor, and power which is contested by Ernest. While taking the debate further, (...) the paper argues that proper understanding of the concept of Icchā maraṇa requires a deeper analysis of the distinction between ‘will’ and ‘self-will’ and adequate study of the conception of life and death that the epic depicts. After taking up these two tasks in the second and third parts, the fourth section assesses the debate in light of the above two sections analysis. It argues that ‘self-will’ is an expression of freedom where the individual prescribes conditions, unlike the ordinary ‘will’ where choice is between available alternatives. This distinction leads us to the death of Bhīṣma, which is Icchā maraṇa in its presented form that moves beyond the distinction available in the debate between Sullivan and Ernest. (shrink)

One common interpretation of the orthodox Indian prohibition on desire is that it is a prohibition on phenomenologically salient desires. The Nyāyasūtra and Brahmasiddhi seem to support this view. I argue that this interpretation is mistaken. The Vedāntins draw a distinction between counting some fact as a reason for acting (icchā) and counting one's desire (rāga) as a reason for acting, and prohibit the latter. The Naiyāyikas draw a distinction between desiring to avoid some state of affairs (dveṣa) and believing (...) that some state of affairs is unimportant (vairāgya), and advocate the latter. Both deny that the state to which the English word 'desire' refers is a necessary condition of acting. (shrink)

This philosophical meditation, which deals with death as question, presence, and even teacher, begins with Ramchandra Gandhi’s penetrating essay ‘On Meriting Death.’ What does it mean ‘to merit’ death? To provide an answer, I travel through RCG’s corpus, in dialog with contemporary theorists such as Sri Aurobindo, Daya Krishna, and Mukund Lath. RCG implies that the question about ‘meriting’ death, and life, is not and cannot be ‘personal’ or ‘isolated’. For X to die, is for his close and distant samāj (...) a matter of losing him and living without him. Hence meriting death, as also life, is a joint venture which involves deep understanding regarding non-isolation as the heart of the human situation. RCG’s creative thinking, or svarāj in ideas, reaches its peak when he dares to offer an answer of his own to the piercing question kim āścaryam, ‘what is amazing?’ raised in the Yakṣa-praśna episode of the Mahābhārata. For RCG, the heart of the matter is not the ‘ungraspability’ of one’s unavoidable death, or the perennial search for ‘permanence’ in vain, but our failure to perceive ‘that in the martyā which is amṛta,’ i.e., a sense of solidarity in the face of death, connecting ‘I and Thou,’ which he derives from the icchā mṛtyu of his grandfather, the famous Mahatma. (shrink)

It is well known that Utpaladeva’s (c. 925–975) articulation of the Pratyabhijñā deviates in style and substance from that of his teacher, Somānanda (fl. c. 900–950), and that the former’s Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikās (along with two auto-commentaries) come to be regarded as the definitive formulation of the school’s philosophy almost from the moment they were first composed. In this essay, I argue that while the spirit and general philosophical contours of Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi serve as the basis for all subsequent writings in the (...) history of the Pratyabhijñā, Somānanda nevertheless articulates a philosophical monism that is both pantheistic and absent in its essentials from Utpaladeva’s oeuvre. This pantheism, I further suggest, stands in contrast to Utpaladeva’s panentheistic monism, which while compatible with Somānanda’s philosophical vision is nevertheless articulated in different terms: Somānanda emphasizes the functioning of Śiva’s power(s), while Utpaladeva articulates a monism based on the identification of paired opposites. In doing so, this essay identifies Somānanda’s unique contributions to the history of the Pratyabhijñā. (shrink)