The Humanities:

Methodology and
Perspectives

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 The Humanities:
Methodology and
Perspectives

Abhijit Kundu
Pramod K. Nayar
Shweta

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 Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd
Licensees of Pearson Education in South Asia

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 Contents

One Understanding the Humanities 1

Introduction 1
Differences Between the Natural, Social and Human Sciences 2
Facts and Interpretation 7
History as Fiction 8
Study of the Natural World as Compared to the Subjective 10
Study of Tastes, Values and Belief Systems 15
The Question of Ideology 17

Two Language, Culture and Identity 20

The Relation Between Language, Culture and Subjectivity 21
The Question of Agency in Language 26
The Social Construction of Reality 28
Language in History 30
Language in Relation to Class, Caste, Race and Gender 31
Language and Colonialism 36

Three Narration and Representation 40

Reality and/as Representation 42
Narrative Modes of Thinking 46
Narration in Literature, Philosophy and History 48
Textuality and Reading 58

Four Indian Philosophy 64

Origin and Development of Indian Philosophical Systems 64
What Is Knowledge? 75
Concepts of Knowledge in the Indian Tradition 81

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 vi CONTENTS

Methodologies of the Indian Knowledge Systems 87

Indian Theories of Knowledge 90

Multiple Choice Questions 111

Glossary 117
About the Authors 123

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 1 Understanding the Humanities

ABHIJIT KUNDU

Chapter outline
• Introduction
• Differences between the natural, social and human sciences
• Facts and interpretation
• History as fiction
• Study of the natural world as compared to the subjective
• Study of tastes, values and belief systems
• The question of ideology
• Review exercises

INTRODUCTION

W
hat do we understand by the word ‘humanities’? The clas-
sical Greek notion of humanities was to provide a basis of a
broad education for the Greek citizens. The concept of lib-
eral arts has its roots in such a tradition. However, the term ‘humanities’
probably appeared first during the Italian Renaissance in relation to the
education of Christians for their moral and spiritual development. To-
day, the term refers to those disciplines of knowledge which are broadly

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 2 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

concerned with human thoughts, creative expressions and culture, and

are classified as non-science academic disciplines.
Broadly speaking, humanities include the various branches of knowl-
edge which explore the process of creative intervention that humans
make in imaginatively interpreting and expressing the meanings of their
lived-in experiences. For example, various forms of literature such as
novels, short stories, poetry, drama and so on, represent various ways
of articulating the meanings of peoples’ life experiences. This articu-
lation within literature can vary significantly in terms of space, time
and geographical location. Take for instance James Joyce’s ‘Eveline’, a
short story in his book The Dubliners, which is confined to a moment’s
experience in the protagonist’s life when she is leaving with her fiancé
to Buenos Aires. In contrast, Tolstoy’s classic novel, War and Peace,
presents a huge panorama of characters, locations and events.
Though a precise definition of the humanities may be difficult, the
following disciplines are generally recognized as part of the humani-
ties: (a) the classics; (b) literature and languages; (c) philosophy;
(d) religion; (e) visual and performing arts; and ( f ) history. Aiming
to decipher both the rational and irrational ways and experiences of
life, the humanities explore the process of how human beings con-
struct a world of meanings and interpretations around their lives. To
create an intellectual-spiritual sense of the lived world is the concern
of humanities.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NATURAL, SOCIAL

AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES

What is Science?
Science can be understood as a systematic study of all things, natural
and social. Scientific knowledge can be defined as a set of verified
and verifiable statements about all phenomena. As a continuous and
cumulative activity, science engages in,
• gathering of data in a methodical manner;
• analysis of the data;
• determination of the relationships between facts; and
• formulation of causal explanations.

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 3

The explanations/predictions/rules are then continuously verified

and validated. The scientific method involves generating testable
hypotheses in order to make predictions as well as the ability to re-
fute and falsify hypotheses. Science is the act of arriving at the ‘truth’,
and the process of finding the most accurate method to do so.
Conventionally, science has been committed to empirically prov-
able/proven ideas. Empirical proof, that is, objective ‘truth’ which is
verifiable through sense perception, is supposed to be the hallmark
of a scientific exercise. In this sense, the goal of science is to arrive at
absolute truth unshakable by criticism. As scientific method focuses
on accuracy and objectivity, nothing can be a more appropriate
object of study than the world of natural phenomena.

Natural Sciences
The scientific study of the external, natural world is termed as the
natural sciences. In the study of the natural world, the scientific
method is clearly at its explicit best. The empirical reality is open to
observation lent by our sense perceptions. The subject matter can
all be studied and examined from outside. Thereby, a high degree
of predictability can be ensured by scientific method with respect to
the workings of the natural world. Here the data can be quantified,
selected and classified in the most objective manner.
The natural sciences acquire knowledge through the direct observation
of phenomenon. They try to support or refute their hypotheses about
causal relations between phenomena by undertaking controlled experi-
ments. The conclusions drawn through a series of such experiments
help scientists create axioms which can be correctly applied to the nat-
ural world. The study of the physical realm concentrates on what the
physical realm has been and how it has evolved into its present form.
The disciplines that are categorized as natural sciences are astrono-
my, earth sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, and their several bur-
geoning fields and subfields. The growth of modern science since the
late 17th century and its contribution to the modern life have given
it an incomparable power and legitimacy as the most reliable form
of knowledge, and its methods as the best way to arrive at the ‘truth’
of phenomena. This has largely occurred due to the expansion and
phenomenal increase in the accuracy and applicability of knowledge
created by the natural sciences.

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 4 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

Social Sciences
Everything that can be studied can be divided into two kinds of phe-
nomena, natural and social. Natural phenomena exist without the
intervention of people whereas social phenomena are something that
exists only as a result of human interaction. When social behaviour
of human beings is explained and predicted with the help of scientific
methods, the body of knowledge thus created is called social science. Dis-
ciplines of study that fall under the umbrella term social science are
sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology and economics.
An interesting characteristic of the social sciences is that they are close
to the humanities in their analysis of human interaction and the sub-
jective world, but they apply the scientific method to their subject mat-
ter. As science claims the status of the most reliable method to arrive
at truth, all the social sciences, at least in their inception, emulated the
methods of natural sciences, and claimed the status of a science.
Scientific inquiry did make great gains while dealing with physics,
chemistry, biology and other fields pertaining to the natural environ-
ment. Quite predictably, the method which achieved such gains was
embraced by social science disciplines. But since the social sciences were
dealing with the social environment, could that same scientific method
be applied to explain and, if possible, predict human behaviour?
In fact, the natural and social sciences differ quite a bit in their meth-
ods, their subject matter, and even their aims. In the natural sciences,
we get an insight into what things are, were or would be. On the
other hand, even without explicitly prescribing anything, social sci-
ences are involved intimately with the problem of ‘what is’ and ‘what
should be’. At a philosophical level, they are usually involved with
the question of the betterment of their subject, the ‘humankind’ in
general. This difference originates from the nature of the subject
matter of the natural and social sciences. While the external world,
the world of natural phenomena is quantifiable, directly perceiv-
able, measurable, and controllable, thereby lending it easy for the
scientist to apply his/her methods, the social world is necessarily way
more complicated, and involves subjectivity, values, beliefs, moral,
and biases. Also, the human experience is open to interpretation in
a myriad ways, both rational and irrational. In fact, the question of
how to be neutral and objective in applying the scientific method in
social sciences has been a matter of constant debate.

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 5

Humanities
Disciplines that study human conditions, in its entirety, could be
generally called humanities. Along with various performing arts and
philosophy, language and literature are considered to be the central
humanities disciplines. The natural and social sciences rest mainly
on empirical methods, whereas humanities employ the methods that
are creative and speculative in nature. Humanities emphasize anal-
ysis and exchange of ideas rather than the causal and quantitative
explanation of sciences. Therefore, humanities provide us with the
stories, the ideas, and the words that helps us make sense of our lives
and our world. By elaborating how others have lived and thought
about life, the humanities help us decide what is important in our
own lives and what we can do to make them better. By connecting us
with others, they point the way to answer questions such as what is
wrong or right, or what is true to our heritage and our history.
Humanities emphasize the role of meaning, purpose and goals of hu-
man condition. It essentially promotes an understanding of unique
social and historical phenomenon and events. It never attempts to
explain the causality of events, so there is no search for objective truths
in case of humanities. As interpretive disciplines, humanities often
employ narrative imagination as an important tool in the production
and reproduction of meanings of culture, literature and history.
Disciplines such as philosophy, history, psychology and econom-
ics clearly show that the humanities and social sciences have many
overlaps. Philosophy, a synthesis of all forms of exact and inexact
knowledge, and historically the source of all the sciences as well as
social sciences, is a humanities discipline.
Philosophy cannot indulge in experiments but offers a critical sys-
tematic approach unlike many other disciplines attempting to com-
ment on human existence. Philosophy relies on reasoned argument.
Traditionally, the study of history has been considered as a humani-
ties discipline but in the modern times history enjoys an ambigu-
ous status. As the focus of history shifted more on chronology and
its method metamorphosed to follow the methods popular in social
sciences, history in modern academia is more popularly designated
as a social science only. Psychology, economics and sociology em-
ploy complex quantitative research techniques commonly used in
the natural sciences.

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 6 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

The Scientific Method

Over the years, the scientific community has realized that such cer-
tainty as the natural sciences seek can be applied only to logic and
mathematics, and that the overemphasis on empirical proof limits
the scope of the scientific method. It is said that the scientific meth-
od should aim at arriving at a ‘probable certainty’ rather than the
absolute, empirically provable ‘truth’. The question is: why such a
shift has occurred?
More and more areas of the perceptible world are coming under the
spirit of science. As human knowledge is moving away from specula-
tive (not based on direct experience) understanding, there has been
an ambition to subject those areas of social and cultural life, which
previously were considered as esoteric subjects or matter of creative
intellectual reflection, to scientific enquiry. For example, caste or
gender related prejudices, which are part of commonsensical knowl-
edge and influence our behaviour towards fellow human beings, are
subjected to systematic study by sociologists to reveal the truth be-
hind them.
A new way to conceptualize science is to recognize that varied
subject-matter need varied forms of interpretation. We are then
compelled to acknowledge at this point that a distinction between
natural sciences, social sciences and humanities would facilitate us
to elaborate upon the question: why do we have different kind of
explanatory principles vis-à-vis different objects of study.
What is important in science is of course ‘What we know’, but what is
more important is ‘how we know’. First of all, we need to admit that
there are different ways of knowing the world, be it natural or social.
Secondly, the method of acquiring knowledge must take into consid-
eration what it seeks to know. That is, there is no single method of
knowing. Every method needs to satisfy the very nature of the subject
it tries to know. A very simple example is, if we are interested to know
the various physical forms of water, we can undertake the experiment
in a laboratory. But if we want to study the movements of the planets
in the sky, we will need different kinds of tools and techniques. Even
further, if we want to know how a particular group of people ‘feel’
about a certain political party, and how this feeling gets reflected in
their voting patterns, we will need to use entirely different methods.

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 7

The widely held classical notion of exactness of scientific knowl-

edge has been subjected to controversy for a long time. The quest
for exactness in knowledge is fundamentally based on the pursuit
of objective knowledge. But paradoxically, every branch of science
in pursuit of objective knowledge has encountered the problem of
the right method to arrive at the ‘objective truth’, something that is
universally provable and verifiable.
The issue is of more significance when we recognize that studies of
nature and society are different, and that lived-experience can be in-
terpreted in a myriad ways. This means that the idea of ‘objective truth’
varies as well. So, the physical and natural world can be known with the
senses, but society cannot be studied this way. This explains why social
sciences/humanities have to be different from the natural sciences.

FACTS AND INTERPRETATION

The inadequacy of replicating the methods of natural sciences is

seriously debated in social science circles. A major area of humani-
ties/social sciences is to do with human values and motivations. The
varied subjective dimensions of the social world make it imperative
to rework the ideals of science. Here we encounter the crucial cul-
tural quotient that defines social research: the role of values and ide-
ology figure prominently in deciphering the ‘facts’ of social sciences.
But, let us first see what we mean by facts.
Derived from the Latin word Factum, a fact means something that
can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened. Facts are
reality of something, the truth or actual existence of something, as
opposed to the supposition or a belief about something. Therefore,
facts have an objective and finite existence. So, they are perceptible
directly to human senses. Their objective existence allows them to be
tested in terms of the existing methods of science.
Fact is sometimes used as synonymous with truth or reality, as dis-
tinguishable from conclusions or opinions. The question of objectivity
and truth are intrinsically related to the idea of looking for ‘facts’. As
science bases its knowledge on a systematic collection, observation,
interpretation and analysis of facts, various scientific disciplines have
engaged themselves in theorising their subject matter as ‘facts’.

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 8 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

E.H. Carr in his book What is History? argues that facts cannot be
conceived without an inherent framework of interpretation and
value judgment. The very process of the gathering of facts, which in-
volves selection and choice, and then the sifting, categorization, and
analysis and interpretation of data, makes the idea of objective truth
problematic, especially when we are talking of the human realm.
It is important to understand that ‘facts’ are always selected, col-
lected, analysed and interpreted, within a theoretical/hypothetical
framework, which are always based on certain assumptions/value
judgments. Therefore, the idea of a completely value-neutral science,
independent of subjective interpretation, based on ‘facts’, is question-
able. This is more so for the social sciences and humanities where
subjective interpretation of facts by human beings plays a greater
role in research than the natural sciences.

HISTORY AS FICTION

History studies the past. Such a broad idea, however, does not really
help us to come up with a useful definition of history. The past in-
cludes anything and everything that has happened before, but ‘the
study’ of such past involves a certain approach or way of compre-
hending all that happened in the past. That is, a historian needs to
study not everything that happened in the past, but what could be
said about the past.
There is a basic dilemma between whether history is a study of hu-
man affairs in the past or that of the natural events/phenomenon
(natural history). While dealing with the natural world’s history, the
historian could derive ‘cause and effect’ relationships effectively, but
dealing with the human affairs, the historians realize that they can-
not use the notion of causality in the strictly scientific sense. For
example, if one says that, the introduction of railways connected the
isolated parts of India during the colonial period—here the cause and
effect relationship is not so problematic. However, the next issue of,
such connectivity enhanced cultural unity of the diverse country can-
not be affirmed in a structured relationship of ‘cause and effect’.
Also, by literally unearthing artefacts, discovering manuscripts, or
meticulously recovering the details of any significant happening, a

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 9

historian may choose to develop a narrative—an account of ‘what

happened’ in terms of the sequence of events. But how far the ‘story’
is governed exclusively by the collected ‘facts’ or being shaped by the
imaginative faculty (thereby speculative) of the historian is a serious
methodological question.
In modern times, history is regarded, if not as one of the social sci-
ences, then at least as an independent discipline that deals in ‘facts’,
not fancies. Prior to the French Revolution, historiography (the art
of constructing history) was conventionally regarded as a literary
art. Until late in the 19th century, most historians regarded them-
selves neither as social scientists (a concept that did not even exist
before the 19th century) nor as humanistic scholars, but rather as
literary men, men of letters. The stories they were telling were true,
of course, but nonetheless they were telling stories, just as though
they were novelists, and their job, as they saw it, was to tell their sto-
ries as vividly and poetically as any novelist. Only towards the end
of the 19th century, as the discipline of history was professionalized
and academicized gradually that a majority of practitioners in the
field had come to hold the view of their discipline that we now take
for granted—the historian as a dispassionate seeker after truth, using
scientific methods, a scholar much more like an anthropologist or
sociologist than a novelist or playwright.
It is difficult indeed to ignore the many similarities between the his-
torian’s task and that of the novelist. As Hayden White explains in
his book Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, the aim
of the writer of a novel must be the same as that of the writer of
history. Both wish to provide a verbal image of ‘reality’. The novel-
ist may present his notion of this reality indirectly, but the image of
reality which the novelist thus constructs is meant to correspond in
its general outline to some domain of human experience which is no
less ‘real’ than that referred to by the historian. To achieve this com-
mon end of ‘providing a verbal image of ‘reality’, both historians and
novelists tell stories.
It has been a perennial question in history, as far as its method is con-
cerned, whether it is concerned with only ‘objective facts’ or involved
in subjective interpretation. The question is whether history is just
an accumulation of facts or it does involve an interpretation of such
facts also? E.H. Carr, the British Marxist historian, in his book What

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 10 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

is History? addressed this question by asserting that the happenings

in the society in which the historian is placed have an enormous role
to play in the writing of history.
Historical facts are ‘facts’ as long as they are being collected, interpret-
ed and presented to us by a historian. The facts are always refracted
through the mind of the historian. So, the role of the historian and his/
her social positioning is also important when we encounter the work
of any historian. A historian writes history with an imaginative under-
standing of the people whom s/he is writing about. A historian is also
a product of his/her age, his/her present engagement with the reality
also has a bearing upon his/her writings. This brings us to the question
of subjectivity in works of history. It is a question of what is true and
what is false, and finally the dilemma of what is to be accepted as the
truth.
Neither a historian is a master of his/her facts nor is she/he to be
mastered by the facts. According to Carr, history is a continuous pro-
cess of interaction between the historian and his/her facts. In other
words, it is a continuous dialogue between the past and the present.
History cannot study a bit of process in isolation of its own term but
as a whole process of interconnectivity. So, a historian selects a part
of the past and connects it with what happened before it and what
followed after it. That way the ‘part’ is placed in a wider context. At
the last instance, history is the work of historians, who also have
views and assumptions about the world they live in. Instead of elimi-
nating these subjectivities, it is preferable to make them explicit.

STUDY OF THE NATURAL WORLD AS COMPARED

TO THE SUBJECTIVE

Humanities are not bound by the search for the causality of events.
The scientists’ preoccupation with finding the ‘truth’ of the natural/
social world is also not followed by the humanities. Instead, humani-
ties look for meanings, orientations and value laden interpretations
of the human world and its institutions. So, the fundamental differ-
ence between humanities and natural sciences or social sciences is to
be sought not only in their subject-matter, but also in their respec-
tive approach to the subject matter.

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 11

Unlike social or natural sciences that pursue universal rules and

explanations, humanities focus on the particular, and develop the
appreciation of meanings, imbued with creative imagination by
human beings. No final knowledge is sought here; in fact, it is the-
oretically impossible as works of humanities are embedded in the
lived experiences of its authors.
Humanities are essentially self-reflexive in character, that is, they
not only reflect upon the lived experience of human beings, but also
interpret the process of such reflection. Central to humanities is
the affirmation that self-reflection helps develop interpersonal con-
sciousness. Humanities explain human relationships, and answer
the fundamental question: what it means to be human.
H.G. Gadamer and Wilhelm Dilthey tried to enrich the methods
of humanities and re-examined its difference with natural sciences.
Introducing the concept of narrative imagination, contemporary
scholars of humanities have explored the possibility of placing their
disciplines closer to the social sciences. Of late, the possibility of
moving beyond one’s own world of experiences is underscored by
scholars of humanities.
We must acknowledge that knowledge pertaining to our social world
is almost always connected to value-judgments. This being so, much
of social scientific texts are written in wider systems of social belief
and structures of social interest. On the contrary, literature may not
be shaped so much by value-judgments, but it intrinsically is val-
ued writing. Any attempt to strip literature of values would be tan-
tamount to wipe off the discipline itself. The question of values and
taste has been historically deliberated upon in literary works.
The question of value and literature in relation to knowledge about
the world revolves around the question of whether such values could
be made explicit. This concern is discernible from Plato’s times to
modern literary debates. Plato illustrated from the classical Greek
texts to establish that literary texts basically substantiated an entire
value-system, a particular view of the world. He considered artis-
tic representation of the real world not a depiction of reality or the
reality of the objects, but as they appear to the authors. It is then
an imitation of things that themselves are not authentically real. But
Plato wanted fiction to be truthful. There should not be any logical

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 12 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

gap between facts and values. Plato’s model of knowledge was then
broadly designed in scientific terms.
Such attempts at correctness were shelved by Plato’s disciple Aris-
totle. On the debate over truth and falsehood, Aristotle envisaged
literature as a sphere separate from politics or ethics. It has its own
standards and justifications. Unlike historical texts, literary texts
deal with fiction which should not be analysed in terms of truth or
falsehood. By separating literary texts from their logical and socio-
political correctness, he stressed on the aesthetic value of literary
texts.
Subsequently, during the Romantic period of late 18th and early 19th
century, literary work was placed fundamentally as an expression of
the authors’ aesthetic formulation of the world around her/him.
David Hume, the British philosopher, opined that there must be a
logical gap between the description of facts and the value-judgments
we might make on the basis of knowledge of these facts. Unlike a
material object, where empirical observation is possible, the value
of a literary work lies in its capacity to give pleasure. Since this is es-
sentially subjective, there is no objective definition of its nature and
it is not a measurable value.
The problem of value is so intricate in literature that 20th century
literary criticism attempted to keep away from discussions on value.
In the contemporary world of knowledge, when increasingly science
has come out of its conservatism, humanities focus on the unique
and specific qualities of aesthetic and literary forms. Such literary
representations are a result of human emotional experience as well
as the rational faculties. The intertwining of human faculties—logical
and aesthetic—may well bring the divergent disciplines of knowledge
closer than ever before.
The quest for objectivity in the subjective world of the humanities
and the social sciences has been a long drawn process.

Objectivity in the Subjective World: The Early Attempts

August Comte, considered the founding father of sociology,
advocated positivism. He called for a shift from social philosophy to
social science. Drawing knowledge away from spiritual metaphysics,
positivism placed stress on use of natural science methods in study-
ing social sciences. Positivism sought progress as well as morality.

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 13

He emphasized immediate sensory experience and the data observed

thereby in the study of society, arguing to liberate the knowledge
about social phenomena from the clutches of theology. In his view,
theology lacked any material basis of knowledge about the world.

Emile Durkheim—Social Facts

Carrying forward the positivist mode of inquiry, Emile Durkheim
(1858–1917), a French sociologist, contributed to the emergence of
sociology as a scientific discipline. The starting point of Durkheim
was his realization that sociology should seek causal relations of
social phenomena. Not everything and anything could be studied by
sociology, but only a select group of social phenomena qualify to be
its subject-matter. They are to be termed as social facts, and the task
of sociology is to seek the determining cause of a social fact in the
social facts preceding it. Thereby the laws of the causal relations of
social phenomena (social facts, to be precise) could be achieved.

Beyond Positivism
The Comtean notion that social phenomena are natural facts, sub-
ject to natural laws, slowly lost its grip in social science thinking,
as more and more subjective schools of thought started influencing
sociologists. As the initial task of setting up a discipline on scientific
platform was accomplished, more methodological questions started
cropping up. The orthodox view of treating social science simply as
an extension of natural sciences was under doubts.
The presuppositions and methods of natural sciences when applied
to the study of human beings raised certain fundamental questions.
The questions essentially revolved around the issue of whether the
subject-matter of social sciences is similar to that of natural scienc-
es? The question of knowledge about human conduct which are as
always governed by ‘end’ and ‘means’ posed the problem of whether
such human behaviour and conduct were amenable to a positivist
mode of inquiry. Put simply, the way we explain the world around
us, can we do the same with our own world, i.e., the human society?
What are the differences that set the two, the natural and the social
world, apart?
Is it not true that human beings, unlike natural or physical objects,
have the unique capacity to interact among themselves in terms of

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 14 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

signs and symbols shared between them? That is, it would be a crude
way to consider and treat human behaviour as similar to that of phe-
nomena of the natural and physical world. Human beings are en-
dowed with values and motivations, according to which they orient
themselves towards each other and to the world. It is as a result of such
value-loaded orientations and interactions that the human society
emerges. Therefore, without understanding the crucial dimension of
values and motivations how can social science move forward? So,
the problem arises as to how to study such subjective dimensions of
social life objectively? Related to this question is the issue of whether
it is desirable to be objective in social sciences. These two questions
have so far been debated in social science circles over the years.
To resolve the issue, the most powerful contribution was made by
Max Weber, a German sociologist (1864–1920). Any discussion on
the question of objectivity in social sciences relies heavily on Max
Weber’s intervention. The delicate task of separating value-judgment
from value-interpretation was undertaken by him. Put simply, social
sciences ought to study and explain values without being judgmental
about them.

Max Weber’s Intervention

Society is a result of a web of human interaction. Every human being
here is an actor, infusing his/her action with values and meanings.
In terms of such subjective dispositions, human beings orient them-
selves towards each other. Here, the ‘means’ as well the ‘ends’ of such
interactions are also governed by values, motivations and interests.
As diametrically different from the object of study of natural sciences,
the social sciences deal with a social subject, which has conscious-
ness. Essentially, human beings are cultural beings. De facto, social
sciences are cultural sciences, where one should not aspire for laws
like natural laws, but the very character of social laws would be that
of what is probable, or explain what the tendency of the phenomenon
is, rather than what is the phenomenon.

Werturteilsfreiheit (Value-Freedom)
Value-freedom, in German werturteilsfreiheit, is the corner-stone
of Max Weber’s contribution to the social sciences. Unequivocally,

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 15

he championed the cause of value-freedom, the ideal of a scientific

endeavour. So, causal hypotheses and thereby explanations are the
testing ground of social sciences too. But value-judgments are an
outcome of one’s moral, political and aesthetic choices. The obliga-
tion of social sciences is to keep the causal explanations free from
such value-based preferences of the researcher. So, social scientists
have to work towards this ideal of keeping the two separate. That is,
science is to be set aside from values because facts and values belong
to two different realms. ‘Is’ is important for a researcher than ‘what
it should be’.

Limits to Objectivity
As far as social sciences are concerned, the problem of objectivity
is intrinsically linked to the question of arriving at an appropri-
ate method of studying society. Instead of a positive definition of
objectivity, with regard to its application in social science method,
objectivity has been understood in terms of what it should not be.
It means a relative freedom from subjective biases which inevitably
distort the accuracy of a research or report. In terms of a method-
ological posture it means an observation uninfluenced by one’s per-
sonal biases, prejudices, beliefs or values. Put otherwise, the problem
of objectivity is in fact one of knowing reality.

STUDY OF TASTES, VALUES AND BELIEF SYSTEMS

Taste as a concept indicates cultural choices and preferences. Human

conception of taste can be scientifically studied as a cultural or socio-
political phenomenon. Taste means distinguishing between life styles,
manners, consumables and art. The social sciences inquire into taste
as a social phenomenon, that is, the learned behaviour of human beings
to consider something aesthetically desirable, good or proper.
Behaviours determined by taste are linked to class and social rela-
tions. Some tastes, and judgements related to taste may be more
acceptable and legitimate than others: they could be called the domi-
nant tastes. In fact, choices that may seem unique could be directly
or indirectly related to education, family status and class affiliation.
Different socioeconomic groups are likely to have different tastes,

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 16 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

and it has been suggested that social class is one of the prominent
factors in structuring taste.

Tastes are linked to values. Values are aggregate set of beliefs about
things, objects, ideas, or actions that are considered preferable to
others. The question of internalization is crucial in understanding
value systems. Values are not taught directly to the members of soci-
ety: they are internalized by young members of society as they grow
up and participate in its activities. As adults, their actions exhibit the
strength of the values they have imbibed and practiced.

A notion of social acceptance, reward and punishment may be

attached to the values. However, the intensity of the social evaluation
may vary with the importance attached to the value. For example, in
modern Western societies, gender equality is a cherished value, and
individual choices are upheld irrespective of the gender of the per-
son. This is in contrast to Asian societies, where patriarchy is more
ingrained.

Values are shared by members of a group or society, and help the

members decide which objects, conditions or ideas are important.
Usually, the way a society bestows rewards and praise on its members
tells what values are upheld and practiced in the society. In India, for
example, white collar jobs are usually preferred to jobs that involve
physical hard work. This value is usually linked to the varna hierar-
chy of the Hindu society.

Norms are specific ways of preferred and practiced behaviour

in social situations, and mores are set of beliefs from which the
moral ideas followed by the members of a society are derived. This
belief system provides a generalized guidance for moral action and
a sense of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The belief systems followed in a society
are derived from various sources, but largely, the religious systems
prevalent in the society play a great role in providing a people with
their belief system. There is a continuing interest in how the belief
systems prevalent in ‘traditional’ societies change. More often than
not, tradition and modernity exist side by side in countries like In-
dia. Belief systems decide the way we organize our lives and how we
deal with the various events in our private and social lives.

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 17

THE QUESTION OF IDEOLOGY

We often hear of people ‘following’ a certain ideology, or ‘believing’

in another. In social sciences, the term is used to describe phenom-
ena at a much larger scale. Ideology, simply put, is a set of ideas,
which provides a theoretical and operational framework for thought
or action by its adherents. Besides the implicit value-judgments and
meanings that problematize the pursuit of objectivity in social sci-
ences, the question of ideology acquires great importance.
As opposed to metaphysics, the French rationalist philosopher
Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century coined the term ‘ideol-
ogy’. It meant the ‘science of ideas’. The term was however used,
in a negative way, in Karl Marx and F. Engels’s The German Ideol-
ogy (1840). The Marxist theory used the term to imply something
that mystifies and hides reality of the actual material conditions of
society, a sort of false-consciousness. It was theorised that all ruling
ideas are nothing but a superstructural expression of the dominant
material relations in society. That is, the ruling ideas are the ideas
of the ruling class.
Louis Althusser, in his essay ‘Ideology and Ideological State Appara-
tuses’ (1969), advanced the Marxist theory on ideology by pointing
out that ideology is relatively autonomous. In other words, ideology
is not simply a distorted representation of reality by which a ruling
class exploits a subjected class, but plays an active constitutive role
in social formation by affecting the material conditions themselves.
Later thinkers added to Althusser’s formulation that all ideologies are
not monolithic, and people are differentially positioned as per their
‘particular ideologies’. Fredric Jameson in his The Political Unconscious
connected literary ‘genres’ (categorization of texts as per shared char-
acteristics) with social formations, and then their roles in the formu-
lation of ideologies. So, literary texts are to be analysed in terms of
relationship between their aesthetic value and the specific ideological
function performed by such texts.
Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton in his Ideology: An Introduction
quotes media theorist John B. Thompson, ‘To study ideology is to
study the ways in which meaning (or signification) serves to sustain
relations of domination’. Such a wide definition confers ideology the

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 18 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

function to legitimate the power of a dominant social group. Eagleton

critiques such a simplified, yet persuasive, understanding of ideology.
Referring to the ideologies of the socialists, feminists and other radi-
cals, Eagleton questions the inevitability of the connection between
ideology and dominant power. In such case, all emancipator ideolo-
gies would also come under the bracket of illusion, mystification or
false-consciousness. So, Eagleton proposes a more inclusive defini-
tion of ideology. Such an understanding could take into account the
kind of intersection between belief system and political power. Such
a neutral position would also not be judgemental about whether
such interface of ideology and political power is legitimising or con-
tradicting the existing social order. So, ideology is more than just a
ruling belief system.

REFERENCES

Carr, E. H. What is History? London: Penguin Books, 1990.

Mill, J. S., ‘On the Definition of Political Economy and On the Method of
Investigation Proper To It.’ In E. Nagel, J.S. Mill’s Philosophy of Scientific
Method, [1836] 1950, pp. 408–409.
Milner, Andrew. Literature, Culture and Society. London: UCL Press, 1996.
Myrdal, Gunnar. Objectivity in Social Research. London: Gerald Duckworth
I. Co. Ltd, 1970.
Waugh, Patricia (ed.). Literary Theory and Criticism. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2006.
Weber, Max. ‘Objectivity’ in Social Sciences and Social Policy’. In E.A. Shills,
I H.A. Finch (eds), Max Weber: Methodology of the Social Sciences. Glencoe,
III: The Free Press, 1949, pp. 49–102.

REVIEW EXERCISES

Short Answer Type Questions

1. What do you understand by the ‘scientific method’?
2. How can social sciences be called scientific?
3. How are humanities disciplines different from natural sciences?
4. Is history a social science or a subject of the humanities?

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 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMANITIES 19

Long Answer Type Questions

1. Discuss the philosophy of science. Use your own words and
examples.
2. How does literature explain the life of people?
3. What do you understand by objectivity in scientific enquiry?

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 2 Language, Culture
and Identity

PRAMOD K. NAYAR

Chapter outline
• The relation between language, culture and subjectivity
• The question of agency in language
• The social construction of reality
• Language in history
• Language in relation to class, caste, race and gender
• Language and colonialism
• Review exercises

S
ince the beginning of human civilization, language has played a
crucial (perhaps the most crucial) role in the making of identity,
whether that identity is of the individual, the community, the
race or the nation. Contemporary philosophy and cultural theory
(since the 1960s) have emphasized this significant role of language
and communication in all aspects of culture, everyday life, politics
and the human self.
Language is the medium through which a person constructs a vision
of the world, shares that vision with others, accepts or rejects others’
visions, develops a sense of what s/he is, and is accepted or rejected
by others.

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 21

THE RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE, CULTURE

AND SUBJECTIVITY

Language is a medium of communication. It could be visual (writing,

print or cinema), aural (music, speech), gestural (hand waving) or a
combination of all of them. Language constructs a set of meanings
for us, which we then can share with the world.

Language and Culture

Language is not a mirror to reality but constructs this reality for us.
It creates our identity for us. In order to understand this, we need to
explore the modern understanding of language.
(i) Language is a social system based on difference. For example,
the word ‘cat’ makes sense to us because it does not look or
sound like ‘bat’ or ‘hat’ or ‘fat’. ‘Cat’ is not ‘bat’.
(ii) The relationship of words to the things they describe is arbitrary.
In other words, the link of the word ‘cat’ with the animal ‘cat’ is
something that the users of English language have established
through repeated use and convention. Technically, the word
and the animal have nothing to do with each other.
Language imposes its structure (for example, the recognized
difference between the words ‘cat’ and ‘hat’) whatever be the individual
contexts in which the sounds or words are being used. As users of
the language we learn to use the differences that generate meaning.
What this means is: the meaning of each word is dependent upon the
meaning of other words. All language is this structure of difference
of one word from another, of one sound from another.
The meaning of words is located within social use and convention—
that is ‘culture’. For instance:
• Eskimos supposedly have seven words for snow because snow
is so integral to their lives.
• The convention of traffic signals is consistent the world over.
• We all recognize the icons on the Microsoft Word tool bar.
Meanings, therefore, are rooted in the way a society has interpreted
the words for some time. Thus, the word ‘cat’ makes sense to us
because the word always refers to a particular kind of animal. The

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 22 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

meaning of the word is therefore dependent on regular and repeated

use of the word in connection with the animal. Repetition in usage is
thus central to language and identity.
Meanings, therefore, are not rooted in the words but in
(i) the relation between words;
(ii) in the cultural context of their use; and
(iii) in the repeated use of the words in particular ways.
Meaning is shared language where users generate meanings of
words and sounds through their use. Words in themselves have no
meanings—these are established through use in specific contexts. For
example, as children we are taught by our parents not to ‘swear’. But
if we ever go to a law court, we are asked to ‘swear’ before we can give
our statements. Here the meaning and action of the word ‘swearing’
is dependent on the context rather than within the sound or word
itself.
In the age of colonialism, as we shall see in a later section, the native
cultures were pushed into secondary status. One of the means of
doing so was through the imposition of English language. English
language, therefore, was a means of erasing local cultural identities
and imposing European culture.

Subjectivity
Subjectivity can be defined as a person’s perception of the world.
It includes the person’s feelings and beliefs. Subjectivity determines
a person’s individual choices and is about her/his beliefs, tastes,
emotional requirements and personality traits.
In contemporary cultural and social theory, subjectivity also refers
to the condition of being an individual. An individual is situated
in a network of power relations, which influence her or his feelings
and beliefs. A person is therefore subject to these relations. In
contemporary social and cultural theory individuals are subjects to
power relations where their individual selves are formed in relation
to others. In order to understand this, we can take the example of the
term ‘class’ and how Marxists understand subjectivity.
Individuals are rooted in class relations and social structure. Their
beliefs and perceptions are coloured by the condition where they

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 23

slave for others, are exploited by others or exploit others. Thus, their
subjectivity is the effect of their social condition where their identity
is based on their relation with others.

Language, Culture and Subjectivity

Language makes the construction of identities possible. The Swiss
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure argued that language consists of two
components: the rules of the language (langue) and the actual acts of
expression and speaking (parole). Parole, therefore, is the human factor
of language. This means that the use of words and choice of language
depends to a great extent on the individual speaker in a particular
social and cultural context. When given an option of choosing between
different ways of describing anything, speakers naturally turn to one
or the other option—this is the influence of subjectivity in language.
Language defines us as male or female, white or black, old or young.
Extending the argument made earlier about language and culture we
can see how subjectivity can be defined.
Subjectivity and identity are based on difference. I am ‘me’ because
I am not my father, son, neighbour, friend. The only way I can
distinguish myself is by showing how I am not somebody else, how
I am different from somebody else. In other words, my identity is
based on my difference from others. In culture, where identity is
established, there are different mechanisms through which it is done.
We are granted names that distinguish us from others. These
names are not really us—they are arbitrary words that seek to
establish us as different from other people with other names. That
is, ABC describes a person not because the word ‘ABC’ in anyway
captures that person’s character, but because ‘ABC’ distinguishes
him/her from ‘DEF’. In the cultural context of names, ABC and
DEF now function as distinctive identities. It is the context which says
they are different people. In other words, the identity of ABC and DEF
is based on whether the context (culture) accepts their difference.
Culture acting through language, therefore, constructs our subjec-
tivity and identity through the following methods:
(i) It bestows names and meaning upon us
(ii) It distinguishes our names and therefore our meanings from
others.

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 24 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

(iii) Our perception of the world is rooted in this identity and

subjectivity that has been granted to us.
But subjectivity is also limited and controlled by culture. The ‘subject’
is, as we have seen earlier, located within the context of culture and
language. Culture takes many forms and techniques to define the
subject’s subject-position (‘subject position’ is a term used to describe
the location of an individual within a social structure where power
determines his/her class, gender, racial identity). Contemporary
cultural theory addresses some of these crucial cultural contexts that
determine a person’s subject-position:
• The law treats individuals as citizens, victims, criminals or
law-keepers. These are subject-positions as defined and
determined by the structure of the law, and which therefore
grant particular identities to us. When we go to court, we are
either ‘plaintiffs’ or ‘defendants’; when we experience a crime,
we are ‘victims’.
• Medicine defines us in terms of anatomy and physiology and
classifies us into ‘healthy’ or ‘sick’. If it identifies us as sick then
it prepares a set of conditions under which we have to get better.
Our subject-position as ‘patient’ is therefore our condition of
experiencing the world at that point.
In similar fashion, schools and colleges define subjectivity for
individuals as ‘students’, ‘children’ and often sub-categorize as
‘students of English’ or ‘students of economics’. The family is another
context where our subject-position is defined for us, in identities of
‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘child’, ‘elderly’ and so on.
In each case, what is important to recognize is that subjectivity is
not an essence of the individual, but an effect of culture, language
and social relations. Identity and subjectivity are not constant, but
are always shifting and reinvented within culture. For example, I
am a student in the college, a traveller on the bus, a son at home, a
player on the football field, a participant in the protest march. My
identity is a composite of all these identities, but all of which are
rooted in particular contexts. Therefore, I cannot be a player in class
or a traveller on the football field. My identity on the field or in the
class is based on the cultural context that gives a particular identity
to me, and which I have to fulfil and accept. My identity changes

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 25

depending on the context I am in, whether it is the football field or

the bus.
It is also important that for this identity to become a part of me,
it is repeated and recognized by the context—I must be a student
regularly to be accepted as a ‘student’.
Girls assimilate qualities of the ‘feminine’ because they are brought
up within the discourse of femininity. Discourse is the context
in which a culture’s communication, meaning-production and
interpretation occur (see later sections). For example, the culture’s
values introduce and develop the notions of ‘femininity’ and
‘masculinity’ in the children. The roles they will play as they grow
up are clearly demarcated from childhood. The relation between the
genders is determined in advance: women will be in charge of the
home while the men will go out to work. Identity is the consequence
of representation (use of language) and the effect of discourse.
Identity is not an essence but a continually shifting set of subject-
positions. By this what we mean is, I am in the subject-position of
a football player because the team recognizes me as such, I am a
son because my family treats me as such, I am a student because
the college treats me as such. Identities are therefore multiple and
constantly shifting.
Our identities are based on cultural contexts of: gender, class, caste,
age, religion, ethnicity, nationality and race. These are the contexts
in which I am identified as ‘male, Indian, 21 years of age, middle
class, college student’ and so on. These contexts give me my identity.
That is, my identity is based on these structures which grant me a
name and a meaning. Identity is based on multiple cultural contexts
such as the one listed above. It is never just one identity.
Identity therefore is not a quality that is inherent or stable inside me.
Subject-positions are multiple, shifting and based on the context the
individual is situated in.
This view of subjectivity and identity as based on difference, cultural
contexts and repetition is often called ‘anti-essentialist’ because it
rejects the idea of a core, unchanging identity. It argues that identities
are constantly invented and reinvented based on cultural and social
contexts.

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 26 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

In sum, what these arguments show is:

• there is no essence of identity or essential identity
• all identity is cultural
• all identity is being produced through structures of language
and a system of differences

THE QUESTION OF AGENCY IN LANGUAGE

Agency is the capacity to perform a particular task, to influence the

course of events or influence people. Agency is therefore about power.
Who are the empowered agents in any culture? Who determines the
limits of an individual’s freedoms? What are the consequences of an
individual’s actions in any culture?
Culture is about the sharing of meaning—we agree on certain things
such as the traffic signals, the idea of India, Gandhi, cricket, our
national territorial boundaries and so on. Culture is about the role
of meanings in any society. But ‘meanings’ are never fixed: they are
constantly being negotiated and changed. For example, the early view
of ‘India’ was of a socialist nation that kept a tight government control
over things. Now India is promoted and projected as a consumer
society where there is a free market enterprise. That this new India is
not really acceptable to all indicates that the new ‘meaning’ of India
is still being discussed and debated.
‘Meanings’ are processes of language where language includes
not just words or print but other forms of expression also, such as
speech, painting, photography, cinema, music and so on. Language
and meaning are connected to issues of class, power, ideology and the
material conditions in which the expression occurs. All expression
and use of language are situated in a particular social, political and
economic context. This context is called ‘discourse’.
Agency in language is essentially about discourse. Discourse is the
context in which any speech or writing takes place. There is the
discourse of the law in the court room where only rational and
legal arguments are acceptable. You cannot claim that superstition
drove you to kill somebody and that therefore you are innocent.
The discourse of modern law does not recognize so-called irrational

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 27

beliefs. Likewise the discourse of the classroom is that the teacher,

assumed to be wise and knowledgeable, will impart knowledge and
the students, assumed to be ready for wisdom, will receive it. The
discourse of the classroom does not allow ‘indecent’ behaviour,
singing or dancing as part of classroom activity.
As mentioned earlier, discourse is the context in which a culture’s
communication, meaning-production and interpretation occur. For
example, think of gender in language and the discourse of gender.
Two common ‘meanings’ of girls are:
• That girls are delicate and weaker
• That grooming and care are feminine qualities/duties
These are the discourses around gender. These discourses are patri-
archal and treat women as weaker, gentler and requiring protection,
and to be given only particular tasks—cooking, cleaning and caring
for children. These are discourses that eventually govern her games,
clothes, behaviour, speech patterns. In short, it governs her entire
life.
This means, in effect, the girl’s agency is limited within the discourse.
She is free as long as she stays within the boundaries of the gender
discourse. Further, she has to fill the roles assigned to her within
the discourse. It becomes difficult for the girl child to say ‘I don’t
want to play with dolls, I want to play with guns’. This is so because
it is expected that she will only play with dolls. Her job is to fill this
condition. In other words, the meanings of her actions are located
within the discourse of gender. The agency of the child is located
within the larger context of the patriarchal, male-dominated discourse
that always treats her as weak and vulnerable.
Discourses, therefore, are structures of power that
(i) determine what is said or written (that is representation);
(ii) generate particular meanings/identities.
It is important to see which classes/groups control the discourses
that have such powers of determining identities and agency. In other
words, we need to analyse structures of power that influence images,
representation and meaning on TV, in cinema or in politics because
these structures finally determine individual lives and actions.

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 28 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY

The term ‘social construction’ was first used by Peter Berger and Thomas
Luckmann in their book, The Social Construction of Reality (1966).
Berger and Luckmann argue that scientific and theoretical knowledge
of reality is only one mode of knowing reality. Shared folklore
wisdom, superstitions and beliefs are also forms of knowing. In
order to explain this view, Berger and Luckmann argue that a society
consists of individuals and groups interacting with each other. This
results in the distribution of knowledge of others’ actions and a kind
of local, folk wisdom.
For example, each one of us has only a meagre knowledge of another
profession. But through social interaction with members of different
professions we do understand in a limited fashion professions like
medicine or engineering even though we may ourselves never practice
these. We react to and relate to these professions and practitioners of
these professions (that is, individuals) through this newly acquired
knowledge. Our knowledge of the doctor or the university professor
influences the way we then interact with them.
In short, in a society, social interaction leads to the creation of
knowledge in the form of mental pictures, concepts and beliefs.
Later these concepts and beliefs influence the way we see the
world and other people. These concepts and beliefs are now part
of the social system, a process that is called institutionalization.
Institutionalization is the process through which habits, customs
and local practices become sources of knowledge.
Take for example, young people meeting in the college canteen. The
young students meeting for tea is a habitualization, a local cultural
practice. As every batch of students does this same thing, a ‘code
of conduct’ develops: whether it is in the way they sit, talk, buy tea,
share tea and snacks, the loud laughter, the teasing, etc. This code
of conduct is never written down, or created as a set of rules, but
it exists. Every batch of students follows this code of conduct. In
other words, knowledge of how to behave within the social world of
the canteen is available to students within a few months of joining
college. That is, an ‘objective reality’—the pattern of behaviour in the
canteen—is established for the future generations of students even if
they do not know how it was established.

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 29

This knowledge is not

• approved or developed officially by the college in any way
• scientifically proved
• theoretically examined
But the patterns of behaviour that arise out of the knowledge
developed through this social practice remain the framework within
which the student deals with the reality of the canteen, college life
and socializing.

Our later views of reality in our society are through these beliefs
and concepts. This set of beliefs that emerge through practice and
institutionalization is what Berger and Luckmann call symbolic
universes.

Symbolic universes are a set of beliefs that everybody knows and

shares, but with little scientific validity or proof. Yet symbolic
universes are central to the way we deal with the reality of the world
we live in. To return to the example of the canteen, the symbolic
universe of beliefs shows the new student how to behave—carefree
styles, lounging in relaxed postures, some teasing, the slightly loud
and attention-seeking manner and so on. The symbolic universe is
an explanation and justification for this behaviour.

Our education system, religious practices, social interactions are all

influenced by these locally developed beliefs and concepts because
they become a part of our knowledge mechanisms. In other words,
we see reality through these concepts and beliefs that are part of
the social system. The important thing is to understand that these
concepts and beliefs are not scientifically or theoretically proved, but
they still possess the power to influence the way we deal with the
world. It is socially available knowledge, and the entire process is the
social construction of reality.

With this increased knowledge of reality we are able to deal with the
reality and its uncertainties better. Suppose we treat human reality
as the effect of routine behaviours (which are themselves the effect
of individual and social-cultural contexts). From these routines we
acquire some knowledge of the condition of reality. Routines help us
interpret others’ actions and therefore reality.

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 30 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

LANGUAGE IN HISTORY

Language and history are related at two levels: (a) the use of language
to convey the history of a place or people, and (b) the history of
a language itself (because the evolution or history of a language is
intimately connected to the history of a place or culture).
To take the first, historical facts and the past can be revealed only
through language. Language plays an important role in the creation
of a sense of national identity. For example, the use of the terms
‘Hindustan’, ‘Bharat’ and ‘India’ for the subcontinent has always
been a matter of some controversy. The first possesses a religious
connotation. The third is a legacy of the colonial rule. ‘Bharat’
seems more carefully neutral, and hence dominates the language of
nationalism today.
The evolution of any language is intricately related to the historical
identity of the nation/people that uses the language. For example, in
the early centuries of English nationalism (15th–16th century), poets
like Michael Drayton (1563–1631) sought to describe the beauties of
the English landscape in poetic form so that the readers could gain
an awareness of what their country looked like. The modernization
of English as a language in the 15th and 16th centuries was part of
the inventing of English identity.
Grammar books often try to codify the rules of language, and
become means of instruction. In this way, language and culture
become formalized in any given society. However, there could be
multiple languages in use in any society, and not all of them are
formalized. For example, Latin and Sanskrit were the formalized
languages of the elite, but not of the working classes. It was vernacular
language and literature that triumphed over these two because
the vernacular captured the spirit of the people. The invention of
newspapers and print in the European Renaissance and centuries
later Gandhi’s writings in newspapers (Young India and Harijan)
were exercises in language—they helped forge a national identity
and raised the consciousness of the people about issues pertaining to
social injustice, nationalism and political independence.
To turn to the second dimension, languages as we see them now have
evolved over time. The Indo-European languages (which include

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 31

Hindi, Persian, Norwegian and English) originated, it is believed,

from the mid- and eastern European nomadic tribes dating back
to 3000 bce. The Semitic group of languages may have originated
from Arabia around 2000 bce. Languages evolving in history also
connect with the racial and community history of a place. Thus, the
Aryan family of languages, spoken from the Germanic to the Indian
regions constitutes, also, the history of several tribes and cultures
across these regions.
Multilingualism has been a feature of many societies in the 20th
century especially with greater migration and travel. When nations
or cultures insist on a common language, then it usually results in
massive protests and even wars. This is so because language is very
closely tied up with cultural identity and the loss of a language is
often perceived as the loss of the self.
In the second half of the 20th century major European languages
like French and German declined as international languages, and
this increased the dominance of English (for example, English is
the most prominent language in new media and on the Internet).
However, multilingualism survives in many places. Multilingualism,
historically, has been about cultural diversity, changing population
patterns and social changes.

LANGUAGE IN RELATION TO CLASS,

CASTE, RACE AND GENDER

Language, as we have noted earlier, is linked to identity. Language

designates us, and distinguishes us from others, and thereby gives
us an identity. Language works in everyday life because it influences
social relationships and because social identities are created through
language. When youth use language in particular ways they build their
social identity by sharing particular styles of speech. For example,
‘chill’ as a standard term in youth conversation becomes a means
of establishing an identity because everybody else understands the
term’s meaning. Thus, language is deeply connected to our material
and concrete realities. Language, in other words, has power.
Language can also be used to exclude and discriminate against people.
Language is a social phenomenon and hence has political effects.

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 32 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

For example, take a word commonly used to emphasize insult and

humiliation: ‘denigrate’. ‘Denigrate’ actually meant to ‘reduce to the
level of a negro’. This usage suggested that the ‘negro’, as the blacks were
called till the mid-20th century, was the lowest form of human life. To
be ‘reduced to the level of the negro’ was therefore to suggest that the
person has become completely despicable. This usage assumed the
blacks as the standard against which all forms of humanity would be
measured. The word thus captures the racial aspect of language-use.
Language organizes the lived experience, the social reality of people,
whether individuals or groups. Working classes develop their own
language because the upper class language does not capture their
experience, or convey the rhythms of their lives. The use of slang,
road-side language in films to capture the ethos of the working
classes is significant because it serves as a window into another world.
Language here links people of a particular class. It is an instrument
of their consciousness because they can relate their experiences,
share them and understand another’s experience only in their shared
language. When we read Charles Dickens’ novels we see very clearly
that the language of the industry workers is very clearly something
that comes from their working experiences. In Jane Austen’s works
we see, very distinctly, the language of the land-owning class where
‘property’ and ‘manners’ are always intricately woven. Radicalism,
liberalism and Marxism have all used language in particular ways.
For example the language of revolution and class struggle that
targeted property-ownership and capitalism and preached justice
took recourse to the language of violence and political struggle in
Russia, China and India. Today we see class-related language styles
in call centre workers and young professionals in metropolises. The
language of the SMS (including abbreviations and emoticons) and
social networking is emerging as one of the most radical way of using
language and is shared only by those who use the technology.
Language embodies attitudes to class, caste, race and gender. For
example, the meanings of particular words have changed over the
centuries and connote things differently today. ‘Fair’, for example,
referred originally to a sense of justice. It began to refer to ‘complexion’
only around the 15th and 16th century. The change in meaning
was due to the encounter of the English and other Europeans to
the ‘dark-skinned’ races of Asia and Africa. In the 15th and 16th

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 33

centuries Europeans were travelling across the world, and met people
of a different skin colour. The term ‘fair’ was used as a means of
distinguishing themselves from the other races—not only in terms
of skin but also in terms of character. Thus the Englishman was ‘fair’
not only in terms of skin but also in terms of his sense of ‘fairplay’
and justice. Here language becomes a means of embodying race and
racial difference.
Caste-specific terms and names are markers of identity and ‘fix’ a
person. Linguistic variations in users of a language depend on their
community and caste (also geographical location and culture).
Caste names are often used as abuse, insults or pejoratives. For
example, to be referred to as a ‘chamar’ is to be abused in the name
of a particular caste. Here social injustice becomes essentialized in
language.
What is important here is to see how language is politically linked
to caste identities. ‘Chamar’ becomes a term of abuse even if the
traditional occupation which is linked to the caste is not practiced
any more. That is, the insult relies on a historical occupation of a
community rather than a present context. Language here is delinked
from present realities but is aligned with an ancient and essentialized
identity solely in order to humiliate.
This was the reason why Gandhi opted for a new term ‘Harijan’—
God’s people—to describe the so-called untouchables. This took away
the insults attached to particular caste names and groups. In post-
independence India the legal system and the constitution formulated
by visionaries such as B.R. Ambedkar sought new nomenclatures.
The evolution of terms like ‘Scheduled Castes’, ‘Scheduled Tribes’ or
‘Backward Castes’ refused to use caste-specific terms or names.
Thinkers and political theorists like Ambedkar and in more recent
times Kancha Ilaiah have argued for English as a more ‘neutral’
language where traditional caste names are irrelevant. English as
both language and social reality alters the communicative field.
Forms of address in this language do not account for Indian castes,
and therefore, becomes a means of leveling social differences. This
widening access to English language has also made a major shift
in social structures in a different way. English, which after Sanskrit
and Persian was the language of power (due to colonial rule), had

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 34 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

been the privilege and domain of upper castes in India. With greater
dissemination of English and affirmative action (where students from
‘Scheduled Castes’, ‘Scheduled Tribes’ or ‘Backward Castes’ contexts
join colleges and acquire higher degrees) this equation of English
with upper castes is changing. English becomes the means of erasing
their socially unjust situations and histories because in the corporate,
professional and other realms a command over English is all that
matters. In other words, the English language enables people from
previously disempowered groups and contexts to acquire power.
Take as an instance, the law. The law which is heavily influenced
not only by the Western legal system and philosophy but also by
the formal linguistic structures was for a long time the domain of
upper caste and upper class Indians. This ensured that the social
inequalities remained, for the framing and interpretation of laws
were in the hands of the upper castes. With greater access to English
education this is changing too.
As in the case of caste, so in the case of race. Terms like ‘nigger’,
‘blackie’, ‘chinky’, ‘brownie’ have been used to describe in negative
ways the non-white races. To insult somebody was to ‘denigrate’,
which technically means ‘to reduce to the level of the nigger’. Race
and language have always been closely associated because language
has always been used to discriminate. The above examples are in
fact the language of racism itself. Those who did not use Latin were
described as ‘barbarians’ in ancient European cultures. Those who
could not quote from classical languages (Greek, Latin) were called
‘unquoth’, from which evolved the term ‘uncouth’, again referring to
their barbaric state. When the Spanish were conquering the Americas
in the 15th and 16th centuries, they also prepared grammar books
to popularize their language among their new subjects. Education,
the law, arts and medicine were all available only in the language of
the racial master. In colonial India English replaced Persian as the
language of administration and power.
The blacks in the USA evolved their own forms of English —especially
in their music and poetry—in order to demonstrate their unique
culture. Australian aboriginal playwrights Jimmy Chi and the
Australian band Kuckles use a blend of aboriginal and English
languages. Caribbean poetry and prose evolved its own black-culture
inspired language and styles. Kamau Brathwaite as early as 1984 in

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 35

his History of the Voice spoke of the evolution of a ‘nation language’

which would be uniquely Caribbean. The performance poetry of ‘Dub’
poets and Caribbean writers like Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze likewise borrows
linguistic, formal and cultural features from African folk cultures
rather than Euro-American ones. Native languages—as in pre-
European, non-Spanish or English—inform the works of numerous
authors: Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde and Cherrie Moraga.
Here the emphasis is not merely on the language of a particular
race, but the cultural baggage—history, folklore, stories, legends and
myths—that every language possesses. Just as English or Spanish was
heavily Christian, imperial and classist, the language of these authors
draws upon their native myths, religious beliefs and histories. Local
heroes, nature and legends constitute the cultural discourse of their
writings. It is more than a language or alphabet, it is a discourse of
ethnic identity, ethnic pride and ethnic history. We therefore need
to see how ‘languages’ of particular races are more than simply
syntactic or formal—they are about entire social systems of thought
and history. The use of their native folklore and cultural registers in
Walcott, Soyinka, Achebe, Raja Rao and Anzaldua constitutes an act
of resistance to the racist language and social order of the white races.
Language reveals and sustains attitudes towards gender. Language
users speak or write in different and distinctive ways that reflect
their gender. Commonplace usages in language often carry very
clear gender connotations. For example, terms like ‘mankind’
often emphasize in their very structure one half of the human
race: ‘mankind’. Here the entire race of humankind is supposedly
captured in the term ‘mankind’ but actually describes only one
half—the male!
In a study, George Keith and John Shuttleworth explored some
common views of the differences between language use by men and
women. This was what they discovered about general attitudes:
• It was believed that women talked more than men, talked too
much, are more polite, are indecisive/hesitant, complain and nag,
ask more questions, support each other, are more co-operative,
whereas
• men swear more, do not talk about emotions, talk about
sport more, talk about women and machines in the same way,

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 36 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

insult each other frequently, are competitive in conversation,

dominate conversation, speak with more authority, give more
commands, interrupt more.
Many of these are unverifiable and subjective opinions (that men
speak with greater authority, for example).
In most cases, women do not use a different language; it is just that
their social contexts—of being powerless or vulnerable—makes
them use language differently (a study by William O'Barr and
Bowman Atkins, reported by Susan Githens, 1991). For example,
the study found that women professionals used language the same
way as men did. But lower-class women who were less socially
powerful were far less confident in their use of language (they used
phrases like ‘sort of ’, ‘kind of ’, ‘it seems like’, used tag questions, etc).
Thus, gender-differences in language use were the result of social
contexts.
Other arguments have been made about the differences. For instance,
men use conversation competitively whereas women use it for support;
men use it for independence and women for closeness and intimacy;
men use it for information and women for emotional expression; men
prefer to use direct imperatives ‘we will do this’) and women prefer to
offer suggestions (‘why not think of…’).
What these arguments show is that people ‘perform’ their genders
through their language. To speak like a man is to be accepted as a man.
Gender identities are the effect of the speech pattern, vocabulary,
style that make up your language.

LANGUAGE AND COLONIALISM

During the British rule of 400 years in India, English arrived as not
only the language of the law (and courts) but of power. It replaced
Sanskrit and Persian as the language of administration and power,
and was introduced as a medium of instruction in schools and
universities.
The language question in colonialism is a good example of the
cultural dimension of empire. Colonial administrators like Warren
Hastings and T.B. Macaulay, academic scholars like William
Jones and commentators such as James Mill first studied Indian

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 37

languages (especially Sanskrit and Persian) by translating texts

from these languages into English or undertaking studies of Indian
law, religion or arts. These people were called Orientalists, as
specialists in Oriental languages and cultures. In the second stage
they announced that these Indian texts and cultures were primitive
and irrelevant. However, the missionaries who started arriving in
large numbers after 1813 also realized that they could not preach
to or convert the natives if they did not share a language. Many
missionaries like William Carey therefore learnt the local languages
and also translated the Bible into them. Further, they also taught the
natives English.
In the third moment they substituted English as the medium of
instruction, as the language of knowledge itself. Arguing that English
and European culture alone could ensure equality, liberty, development
and ‘modernization’, colonial administrators installed English. Indian
intellectuals like Raja Rammohun Roy pleaded with the British that the
Indians needed English education, and not Sanskrit. This movement
towards the adoption of English gathered strength in the 1830s.
Central to this policy was the infamous Minute of 1835 prepared
by T.B. Macaulay. In this ‘Minute’, Macaulay declared that Sanskrit,
Arabic and other native languages were useless. Macaulay wrote:

The intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who have

the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be effected only
by means of some language not vernacular among them.

Thus, English became established as the language of:

• education
• justice
• development and progress
• law
• commerce
In these domains, English held supreme, even though the local
languages did work with English.
Due to this imposition of English, native children (students) began
to lose touch with their languages and cultures. English was used to
introduce not only a language but also a culture and way of life. The

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 38 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

emphasis on English we see today in schools is the continuing legacy

of this colonial policy. As early as the 1930s the Indian novelist Raja
Rao had mourned the legacy of English when he wrote in his famous
preface to his novel Kanthapura that he could not capture the emotions
and feelings of the heart in a language that was not his own.
After independence, many educationists and writers therefore
called for a complete break with English. The Kenyan novelist Ngugi
Wa’Thiong’O called for the ‘abolition of the English Departments’.
Ngugi argued that a language transmits a culture, and for the
native culture to survive it needed its own forms of expression and
languages. Ngugi argued that we in the Third World nations would
remain colonized as long as we retained English. To ‘decolonize the
mind’ (Ngugi’s phrase for intellectual independence from the legacy
of colonialism) we need to first shut out English. The Algerian
freedom fighter Frantz Fanon also spoke of the violence of language
where native languages and cultures were eliminated by the colonial
master’s language and thus left the native without his own language.
This debate about the linguistic legacy of colonialism has continued
in most independent (postcolonial) nations. Most Indian writers
in English are asked as to why they write in English. A brand of
criticism called nativism (Balchandra Nemade, for instance)
argues that writing in English continues colonial oppression, and
that we can never be free until we abandon English. However, other
writers like Salman Rushdie argue that the colonial language does
not remain an oppressive ‘master’ language anymore. Postcolonial
authors indigenize and nativise it—that is, appropriate and make
English their own. A process often called chutneyfication of
English; this is a common method we see in writers like Rushdie,
Derek Walcott and others. ‘Indian English’ (including ‘Hinglish’)
has become an accepted form of English today—and can no longer
be seen as a colonial language because it has been ‘Indianized’. As
Rushdie put it (1992): ‘To conquer English may be to complete the
process of making ourselves free’. Others suggest that English is a
language of resistance and intellectual dissidence. Bilingualism,
argues Derek Walcott in famous poems like ‘A Far Cry From
Africa’ is an acceptable feature of postcolonial societies today, and
native languages learn and adapt from English, just as English gets
nativised.

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 LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY 39

REFERENCES

Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality:

A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor, 1967.
Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands. New York: Granta, 1992.

REVIEW EXERCISES

Short Answer Type Questions

1. What is the anti-essentialist view of identity?
2. Why should you consider mankind to be an insensitive word?
3. What is the meaning of the term ‘social construction of identity’?
4. What did Frantz Fanon mean by the ‘violence of language’?
5. What needs to be done, according to Ngugi, to ‘decolonize the
mind’?

Long Answer Type Questions

Discuss the following:
1. The shifting nature of identity and how it influences language
2. Multilingualism
3. The question of agency in language

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 3 Narration and Representation

PRAMOD K. NAYAR

Chapter outline
• Reality and/as representation
• Narrative modes of thinking
• Narration in literature, philosophy and history
• Textuality and reading
• Review exercises

‘
H
ow do I tell a story?’, ‘how do I convince the listener with
my argument?’, ‘how do I paint a picture of the events
with my description?’ These questions have troubled sto-
rytellers, philosophers, layers, mothers, essayists, children—in short
anyone who has ever had to convey or communicate something to
somebody, whether that ‘something’ is a story, an argument, a joke,
a theory or a description. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato won-
dered about the nature of poetry and what it did. The Hindu sages
sought an epic form for telling us the story of Rama. The Bible used
anecdotes and psalms. The Islamic tradition used poetry to convey
religious themes. In more contemporary times, the Finance Minister
of India presents an annual budget accompanied by a description of
justifications, hopes and ideas for the economy. The lawyers argue
in court over whose story is more convincing. The writer seeking to
capture the horrors of war turns to realistic descriptions. Another

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 41

writer offers the superhero in a richly illustrated story dealing with

the corruption in a city. What is common to all these is: narrative.
Narrative is ‘somebody telling somebody else on some occasion
and for some purpose that something happened’ (Phelan, 2005:
323). It is the representation of events, characters and what happens
to them in a sequential manner, where the sequence might be of cause
and effect or chronology. Narrative is a manner of speaking. Narrative
is, therefore, an act of communication whereby the events or char-
acter and what happens to them is communicated by somebody to
somebody else in language. Narrative theory and ‘narratology’ (the
study of narratives) is concerned with the ways and means in which
any such act of communication takes place.
This is the diagram that describes the process of narrative communi-
cation, first constructed by Seymour Chatman in 1978:

Implied Implied
Real Author Author (Narrator) (Narratee) Reader Real Reader

Narrative is
• the act of representation using signs (words, sounds, visuals,
gestures) in particular sequences.
• our construction and interpretation of the world through the
use of words, sounds, figures, gestures and relations.
• about language because sounds, words, gestures are all signs.
From the 1960s, literary theory and philosophy, as well as history,
anthropology and other social sciences began to examine the modes
of writing, expression and articulation in their disciplines. They stud-
ied novels, history texts, anthropological reports and philosophical
treatises for the manner of speaking in them. By ‘manner of speak-
ing’ we are referring to the style, rhetoric, description, hypothesis
and proof, and argument within these forms of writing. These can all
be listed under one heading, ‘narrative’. One could term the 1960s as
demonstrating a ‘narrative turn’.
With the ‘narrative turn’, critics have argued, humans construct
realities based on a common, shared set of cultural narratives about
things as diverse as the national flag, the traffic signal, the popular
film and the politician’s speech.

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 42 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

REALITY AND/AS REPRESENTATION

Reality, according to specialized sciences like cognitive studies, enters

our consciousness through a combination of neurological (nerve),
bodily functions (like the eye or skin) and cultural factors that
influence the way we see and interpret things. Jerome Bruner in an
important essay titled, ‘The Narrative Construction of Reality’ (2004,
originally 1991) argued that humans organize their experience and
memories of human experiences in the form of narratives—myths,
excuses, reasons for doing things or for not doing, explanations.
These require a degree of mastery over the cultural conventions as to
how such explanations are offered and accepted. What is acceptable
and what is not in any narrative is not simply the individual’s choice,
but the result of a larger social convention. Narratives are a version
of reality whose acceptability has been established by social conven-
tion and common practices of interpretations.
In other words, reality comes to us in acts of communication and nar-
rative, of memory, history, autobiography, biography, stories, litera-
ture, advertisements, propaganda, speeches and so on.
Representation can seek to provide ‘reality’ in either of two ways.

(i) Mimesis, or imitation, was an idea first suggested by the Greek

philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Plato argued that the poet
who describes a bed in his poem is not true to the ‘original’.
The original bed, argues Plato, is an ideal, and exists only in
heaven. But the carpenter who makes the bed is closer to the
true nature of the bed because he makes it. The poet who only
describes a bed is far removed from the reality of the bed be-
cause he does not make it. Thus, Plato speaks of a degree with-
in mimesis—how close the imitation is to the original. Plato
went on to argue that the better the poet, the closer that poet’s
description will be to reality.
Aristotle modified this argument to suggest that the poet’s job is not
to simply imitate the original, but to improve it. Thus, art must al-
ways seek to attain the perfect model of any object. Aristotle also
argued that mimesis has a very useful purpose. When a tragic play
imitates human life (on stage), it reveals a certain truth about human

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 43

nature to us. What mimesis does is to convince us of the reality of

human condition, and thereby helps us to experience a relief (what
he called catharsis). Catharsis is the effect of mimesis.
What is important in the mimetic mode of narration is that it shows
us facets of life. It reveals life and human nature in the form of a
spectacle, on stage in a play or in detailed descriptions in a realist
novel like that of Dickens. Mimesis is direct representation of reality.

(ii) Diegesis is often taken as the opposite of mimesis. In a novel

or story, the author might directly describe the events hap-
pening, and proceed to show us what the character is feeling
or thinking. This is mimesis. However, the novelist can also
choose to narrate the events indirectly. The narrator of the sto-
ry might tell the story and leave us to discover the characters’
feelings and thoughts. Here the narrator only points to the
events, and leaves us the task of finding out for ourselves the
‘truth’. This is ‘telling’ (as opposed to ‘showing’ or mimetic nar-
ration) where the audience or listener or reader must discover
the truths about reality or human life from what the narrator
tells. Diegesis is indirect representation, or re-presentation, of
reality.
However, it would be wrong to assume that all narratives are either
mimetic or diegetic. Most narratives combine showing and telling.
For example, descriptions of settings, characters and events might be
direct and mimetic. But the narrator may not let us know the thought
processes or personality of a character directly. To say ‘he was a bad
man’ is mimetic. But when the narrator describes the actions of this
person without using the statement ‘he was a bad man’, the reader
discovers through a telling of the actions that the character is bad.
That is, the reader discovers the character indirectly by following the
events and interpreting them.
Representation (whether mimetic or diegetic) is the process through
which objects, people, events and ideas are constructed in a medi-
um (a medium could be print, video, song, music, gestures, writing,
symbols, etc). Objects, people and events acquire meaning through a
process of representation where particular language procedures and
interpretive modes are used.

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 44 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

Representation is a term that describes two aspects of this con-

struction:
• the process through which events, ideas and people are de-
scribed and defined in a medium
• the product that emerges at the end of this process
Take as example a physical object such as a tree. The drawing (picture)
of a tree, its description in words (brown, living, plant, usually tall,
with leaves, flowers and fruit), a photograph or a film is the process
by which the physical object (tree) is constructed in different media
(manuscript, print, film, words). What we identify as a ‘tree’, even if
the ‘real’ tree is not placed adjacent to the painting, photograph or
word description for comparison, is the identity of the tree that has
been constructed for us through the process of painting, words or
film. This identity of the tree is the product of a process of construc-
tion. Thus, the identity of the ‘tree’, or its reality, is made available
to us through the word, painting, descriptions. In short, these are
representations that deliver the reality of the tree to us.
What is important to understand is, even our experience of the tree
as a tree in ‘reality’ is based on the codes of perception we develop
through language and reading (by ‘reading’ we mean not just read-
ing printed texts, but the ability to interpret signs as diverse as films,
music, road signs, facial expressions, tone of voice). ‘Codes of per-
ception’ simply mean the representations, language and signs that we
accumulate over the years and which become the framework within
which we ‘read’ reality. To put it differently, our experience of the real
world occurs because we have a ready-made language, a system of
signs, a word to describe and grasp it. For instance, we recognize a
tree as a tree because we have a word, a term and a meaning already
at our disposal. The representation mediates the reality to and for us.
All reality requires a language and a vocabulary to be delivered to
our minds and senses. This also means, what we regard as ‘true’ real-
ity is simply the truth value we associate with a representation of that
reality. Truth is not the in-built feature of an event or person. Truth
is the power of representations that make us accept a person, event,
idea as ‘true’ enough.
Representation bestows identity and thus influences social interac-
tion because social interaction is based on identity. For instance,

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 45

representations of working classes have always treated them as idle,

criminal, lazy, immoral and dirty. As a result, laws were enacted in
order to control and improve the workers. Here the representations
of the working classes becomes valued and treated as the truth about
them. Nobody asked whether the working classes were truly so—
it was enough that there existed several such representations about
them. In similar fashion, the representations of women as the weaker
sex, children as innocent, the non-white races as inferior become
their identities. The equation would be:
representation bestows identity  this identity is taken as true
To put it differently, ‘reality’ is interpreted when it gets represented.
Meaning is attributed to a tree, a person, a group or an event through
the process of representation.
Women, children, working classes are represented in certain ways
and which lead to the establishment of certain ‘truths’ about them.
This means, their reality is constructed around the meanings that
have been generated and ‘fixed’ about them. Realities like citizenship,
rights, welfare, medical treatment, voting rights come to us because
our identities are accepted and validated. The ID card I carry is a
representation of me, my person, gender, location, face, profession,
affiliation. This card in its representation makes me real for the Uni-
versity where I work, for the students I teach, for the letters I sign. In
short, the ID card declares me as me, gives me an identity, and thus
creates my reality for the world.
In the post-1970 age, novelists began experimenting with new ways
of representing reality. In the earlier periods, the realist novel de-
scribed the world of its characters with great clarity. The novel was
‘real’ in the sense it asked to believe in it, and at no point did it show
that it was only a fictional world. But later authors like Thomas Pyn-
chon, Donald Barthelme, Graham Swift, John Barth and Martin
Amis did something interesting. On the one hand they give us the
world of the characters (the novel), but on the other hand they also
reveal the act of writing this novel. That is the author does two things
in the narrative:
• describe the world of the novel as though it was real
• makes it clear that the world of the novel is still a fiction

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 46 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

This is the postmodern novel where the author offers us the world
of the novel as though it were real but also asks us to question this
world. That is, the postmodern novel represents the world, but also
asks us to pay attention to the very act of representation. This is tech-
nically called self-reflexivity. For example, take Italo Calvino’s novel,
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler. This novel opens with a chapter on
reading a novel called If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler. It meditates
upon how to read, how to read a novel, what is a novel and so on.
Here the author is drawing our attention to the very act of novel-
writing and novel-reading. Later the novel gets more complicated.
Chapters with odd-numbers are in the second person. They tell the
reader what he (the reader) is doing in preparation for reading the
next chapter. Each even-numbered chapter is the opening chapter of
a different novel! This is a game Calvino plays which puzzles (and
quite often exasperates) the reader. But the point he is making is: lit-
erature can be used to reflect on the practice of producing literature
too. Here the novel is about

(i) how to write a novel

(ii) how to read a novel

The postmodern novel also does something else. The postmodern

novel represents historical reality but mixes it up with fictional re-
alities. A good example would be Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Chil-
dren. Here Saleem Sinai says that the war happened because his mind
imagined and dreamt the war. What he is saying is that the ‘real’ war
was the effect of his imagination. Here historical reality and fiction
merge in a way that we cannot separate the two. Most postmodern
novels do this, mixing reality with fiction. This strategy actually alerts
us to the slippery nature of all representations.

NARRATIVE MODES OF THINKING

The process of thinking has always fascinated scientists and phi-

losophers. How does the human mind think and imagine? Jerome
Bruner, the cultural psychologist, proposed that there are two main
modes of thinking, the logico-scientific and the narrative. In the
logico-scientific mode we look for the if-then cause and effect se-
quence. As in: ‘if x, then y’. In the case of the narrative mode, it would

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 47

read: ‘x, and then y’ leaving us to consider the causal connection

between the two. As an example we can think of:

The king died, and then the queen died of sorrow as a result.

This is the logico-scientific paradigm where ‘the queen died because

the king died’ establishes a clear cause-effect sequence. The narrative
thinking mode would put it this way:
The king died, and then the queen died.

Note that a logical cause-effect sequence is not established. Whether

the queen died as a result of the king’s death is left open to the read-
er’s imagination. The key features of narrative mode of thinking are:
• Narrative thinking does not seek to establish truths, instead it
seeks possibilities and similarities.
• It does not work only with reason and rationality, but works
with associations.
• It deals with particular conditions and experiences, and not
universal truths.
• While the logico-scientific does not tolerate contradictions, the
narrative mode accepts contradictions.
• Finally, narrative thinking is rooted in a context, because it
understands that meaning emerges within a specific context of
communication and representation.
For narrative thinking, no sentence or expression can always claim
universal truth. The truth value of a statement is dependent upon the
context in which it is spoken. As an example, think of a classroom
where a literature class is in progress. The teacher asks: ‘Can anyone
tell me what Dorothy Wordsworth, William Wordsworth’s sister, says
about her brother in her letters’? Suppose a student answers: ‘I was
told by my parents not to read others’ letters’. We have here an ex-
ample of a universal norm of behaviour (not to read other’s letters)
being misused in a context where the letters must be read for the class
to know the poems better. Here the meaning of the behaviour and in-
struction (‘do not read others’ letters’) cannot be the same at all times.
This is the context-specific meaning of acts of speech or writing.
Narrative thinking is also a practice we adopt in real life when we wish to
examine the events of our past. When looking at the events of our past

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 48 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

we impose an order on them. We detect patterns (plots) within the chain

of events. We also impose a cause-effect or sequential logic on them. We
do this because without a pattern, we would be unable to order these
events for our own purposes. Thus, through narrative thinking we:
(i) impose a pattern on the past;
(ii) seek a logic through which the random events could be linked;
and
(iii) attain a sense of self that is complete rather than fragmented,
ordered rather than random.
The narrative mode of thinking invites the reader to fill in gaps, to
imagine connections, to develop patterns as s/he thinks. It might
offer facts, but it also invites the reader to speculate on those facts.
Here is an example:
(i) The earth is spherical, where the sphere is flattened somewhat
at one point.
Here a set of facts are set out, clearly and with no room for ambigu-
ity. But the sentence also does not invite speculation or imagination,
since everything is given to us. Now read this sentence:
(ii) The earth is spherical but not a perfect sphere, rather a cricket
ball that has been hit hard for some time and has lost a bit of
its shape.
Here we see a narrative mode of thinking being initiated. The sen-
tence states one fact (a sphere, but not a perfect one). But without
explaining in detail the nature of this imperfect sphere, the sentence
asks the reader to imagine the earth in the form of a common object
(a cricket ball). It asks the reader to fuse the image of the beaten
ball with that of the earth for comparison. Here a narrative mode of
thinking is set up because it asks the reader to develop patterns, to
discover connections and to imagine.

NARRATION IN LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY

AND HISTORY

Literary texts present imaginary events. History represents things

that have actually happened in the past. Philosophy presents medi-
tations on abstract or concrete things.

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 49

Narration in Literature
Narration in literature consists of the plot, the story and the sequence
of events unfolding as ‘action’. Narration is technically called diege-
sis, the telling of the story.
Narrative theory focuses on three elements—author, text and reader.

Author
The real author, say, Fielding, wrote his Joseph Andrews and other
novels. But the flesh-and-blood Fielding is not the same as the model
of the writer constructed in and by the book. For example, numerous
authors have a short prefatory note that provides some biographical
details, including some information about how they came to write
the book. We assume that Fielding is the real author, we merge the
historical figure with the person who has actually composed the
book. We construct the image of the author from the components
of the book. This is the implied author, a concept first formulated by
Wayne C. Booth in his The Rhetoric of Fiction (1951).
But there is also the person who is telling the story within the novel.
This teller of the story within the novel (not the real, flesh-and-blood
author or novelist), is the narrator. The narrator could be a character
or a ‘voice’ that stands in for the real, flesh-and-blood novelist.
There are various kinds of narrators, and each of them has been given,
in narrative theory, specific terms and names.
(i) A narrator who is outside the story (story meaning ‘diegesis’)
s/he is narrating is a heterodiegetic narrator. This kind of nar-
rative is commonly known as the third person or omniscient
narrative. Here the events happen below the narrator—s/he is
like a god, viewing things happening without interfering.
(ii) Sometimes a heterodiegetic narrator can narrate a story about
other characters but from the inside of the story (that is, narrate
a story that is not about himself/herself: he is a spectator to the
events that happen around him). This is the heterodiegetic-
intradiegetic narrator.
(iii) On other occasions, the story is narrated by a man who is also
a character in the story he is narrating. This makes the narrator
a homodiegetic one. The homodiegetic narrative is often called
a first person narrative.

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 50 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

(iv) If the homodiegetic narrator is telling his/her own story then

he/she is an autodiegetic narrator. Autodiegetic narrators are
seen most clearly in autobiographies.

Literary Narratives
In the 20th century, the first attempts to uncover the structure of
literary narratives came from a group called the Russian Formalists.
The Formalists divided literary narratives into Fabula and Sjuzet.
Fabula is the order in which the events occurred in reality:

the king died, the queen died, the kingdom collapsed

This is the story. Sjuzet is the order in which the events are put to-
gether to make sense, to produce a cause-effect sequence, a logical
order in the narrative.

the king died, the queen was sorrowed and so she died, and because
both died the kingdom had no leader and it collapsed.

This is the plot. The difference between story ( fabula) and plot
(sjuzet) is that the first only presents events in the order in which they
occurred, and the plot offers us a cause-effect sequence. The story is
the actual sequence of events as they have occurred, and is merely
raw material for artistic work. Plot is the artistic representation of
these events. Plot may use repetition, reordering, and juxtapositions
to heighten literary effect (suspense, for instance).
Of these, Vladimir Propp’s analysis of the folk tale was an exercise in
formulating the principles of narrative theory. Propp argued that every
character in a folktale’s plot had a specific function. Further, all fairy
tales can be reduced to a set of seven characters who generate the entire
plot through their various relationships and actions. These characters
are: hero, false hero, villain, helper, princess and her father, dispatcher.
These characters are involved in a set of 31 basic functions, including
violation, trickery, departure (of hero), struggle, victory, return, rescue,
recognition, punishment and wedding. All plots are made up of these
characters and actions, in varying combination and proportion. The
plot moves when one character performs one kind of action, which in
turn leads to (through the cause-effect sequence) to another.
This kind of analysis became popular from the 1940s, where crit-
ics began to pay attention to the constituents of literary narratives.

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 51

A.J. Greimas evolved another formula to analyse literary narratives.

Greimas evolved a set of six actants, a set of ‘semes’ or opposites
that provide the rules for all narratives. These pairs are present in all
narratives:
(i) Subject/Object
(ii) Sender/Receiver
(iii) Helper/Opponent
These actants perform specific functions in all narratives. Greimas
also organized the narrative functions into the three types:
(i) Desire, search, aim: The Subject has a certain aim and desire
directed at a particular goal or Object.
(ii) Communication: The Subject is sent out on his or mission by
a sender who will reward the Subject upon her or his success.
The receiver is the one who rewards.
(iii) Auxiliary support or hindrance: The Subject is helped in his
or her quest and mission by the Helper and obstructed by the
Opponent.
Roland Barthes, the French critic, argued that literary narratives
consist of signs (words that produce characters and events) that are
influenced by five codes. These codes are the framework into which
all literary narratives fit. These codes are:
(i) Proairetic Code: This refers to the sequence in which the
events of a story unfold. The code describes the sequence of
‘this happened and then this happened’.
(ii) Hermeneutic Code: This is the code that informs our inter-
pretation. It helps us understand the answers to questions like
‘what happened?’ ‘How?’ ‘Why?’ ‘By Whom?’
(iii) Cultural Codes: Those elements of common knowledge that
we share as a community—about our common history, our
culture, our geography.
(iv) Semic Code: The code that draws upon a common set of ste-
reotypes. For example, a man in white clothes and wearing a
Gandhi cap is a semic code that represents a common stereo-
type that requires no explanation: we know immediately that
he is a politician.

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 52 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

(v) Symbolic Code: It extends beyond the immediate stereotype

to refer to something larger. For example, associations of night
with evil and fear, sunlight with knowledge and happiness are
common symbolic codes we understand in literature. As an
example, think of the Dark Knight (Batman). ‘Dark’ is associ-
ated with evil things, like crime. The Dark Knight is one who
comes out when it is ‘dark’, that is, when there is evil around.
Another important thinker in the criticism of literary narratives is
Gerard Genette. Genette proposed that all literary narratives contain
three levels of narration.
(i) histoire or story, which is the set of real actions events that
happened and need to be told. This is the content of all narra-
tives. This is what we call ‘story’.
(ii) Récit or narrative, is the story-telling, either in oral or writ-
ten form. It is the speech or writing of the storyteller through
which the story comes to us. This is what we call ‘text’.
(iii) Narrating, the larger process of recounting (the novel as a
whole, for example) that produces the récit. Narration is the
act of producing the text, either by the speaker or the author.
To take an example, the story (or ‘histoire’) of Mary Shelley’s novel
Frankenstein is the scientist’s quest for the secret of life, the creation
of the monster and the monster’s revenge on the scientist. The récit
or text is the telling of the story in the novel as a whole. Narration
is what Walton and Frankenstein the scientist do inside the novel—
these are the narrators who tell us the story.

Narration in Philosophy
Philosophical texts have always used narrative in order to explore the
sense of self, identity-formation, community and politics. Philosoph-
ical texts are interested in the ways stories and selves are connected,
and how identities are created within narratives. Philosophy’s stud-
ies of moral values, identity, self-hood (the sense of self) are quite
often studies of the narrative modes through which the individual
constructs her/his identity. The link of philosophy and narration can
be studied at two levels:
(i) philosophy’s dependence on narratives (what we can call phil-
osophical narratives) and

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 53

(ii) philosophy’s explication of various kinds of narratives in order

to propose an understanding of human existence, life and
truth.

Philosophical Narrative
Philosophy uses narratives and analyses narratives in order to explain
its arguments. Philosophy is about rhetoric, the art of persuasive
speech. For example, when Plato uses the myth of the cave he offers
a mythic narrative in order to demonstrate the problem of knowl-
edge. Francis Bacon in the 16th century in England used the image
of a new country (the ‘new Atlantis’) and the image of exploration
and discovery to promote a philosophy of learning. Bacon’s writings
constantly use the image of travel, frontiers and discovery to argue
that knowledge is an empire that has to be constantly expanded.
Politically significant texts and political philosophers have used nar-
ratives too. For instance, James I of England, trying to argue that the
king is the head of the state and his role is ordained by God, used the
narrative of sickness and medicine to make his point. James I argued
that the country is like a body, and the king is its physician. It is the
physician’s job (and nobody else’s) to care for and guard the body
against infection and disease. Later political philosophers in England
(Thomas Hobbes and John Locke) used the image of the city and a
large organism to describe monarchy and the country. The organism
can survive only when all parts of it obey the head, and therefore the
king (who is compared to the head) must be absolute in power.
Religious texts and the scriptures also use narrative modes to con-
vey their pronouncements on truth, human life, morals and values
and principles of living (ethics). Sacrifice occurs as a constant nar-
rative theme in Islam and Christianity. Various ideals are given to
us in these scriptures through the use of stories and narratives. For
example, in Christianity the story of Job offers us a model of faith.
Ethics and values in the Mahabharata (especially the Bhagavad Gita)
and Ramayana are delivered to us in the form of moral tales about
Rama, Krishna, Ravana, Arjuna and Karna.
In the 20th century, human rights philosophy has used narrative
forms on a regular basis. For instance, Michael Ignatieff (2001), the
human rights philosopher, has argued that victims of atrocity and op-
pression tell their stories in the form of testimonies (in courts of law)

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 54 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

and autobiographies. Ignatieff proposes that such narratives initiate

a process of ethical response. That is, when we read stories of such
atrocities, we respond with sympathy and understanding so that we
can initiate a legal, social and humanistic reaction to them. We there-
fore start a process of reconciliation, hope and legal help for these
victims. In other words, we start a process whereby human rights can
be made available to them. What Ignatieff is saying is, without these
narratives of horrific atrocity, human rights as a movement cannot
take off. Ignatieff is underlining the importance of narrative for all
philosophies of human rights.

The Philosophical Analysis of Narrative

Philosophical models for understanding the human have also
turned to the narrative. Paul Ricouer suggests that human action
can be understood only within an imaginative reconstruction of
it. The events and actions of the human constitute the first level of
mimesis. But it is at the second level (what Ricouer calls Mimesis
2) that the diverse elements of a situation are configured into some
kind of order, in just the same way as does the plot orders the events
of a story. Here the imaginative reconstruction configures events,
agents and objects so that the individual elements become a part of
a larger whole. These events can then answer questions such as why,
how, who, where, when because there is now an internal logic of the
plot. Human existence makes sense when we see human actions as
located within this logical plot. Finally, at the third level, we integrate
this imaginative plotting into our everyday lives. We combine the
fiction, the imaginative order, with real life.
To take a contemporary example, the French philosopher Jacques
Derrida (often seen as the founder of deconstruction), analyses
speech and writing in order to formulate a theory of Western phi-
losophy as a whole. Derrida argues, through a reading of Rousseau,
that speech has been privileged in Western thinking because speech
implies a physical presence. For a person to speak, he or she has to
be physically present with an audience. Writing, on the other hand,
can be done in the absence of the author—where the author writes
and the written word is distributed even without the author’s physi-
cal presence. Thus, the importance given to the spoken word, argues
Derrida, is the importance given to presence rather than absence.
Here Derrida links a medium (speech, writing) to a larger philosoph-

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 55

ical problem—physical presence and identity. The speech implies

the visible physical identity of the speaker, but the written word does
not do so.

Narration in History
Real events of the past or present cannot speak for themselves. They
must be presented in the form of a story. What was ‘real’ or ‘reality’
in the past is available and accessible to the present only when they
are presented to us in specific forms. That is, certain events may have
‘really’ happened, but for them to make sense to us, for us to know
their causes and effects, for us to understand their significance in
subsequent years, we need a form that explains and interprets the
events to us.
Take a historical event such as the 1857 Sepoy ‘Mutiny’ as an exam-
ple. We cannot go back to the actual events—reality—of 1857. 1857’s
actual events are therefore unknowable in and as themselves. In or-
der to understand what happened in 1857 we need to reconstruct
it. This process of reconstruction, or the attempt to gain knowledge
about it, is possible only through the sources—books, material ob-
jects, evidence of buildings, etc—from the time. Even here we run
into problems. We have a series of events, one after another. How
can we be certain that event 1 led to, or caused, event 2? The linkage
of 1 and 2 is based on a cause-effect scheme that we, in the pres-
ent, impose on the events of the past. In other words, we assume
these events were connected. This ‘assuming’ is the bestowing of a
story upon the events, placing people, things, events within a struc-
ture that shows a cause-effect sequence. This ‘assuming’ is an act of
imagination. Since the events themselves do not speak, we imagine
that 1 led to 2. History reconstruction is similar to a novel because
in both cases we attribute causes, develop stories and imagine links
between characters, places and events.
Thus, we place the events in a frame of interpretation where we claim
1 led to 2. We have produced a narrative that shows this linkage. His-
torical events are made to speak a particular truth because we frame
the events in specific ways so that they make one kind of sense. If we
arrange them differently, they make a different meaning. Thus, in
1857 the British saw the events as revealing the meaning of ‘rebellion’.
The Indian commentators argued that it was a war for independence.
The ‘truth’ of the events of 1857 depends on the kind of narrative that

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 56 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

the British and Indians impose on them. Events do not write history,
historians do, and therefore narratives construct the past.
Hence, for history to be effective in communicating the past to the pres-
ent and future, it must make use of effective narrative methods. There
are, according to a theorist of history, Hayden White (2004, originally
1981), three main modes of communicating events from the past.
(i) Annals Mode: History can be narrated simply as a form of list-
ing important events such as this:
1600: East India Company formed
1616: First Official Ambassador from England, Thomas Roe,
comes to India
1757: Battle of Plassey
1764: Battle of Baksar
1857: Sepoy War
1885: Indian National Congress founded
1947: Indian independence
This form of narrating history is called ‘annals’. The annals simply of-
fered us a list of events in chronological order with no central theme
or coherence. They do not tell us which events are more important,
or why they happened at all. They do not show how one set of events
may have led to another, or how one event influenced the life of per-
son or group.
(ii) Chronicle Mode: In other cases we have a narration that offers us
stories of the real events that happened, but they are unfinished
stories. The ‘chronicle’ is a form of representing events where the
narrative is more comprehensive, has a central theme or subject
(such as the life of an individual) is more ordered.
The above annals narrative can become a chronicle if it represents
the events of Indian history this way:
1600: East India Company formed
1616: First Official Ambassador from England, Thomas Roe,
comes to India, start of colonial encounter
1757: Battle of Plassey, Robert Clive wins, East India Company
becomes a political power

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 57

1764: Battle of Baksar

1857: Sepoy War
1885: Indian National Congress founded, freedom struggle
starts
1947: Indian independence, British leave India
Here a pattern or coherence is made available: the chronicle is giving
us a main theme or subject, the colonial rule in India. The chronicle
has imposed an order on the events. It links events—for example,
the founding of the Indian National Congress and the start of the
freedom struggle are placed alongside each other suggesting a sig-
nificant connection between the two (even if the connection is not
directly stated we are supposed to infer from the arrangement).
(iii) Historical Narrative: In a third type of narrating events of the
past, the events are conveyed to us in such a way that we wish
to know more about them. Reality and real events from the
past must be made to appeal to us, offer us some meaning. This
is the historical narrative. In a historical narrative there is a
closure of narrations. This means, the events narrated conclude
logically, and offer us a sense of completion. A historical account
of the above events would go thus:

In 1600 East India Company was formed by Queen Elizabeth

for purposes of trade with the East Indies. In order to seek trade
rights, in 1616 the First Official Ambassador from England,
Thomas Roe, came to India, and this marked the start of the
colonial encounter between Britain and India. In 1757 at
the Battle of Plassey, Clive won and the East India Company
became a political power, and starts imposing its rules and
systems. The 1764 Battle of Baksar strengthened British
hands and expanded their territories. The 1857 Sepoy War,
often called ‘first war of independence’ by Indians, results in
thousands of Indian ‘rebels’ being executed. In 1885 the Indian
National Congress founded and gave the freedom struggle a
set of leaders—Gokhale, Ranade, Tilak and eventually Nehru
and Gandhi. After numerous approaches to attaining freedom,
Gandhi’s non-violent struggle helped India. In 1947, Indian
independence was finally achieved when the British left India,
but leaving behind them the horrors of the Partition.

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 58 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

A cause-effect sequence is given to us. But most importantly, in this

type of narrative, the significance of events is offered to the reader.
This significance of events is highlighted through not simply a recital
of dates and events, but also an interpretation of the events in the
past. In other words, a historical narrative gives us meanings.
Through this third mode (‘historical narrative’) of representing
events from the past, history is made available to us for interpreta-
tion and not just information. The past comes to us in the form of a
story here with the following events:
• characters
• a cause-effect sequence
• chronology
• larger themes and subjects
• description
• interpretation
At this point, it must be kept in mind that the above forms are based
on a European method of producing and documenting history.
Ancient Asian (including Hindu and Islamic) methods of recording
history were very different: as songs with refrains and personal biog-
raphies, different trajectories being pursued within the same story,
oral stories and so on. These methods were often fragmented stories,
where historical events were woven into the personal stories of the
authors, or were compiled by many authors leaving room for con-
flicting opinions and interpretations. Thus, Islamic hadith reports
(individual accounts of the same event, with little or no comments
by the author), the Hindu oral epic and the African praise-song for
ancestors were also modes of narrating the past.
What the above discussion shows is that reality does come to us in
the form of narratives. And different cultures have different modes
of composing these narratives.

TEXTUALITY AND READING

Narratives are representations that the reader has to interpret. Thus, the
process of narration assumes an author (the one who writes), the text
(the printed work, the language, the story) and the reader (who engages

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 59

with the language and gets meaning out of the narrative). In this sec-
tion we shall look at the nature of texts and the role of the reader.

Textuality
The text has traditionally been seen as self-contained. It is complete
and offers its meaning to the astute reader. The New Critics (Wimsatt
and Beardsley, Robert Penn Warren) argued that meaning rests
within the text, and there is no need to step outside it to discover its
meaning. Thus, this interpretation presents the text as a coherent,
fixed entity whose meaning is always within it.
But in the 1970s critics began to argue that literary narratives are
not coherent or fixed identities. In fact, texts borrow from, adapt,
echo and even steal from other narratives. The French critic Roland
Barthes argued that a literary work can no longer be regarded as a
stable structure. A text is unlimited, and open to many interpreta-
tions. A text is an endless play, and the reader ‘plays’ the text, just
as the text ‘plays’ the reader. Barthes argues that the meaning of a
text rests with the reader. He in fact rejects the idea that the author
has any ‘author-ity’ over the text’s meaning (Barthes’ essay is, in fact,
called ‘The Death of the Author’). Barthes notes that every text is
open, and refers to, borrows from other texts (a concept we will re-
turn to below). A text, in other words, has no centre or boundaries.
As a result a text’s meanings are endless and proliferate depending
upon the reader. There is no final, single or ‘true’ meaning.
Barthes distinguishes between a ‘work’ and ‘text’. A ‘work’ is the
physical, printed book. A ‘text’ is the narrative inside it. A text is the
language and narration which the reader has to tackle in order to ob-
tain its meaning. To put it differently, a work becomes a text when the
reader opens it and starts dealing with the language and the narrative.
 • A work is dead, a text is alive.
 • A work is closed and stays on the shelf, a text is open and
engages the reader.
Thus, Barthes proposes that reading is an exercise in language that
occurs between the narrative and the reader (we shall return to the
reader in the later section).
Texts, therefore, appropriate stories and plots from earlier works.
Resemblances, echoes and allusions (where a text deliberately refers

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 60 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

to another text) make a literary narrative more complex. This leads

to a peculiar situation where every literary narrative seems to be
made up of several other narratives. In other words, no literary nar-
rative can be completely original because it adapts or appropriates
other narratives. Also, this means that we cannot treat a novel or a
story as finished because the story extends beyond this text to others.
A text is therefore unlimited. This view treats the text as:
(i) without closure,
(ii) limitless,
(iii) made up of other texts.
This is the concept of intertextuality. Intertextuality is the relation-
ship of one text to others. For example, in the 18th century, one of the
most successful novels was Henry Fielding’s Shamela. But this Field-
ing novel was a direct response to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. Lat-
er, in Joseph Andrews, Fielding introduced Joseph as Pamela’s brother
and Richardson’s Pamela even appears at the end of Fielding’s tale!
Now think of the following questions:
(i) Can we say that Shamela is an original and complete work
since it clearly connects itself to Pamela?
(ii) Does Shamela have a life of its own, separate from the earlier
work?
(iii) Where does Pamela end and Shamela begin, since the first
novel is echoed in and reflected in the story, action and char-
acters in Shamela?
(iv) Does Pamela’s story end when the novel Pamela ends? Or does
it continue in Fielding’s novel in some way?
(v) What is the relationship between Fielding’s novel and
Richardson’s?
The relationship of the two novels, the conscious echoes of themes,
speech, character and plot of Pamela in Fielding’s Shamela is termed
intertextuality.
To use another example, T.S. Eliot’s poetry in The Wasteland uses
Sanskrit phrases, Greek mythology and urban London speech. He
borrows from anthropology, myth, history and a variety of literary
texts. So where does Eliot’s Wasteland end and other literary and
non-literary texts begin? Is Wasteland one poem or many (since it
contains echoes of many poets and poems)?

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 61

Genette Genette identified several relationships between these vari-

ous kinds of texts. He explored epigraphs, dedications, forewords,
appendices, epilogues, commentaries and criticism.
• Paratexts are epigraphs, prefaces, forewords, epilogues, addresses
to the reader, epigraphs, acknowledgements, footnotes, drafts, il-
lustrations that are somehow connected to the main narrative.
• Intertextuality refers to the references, echoes, quotes and cita-
tions, and even plagiarized sections of a work. Here every text
seems to recall, double, echo or steal from other texts so that it
becomes difficult to establish an ‘original’ text.
• Architextuality is the relationship of a text to other texts in the
same genre/type. For example, the connection between a 20th
century satirical poem by W.H. Auden has an architextual con-
nection with the satires of Alexander Pope.
• Metatextuality is the relationship between a text and the criti-
cal commentaries, biographical commentaries and other refer-
ences on the main text.
• Hypertextuality resembles metatextuality in that it refers to
texts that come later or after the original text. The original text
is hypotext and the later text is hypertext. In the 20th century
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea was a hypertext to the Victorian
novel, Jane Eyre, and J.M. Coetzee’s Foe was a later retelling of
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

Reader
Thus far we have seen two components of narrative: the author and
the text. A novel is written by a flesh-and-blood person, the author.
The story inside the novel is narrated by a narrator—a speaker or
storyteller who may simply be one of the characters in the tale. The
narrative consists of a text.
But who does the narrator narrate the story to? The text constructs
an addressee, to whom the story is told. This is the narratee. The
narratee is a figure that is the direct recipient of the story.
The narrative is an imaginary reader with particular qualities. This
reader is a model, and not necessarily a true person. The ‘dear reader’
in 18th and 19th century novels is not always you, a BA student in a
Trivandrum College or a university graduate in Delhi. The ‘reader’ is
a construction, and is implied in the work. This is the implied reader.

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 62 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

This implied reader may not be the same as the real, flesh-and-blood
reader browsing through the novel. The historical or real reader is
the person who reads the text.

Textuality, Authorship and Reading in the Digital Age

In the computer age new forms of textuality emerge, and change the
way in which the reader experiences the text. Computer texts, or
digital literature—say, a novel which can be read online—are char-
acterized by several distinctive features:
(i) Interactive: Unlike a printed novel, the reader can read from
anywhere. Click on the link one chooses and read. The se-
quence through a text is the sequence the reader follows, and
not one that is decided by the author. In texts written exclu-
sively for the World Wide Web (eg. Michael Joyce’s Afternoon
or Shirley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl), the reader chooses the
path through the narrative so that there is little authorial con-
trol over how the reader consumes the text.
(ii) Multimodal: If you go the Wilfred Owen Multimedia Archive
(WOMDA) you can read the printed text of Owen’s poetry, see
the original handwriting in which he wrote, photographs from
the war and hear the voice recordings of the poems. Thus, one
poem can be read in the form of several different texts (audio,
video, print) at the same time. This is the multimodal text.
(iii) Intertextual: You can access multiple texts at the same time
on the same screen, thus showing the intertextual nature of all
texts. Further, an annotated edition of, say, Shakespeare offers
you commentary, historical references, literary references
all on the same page, thereby showing all the sources for
Shakespearean study.
(iv) Fluid Texts: Texts on screen can be altered in their appear-
ance, unlike in the case of printed materials. This destabilizes
the text for the reader. There is a greater sense of play and
discovery in this kind of textuality.
Digital narratives constitute a whole new form of narrative. In simi-
lar fashion, studies have argued for computer games, which also have
a story and plot, as narratives.

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 NARRATION AND REPRESENTATION 63

REFERENCES

Bruner, Jerome. ‘The Narrative Construction of Reality’. In Mieke Bal (ed.)

Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies. London
and New York: Routledge, 2004. Vol. IV, pp. 213–232.
Ignatieff, Michael. Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2001.
Phelan, James. ‘Narrative Judgments and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative:
Ian McEwan’s Atonement’. In James Phelan and Peter Rabinowitz (eds)
A Companion to Narrative Theory. Malden: Blackwell, 2005, pp. 322–326.
White, Hayden. ‘The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality’.
1981. In Mieke Bal (ed.) Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and
Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. Vol. IV, pp. 58–80.

REVIEW EXERCISES

Short Answer Type Questions

1. What is mimesis?
2. Distinguish between histoire and récit.
3. Define metatextuality.
4. Who is a narratee? Write a short definition of the expression.
5. According to Roland Barthes, what is a proaireitc code in a narra-
tive? Name the other kinds of codes discussed by him.

Long Answer Type Questions

1. Discuss the following:
a. Historical narratives
b. Greimas’ formula for analysing narratives
2. Write an essay on the concept of textuality in narratives with special
reference to the ideas of Roland Barthes.

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 4 Indian Philosophy

SHWETA

Chapter outline
• Origin and Development of Indian Philosophical Systems
• What Is Knowledge?
• Concepts of Knowledge in the Indian Tradition
• Methodologies of the Indian Knowledge Systems
• Indian Theories of Knowledge

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN

PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS

PHILOSOPHY AS DARSHAN

T
he origin of Indian philosophy has been traced back to the
Vedas, which are the earliest available Indian literature on
record, but it is not possible to determine conclusively the
reasons or influences that gave rise to it. It is also extremely dif-
ficult to establish the chronological sequence of development of the
different schools of Indian philosophy since the information avail-
able with us is either meagre or not well documented, and therefore

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 65

insufficient. Historical records and biographies were not properly

preserved and maintained in the ancient times. There could be two
reasons for this. Firstly, the attitude of people was such that for
them philosophy was more important than the philosopher, and,
therefore, their interest lay in propagating the ideas further without
much concern for preserving the details of the thinkers. Secondly,
the recognized mode of passing on of knowledge in the Indian tra-
dition was one in which the teacher verbally instructed the pupils,
who in turn did the same with their pupils, and this continued for
generations. This was not conducive to proper evidencing or main-
tenance of records.
The lack of accurate historical records does not affect our under-
stand. The lack of accurate historical records does not affect our
understanding of Indian philosophy as such. This point can be
better understood by drawing a contrast between Indian philoso-
phy and European philosophy. Because of its essential nature, the
understanding of European philosophy becomes linked to its his-
torical development. European tradition has developed through
the defects of an existing system giving rise to the need for an
alternative system to replace it, and, therefore, later systems are
built on the foundation of criticism and subsequent rejection of
the earlier systems. In such a system, knowledge of accurate chro-
nology becomes necessary to understand the order in which the
systems emerge because it is indicative of succession of one system
over another. However, most of the systems of Indian philosophy
developed simultaneously. Even though the systems have been
critical of one another, one did not replace the other. Within a
given system, the new philosophers who embraced it poured all
their efforts in defending and strengthening the arguments of
their predecessors, rather than in criticizing or replacing them.
The later philosophers who joined a system belonged to it. They
enriched their own system by supplementing it with fresh ideas,
defending the original ideology of the system faithfully with bet-
ter arguments and criticizing the opponents with more aggression.
The later stage of the system was, thus, a more coherent form of the
earlier stage of the original system. In this manner, the principal
systems all continued to exist side by side over centuries. Even
though the history of a system was not preserved, its philosophy

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 66 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

was certainly preserved. Thus, the various stages of development

of one school of philosophy are visible through its interrelations
with other schools. Besides, even if we knew the dates of philoso-
phers of one system, it would not be of much help because each
successive philosopher in a system first reaffirmed the ideas of his
predecessors and then took it forward from there along the same
lines. In treating each philosopher separately, we would only repeat
the same ideas many times over. Therefore, accurate chronologi-
cal data or the lack of it is not of much consequence in studying
Indian philosophy.

The early phase of development of Indian philosophy is not clear.

We can trace back the origin of most of the systems to sometime
between 600 bc and 100 or 200 bc, but there are conflicting claims
about the order in which these systems came into being, since they
all existed simultaneously at some point and did so through a con-
tinuous chain of teachers and pupils till about the 17th century ad.
Buddha’s teachings led to the development of Buddhist philosophy
sometime around 500 bc. Jaina philosophy is said to be prior in
origin to Buddhism. The references to the school of materialism
found in early Buddhist literature provide the evidence that it is
also older than Buddhism. It has been speculated that the systems
of Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and possibly even Vaisesika existed
in their elementary forms even before Buddhism and Jainism,
but since their elaborate works were written later, they are usu-
ally discussed after Buddhism and Jainism. Though nothing can be
said with certainty about the history of the systems of Nyaya and
Vedanta, both of them are conjectured to be later in origin than
Buddhism. In total, there were nine schools of thought in Indian
philosophy. So far as the later phase of their development is con-
cerned, some dates are available and it is possible for us to deter-
mine the timeframe and order in which their respective thinkers
existed.

Dr Radhakrishnan has distinguished between the different

periods of Indian philosophy. He maintains the following broad
divisions:

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 67

(1) The Vedic Period (1500 bc to 600 bc)—This period denotes

the settlement and expansion of the Aryans. Although there
is not much philosophy in this pre-Upanishadic era, we
cannot deny the ‘beginnings of sublime idealism of India.’
Dr Radhakrishnan says, ‘The views put forward in this
age are not philosophical in the technical sense of the
term. It is the age of groping, where superstition and thought
are yet in conflict.’ (S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy,
Vol. I, 8th ed., George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1966,
p. 57.)

(2) The Epic Period (600 bc to ad 200)—This period covers

the age between early Upanishads and the various systems
or schools of philosophy. It put forth the idea of relations
between God and Man as depicted in the Ramayana and
the Mahabharata. The roots of Buddhism, Jainism, Saivism,
and Vaishnavism lie in this period. According to Dr Rad-
hakrishnan, ‘In this period we have also the great democ-
ratization of the Upanishadic ideas in Buddhism and the
Bhagavadgita. The development of abstract thought which
culminated in the schools of Indian philosophy, the darsanas,
belongs to this period.’ (S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy,
Vol. I, 8th ed., George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1966,
pp. 57–58.)

(3) The Sutra Period (from ad 200)—This period witnessed

such a rapid growth in the volume of literature of the various
schools of philosophy that it gave rise to sutras as a means of
encapsulating the literary works. The concept of commentaries
emerged to further facilitate the understanding of these sutras.
Whereas the active minds discussed and debated philosophi-
cal issues in the earlier periods, this period critically analysed
the ability of the human mind to address philosophical prob-
lems. Radhakrishnan holds that ‘The earlier efforts to under-
stand and interpret the world were not strictly philosophical
attempts, since they were not troubled by any scruples about
competence of the human mind or the efficiency of the instru-
ments and the criteria employed.’ ((S. Radhakrishnan, Indian

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 68 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

Philosophy, Vol. I, 8th ed., George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London,
1966, p. 58.)
(4) The Scholastic Period (from ad 200)—This period is not very
distinct from the previous one. The renown of scholars like
Kumarila, Samkara, Ramanuja, Sridhara, Madhwa, Vacaspati,
Udaayna, Bhaskara, Jayanta, Vijnanabhikshu, and Raghunatha
illuminates this age. Along with some very valuable texts, this
period unfortunately also saw a lot of literary exercises being
reduced to polemics that generated controversies. On them,
Radhakrishnan remarks that, ‘Instead of thoughts we find
words, instead of philosophy, logic-chopping. Obscurity of
thought, subtlety of logic, intolerance of disposition, mark the
worst type of the commentators.’ ((S. Radhakrishnan, Indian
Philosophy, Vol. I, 8th ed., George Allen & Unwin Ltd, Lon-
don, 1966, p. 59.) The saving grace for this period was the path
of spiritual discovery reaffirmed by people like Samkara and
Ramanuja.
The nine systems of Indian philosophical thought have been
conventionally classified into two broad divisions of the ortho-
dox (astika) and the heterodox (nastika). This classification has
been made on the basis of whether or not a system believes in the
infallibility of Vedas. The schools that neither consider the Vedas to
neither be infallible nor derive their own validity from the author-
ity of the Vedas are classified as heterodox, or nastika. The schools
of materialism, Buddhism, and Jainism fall in this category as they
repudiated the authority of the Vedas. The Buddhists and the Jai-
nas subscribed to their own respective scriptures. The remaining
six schools are all orthodox because, directly or indirectly, they
accept the authority of the Vedas. Of these, Mimamsa and Vedanta
depend entirely on the Vedas and exist in continuation of the Vedic
tradition. Mimamsa emphasizes the importance of the rituals
prescribed in the Vedas, but Vedanta considers the parts of Vedas
which contain philosophical issues more important. While Samkhya,
Yoga, Nyaya, and Vaisesika are not based on the Vedas, they
nevertheless are careful to maintain a consonance between their
theories and the Vedas. This classification can be summed up in the
following way:

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 69

Indian Philosophical Schools

Heterodox or Nastika Schools Orthodox or Astika Schools

(Schools that reject the authority (Schools that do not reject the
of the Vedas), viz., the Materialist, authority of the the Buddhist
and the Jaina Vedas)

Schools that depend directly Schools that do not depend on

on the Vedic texts the Vedic texts, viz. Samkhya,
Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika

Schools that treat the ritualistic Schools that treat the speculative
part of Vedas as important, viz. part of Vedas as important, viz.
Mimamsa Vedanta

Let us now discuss each of these schools of Indian philosophy briefly.

(1) Materialism: This school is also called the Carvaka system,
so named after its chief exponent, or Lokayata, i.e., philos-
ophy of the people. As the name itself suggests, this school
believes matter to be the only reality. The materialists accept
the existence of only four eternal elements—earth, water,
fire, and air. They reduce everything to matter and explain
even metaphysical concepts like consciousness as a property,
which is produced in the body from a combination of these
four elements in a certain proportion. Their whole philosophy
rests on their theory of knowledge, which admits perception

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 70 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

as the only source of valid knowledge. Consequently, they do

not entertain the ideas of God, soul, akasa, and the like, as
these cannot be ascertained by perception. The Carvaka eth-
ics leave a lot to be desired. Since they take this world to be
the only reality, never to be experienced again once we die,
they believe in maximum indulgence of senses. Out of the
four human values—dharma, artha, kama, and moksha—they
advocate pursuit of kama only and artha merely as a facilitat-
ing means for the purpose. No original work of the system
has survived. Most of the information that we have about this
school is gleaned from cross-references from books of other
schools, which have ridiculed and rejected it. Therefore, only
a distorted version of the school has reached us. It is suspected
that all serious philosophical thoughts propounded by this
school have got lost over time.

(2) Jainism: This school can be qualified by adjectives like realistic,

relativistic, pluralistic, and atheistic. Jainas believe in the valid-
ity of perception, inference, and testimony as means of knowl-
edge. They came up with a unique position of syadavada, or
the theory of relativity of knowledge. They believe that reality
has innumerable aspects. Human knowledge is finite and can-
not comprehend them all. Therefore, our judgements can never
be absolutely affirmative or negative but only relative, i.e., as
viewed from a particular viewpoint out of the infinite possible
ones. Related to this doctrine is their theory of Anekantavada,
i.e., the theory of manyness of reality, which asserted that real-
ity is neither absolutely permanent nor constantly changing. It
is permanent with respect to the substance since matter exists
forever, but qualities are its accidental features, which come
into being and perish. The Jaina metaphysics is pluralistic and
divides all substances into souls (jiva) and non-soul (ajiva), and
both are separately and independently real. Ajiva is of five types,
viz. kala or time, akasa or space, dharma or motion, adharma
or rest, and pudgala or matter. Jainas believed that every liv-
ing thing in this world including humans, animals, plants, and
germs has soul, which is in bondage due to ignorance. Karma
binds the soul to the body with matter. Right faith, knowledge,

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 71

and conduct lead to separation of matter from the soul, and

ultimately to liberation. Jainas have a five-fold system of disci-
pline consisting of five vows, viz. (1) ahimsa or non-violence,
(2) satya or truth, (3) asteya or non-stealing, (4) brahmacha-
rya or abstention from self-indulgence, and (5) aparigraha
or renunciation. The same vows are to be practiced rigidly
by monks while moderately by laypersons. Jainism does not
believe in God but it is definitely an ethical school.

(3) Buddhism: This school came into being as a result of the enlight-
enment attained by Buddha, consequent to which he took to
preaching. Although he preached orally, his three central doc-
trines have been preserved well. The first of these is Catvari
Arya-satyas or The Four Noble Truths, which are that there is
misery, that there is a cause of misery, that there is cessation of
misery, and that there is a path leading to the cessation of misery.
The second doctrine is that of Pratityasamutpada or dependent
origination, which is contained in the second and third noble
truths. It says that everything in this world arises depending on
the cause and is, therefore, impermanent. Buddha believed that
suffering, which resulted due to ignorance, led to the endless
cycles of birth and death. Only knowledge can break this cycle
and liberate us. The theory contained in the fourth noble truth
is called the eight-fold Noble Path and prescribes the follow-
ing eight steps, which lead to enlightenment—right views, right
determination, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood,
right endeavour, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Buddhism believes in perception and inference as the means
of valid knowledge. It also believes in testimony, but reduces
it to inference. The Buddhist school split into many. Between
them, their metaphysics cover the range from absolute nihilism
to direct realism. Buddha recommended avoiding extremes and
following the middle path, which leads to knowledge, enlight-
enment, and, consequently, nirvana or liberation. The Hinayana
and Mahayana split differs as regards the purpose of nirvana.
While the former considers it important for cessation of per-
sonal misery, the latter believes in the social end for obtaining
wisdom, i.e., guiding others towards their salvation.

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 72 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

(4) Nyaya: This school, which is said to have been founded by

Gotama, is an allied system of Vaisesika. The two share many of
their views while differing on a few. Vaisesika, which is devoted
primarily to metaphysics and ontology, found its epistemo-
logical and logical counterpart in Nyaya. Nyaya subscribes to
atomistic pluralism and logical realism. It asserts that there is
suffering because the soul is in bondage due to ignorance of
reality. The only way to end this suffering is by attaining lib-
eration through knowledge. Therefore, Nyaya undertakes to
establish the right ways of knowing. According to Naiyayikas,
there are four ways of acquiring valid knowledge, viz. percep-
tion, inference, comparison, and testimony. They consider the
entire universe as real and reduce it to 16 categories. They have
an elaborate theory of causation, which claims that the effect
did not pre-exist in the cause. Everything in this universe arises
due to combining of atoms of air, water, fire, and earth, which
are eternal. Ether is not atomic but one. They also advocate
several arguments to prove the existence of God, who is con-
sidered to be the efficient cause of this universe. Liberation for
them is not a state of happiness but absolute cessation of pain
and suffering.

(5) Vaisesika: Said to have been founded by Kanada, this school

shares most of its ideas with Nyaya. Considering how impor-
tant the right knowledge of reality is for liberation, Vaisesika
devotes itself to the exposition of reality. It classifies all realms
under the seven categories of substance, quality, action, gen-
erality, particularity, inherence, and non-existence. They treat
mind as atomic but soul as eternal and all-pervading. Vaisesika
accepts only perception and inference as valid independent
pramanas, and reduces comparison and verbal testimony to
inference. Its views on causation, God, and liberation concur
with that of Nyaya.

(6) Sankhya: This school of dualistic realism was founded by Kap-

ila. It believes in the existence of two mutually independent
ultimate realities, viz. prakrti and purusa. The essentially con-
scious purusa is intelligent. It is the self, which is other than
the body, the senses, and the mind. It is a witness to the change

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 73

going on in the world, but is itself eternal and not subject to

change. Purusa is that who enjoys the products of prakrti.
Sankhya advocates the multiplicity of purusa. Prakrti, on the
other hand, is unconscious and eternal. It is the first principle
of the world. It is always changing and is meant to be enjoyed
by the purusa. It is constituted of the three gunas of sattva,
rajas, and tamas, which are held in perfect equilibrium at the
beginning of evolution. This equilibrium in prakrti is disturbed
by the nearness of purusa, and the three gunas start combining
with each other in different proportions to give us everything
in this world. Thus, everything is a combination of some or
the other proportion of these three gunas. So far as the theory
of knowledge is concerned, Sankhya believes in the validity of
perception, inference, and testimony as a means of knowledge.
It is certainly orthodox but probably atheistic. They consider
earthly life as painful and liberation as cessation of all pain.
Knowledge of distinction between the self and the not-self
does not itself liberate us, but sends us on the path of libera-
tion, which is achieved through the spiritual training gained by
the practice of Yoga.
(7) Yoga: This school, which was founded by Patanjali, was closely
allied with Sankhya, and accepts its epistemology and meta-
physics. While Sankhya is theoretical, Yoga is practical, and they
are both considered as two sides of the same system. Discrimi-
native knowledge, or vivekajnana, is necessary for liberation
and it can be attained through the practice of Yoga. The prac-
tice of Yoga as a discipline had been done since ancient times.
However, since its alliance with the Sankhya, it tried to develop
a specific philosophy of its own, which would be in harmony
with the Sankhya philosophy. Thus was formulated the under-
standing of Yoga as Citta-vrtti-nirodha, or cessation of all men-
tal functions, through which it aimed to prevent the chances of
the soul falsely identifying itself with manifold objects. It is not
for its philosophy that Yoga is known the world over. Though
the popular understanding of Yoga equates it with just the
asanas, there are eight steps prescribed for its practice, which
emphasize internal and external cleansing, self-discipline,
physical fitness, and meditation, which result in alertness and

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 74 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

mental strength. These steps are yama or restraint, niyama or

discipline, asana or sitting posture, pranayama or breathing
exercises, pratyahar or withdrawal of the senses, dharna or
attention, dhyana or meditation, and samadhi or concentra-
tion, and are meant to help achieve liberation. The five yamas,
i.e, abstention from violence, falsehood, stealing, passions,
and avarice, indicate the presence of ethics in the system. This
school admitted the existence of God.
(8) Mimamsa: The main aim of this school, which was founded
by Jaimini, was to provide reasons in defence and favour of
the ritualism prescribed by the Vedas. Their entire episte-
mology and metaphysics is formed to support this aim. In
keeping with this objective, they contend that the Vedas are
self-existing and eternal. They have not been written by any
human. Therefore, they are free of error and we should submit
to their authority without questions. The authority of Vedas
prevails over everything else. They claim that the rituals men-
tioned in the Vedas when performed in a disinterested way
destroy the karmas and lead to liberation after death. They
assert that the world has always been like this. Apart from
the reality of the physical world, they also insist on the reality
of the souls. The soul is considered to be immortal because
how else would they explain the performance of certain ritu-
als, which are supposed to help attain heaven. The Prabhakara
school accepts the validity of perception, inference, compari-
son, testimony, and postulation. The Kumarila school adds
non-cognition to this list of pramanas. There is no place for
God in the Mimamsaka philosophy. There is a shift from their
idea of liberation as attainment of bliss to liberation as cessa-
tion of suffering.
(9) Vedanta: This school took its name from the fact that philo-
sophically it was a continuation of the Vedas. The word
‘Vedanta’ is a composite of two words ‘Veda’ and ‘anta’, or end,
and literally means ‘the end of Vedas’. The philosophy of this
school arose from where the Vedas ended, i.e., from the Upa-
nishads. The other important sources on which the Vedantins
depend are the Gita and the Brahma-Sutra, which was the first

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 75

work to successfully capture the essence of the Upanishads

in entirety. Although Brahma-Sutra has been said to be the
basic work of Vedanta philosophy, its sutras do not yield any
clear philosophical position. There is a lot of room for inter-
pretation. Many philosophers have interpreted it in a manner
that it justifies and substantiates their philosophy, which they
consequently claimed was the Vedanta philosophy. Of these,
Samkara’s interpretation is considered to be the most powerful
one, and his philosophy of Advaitavada is considered to be the
representative of the Vedanta philosophy. Vedanta believes in
monism and its metaphysics is in accordance with this princi-
ple. They do not consider the world to be ultimately real. They
believe, like Prabhakara Mimamsakas, in six means of valid
knowledge, viz. perception, inference, comparison, testimony,
presumption, and non-cognition.
All the schools of Indian philosophy developed not in isolation from
one another, but as interrelated to each other. Each had to defend its
theory from the criticisms it faced from the other schools and also
develop its own theory to challenge the others. The development of
a particular school cannot, therefore, be understood properly with-
out constant reference to other schools in which it finds a mention.
The Indian word for philosophy is darsana, and there is a difference
of opinion about its true meaning. A popular understanding of the
term says since the word ‘darsana’ is derived from the root ‘drs’,
which means ‘to see’, philosophy is that which helps us see the ulti-
mate reality. Given the objective that each of the schools discussed
above maintains, i.e., to help us achieve liberation, one cannot but
agree that they are darsanas in the true sense of the word.

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?
It is not possible to provide a simple and straight answer to the ques-
tion ‘What is knowledge?’, because there are many different ways in
which we can answer it. Depending on how we answer this question,
we get the different varieties of knowledge like ‘knowledge how’ or
‘knowledge that’. I can say that I know someone, or I know how to
fix a leaking tap, or I know that some cats are black. We can see that

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though each of these is an instance of knowledge, there is a differ-

ence between them. In the first case, I am acquainted with someone.
In the second case, I have a skill. In the third case, I know a fact.
Epistemology (theory of knowledge) is primarily concerned with
the third kind, i.e., knowledge of facts or propositional knowledge.
Propositional knowledge has been held to be a species of belief. Now,
we must determine those characteristics of beliefs which qualify a
belief as knowledge. The traditional account of knowledge around
which the Western philosophy revolves has taken truth and justifica-
tion as the essential characteristics of those beliefs which are to be
counted as knowledge. Epistemology in the West has, thus, defined
knowledge as justified, true belief. According to this definition, a
knows p if and only if the following conditions are satisfied:
(i) p,
(ii) a believes that p, and
(iii) a’s belief that p is justified.

JNANA AND PRAMA

Generally, people presuppose the frequently used Sanskrit word

jnana in Indian philosophy to be the equivalent of the Western con-
cept of knowledge. The word jnana stands for all sorts of cognition,
whether true or false. Of these, true cognition (yathartha jnana),
which is termed as prama, is the equivalent of knowledge. It is appar-
ent at the outset that there are differences between these concepts. The
Western concept says that knowledge is a subset of the set of beliefs.
The Indian concept says that prama is a subset of cognition, not of
beliefs. Consequently, another difference arises between these two
philosophies. In the Western philosophy, knowledge implies a belief,
which is true. The moment a belief is found to be false, it ceases to be
called knowledge. Therefore, there is no division of knowledge into
true knowledge and false knowledge. The concept of true knowledge
is a tautology, and that of false knowledge is a contradiction, which
means no knowledge at all. Western philosophy does not even enter-
tain the idea of non-valid knowledge. In Indian philosophy, on the
other hand, knowledge has been classified into valid knowledge or
prama, and non-valid/invalid knowledge or aprama.

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 77

It is not possible to have a single definition of any concept in Indian

philosophy because each school defines the concepts in accordance
with its own philosophy. Therefore, we cannot discuss any definition
of knowledge which is common to all schools of Indian philosophy.
However, all the schools unanimously agree that truth is one of the
essential characteristics of prama. But again, the schools vary as
regards the meaning of truth, giving us at least four different views
about truth.
Most of the Buddhist schools as well as some other philosophers
believe that truth of knowledge is contained in its practical value. In
their respective ways, these philosophers hold that the truth of cog-
nition lies in its utility, i.e., in its ability to reveal an object that fulfils
some purpose or procures some end. This view is very similar to the
pragmatic theory of the Western philosophy.
The Naiyayikas, being realists, claim that the truth consists in the
loyalty maintained by the knowledge in revealing its object. True
knowledge is that which tells us about the existence of a thing in a
place where it really is, or which tells us about such a quality of an
object which is actually possessed by it. This realist view finds its
parallel in the correspondence theory of the Western philosophy.
Some philosophers consider that truth consists in harmony of expe-
rience. They maintain that true knowledge is that which is in har-
mony with other experiences, i.e., it coheres with other experiences.
This view resembles the coherence theory of truth of the Western
philosophy.
The Advaita school of Vedanta understands truth as non-contra-
dictedness. They hold that truth of knowledge implies that its con-
tent should be uncontradicted. Truth of knowledge ensures that the
knowledge would not be sublated by any subsequent knowledge.
Thus, we see that different interpretations of one of the characteris-
tics common to all schools of knowledge, i.e., truth, lend such varied
meanings to the concept of knowledge. However, truth being the only
condition for validity of knowledge might lead to the problem that
smrti (memory), in so far as it would be true in any of the above-
mentioned senses, would have to be considered a case of prama. This
leaves many philosophers uncomfortable since memory is non-valid
knowledge and prama should not include it. To prevent such inclusion

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in the concept of knowledge, with some exceptions, almost all the

schools feel that apart from being true, it should also be essential that
the content of knowledge should be new or previously unacquired.
It has been a problem to conclusively determine the ontological sta-
tus of knowledge because opinions differ as to whether knowledge
is an activity or a relation or a quality. The act theory of knowledge
says that knowledge is an activity. According to this theory, when
one is inattentive, one does not perceive sounds or things, which
may be present to one’s senses. If one is to register them, then his
mind should be reactive to them and not just passively receive them.
So, in the process of knowledge, the mind reaches out to the objects
actively and illuminates them. Knowledge is, thus, a kind of activity.
This view is supported by the Buddhist and the Mimamsa systems.
The relation theory of knowledge claims that knowledge is a relation
between terms like a mind, an object, and a content. A relationship
can exist between all the three terms, e.g., when I have the knowl-
edge of a pot, my mind enters into a relation with the pot through
the content of potness. Some philosophers have understood this
relation as existing between two terms, i.e., a mind and an object,
while some others have reduced knowledge to relation among just
one type of terms.
The quality theory of knowledge regards knowledge as a quality, but
there is disagreement between schools about what it is a quality of.
The Sankhya and the Yoga systems believe that intellect is the sub-
stratum of which knowledge is a modification or quality. The Nai-
yayikas and the Vaisesikas consider soul to be the substance of which
knowledge is the attribute, albeit separable, through the special rela-
tion of inherence. The Ramanuja school of Vedanta accepts knowl-
edge as an essential quality of the self.
So far, we have discussed the characteristics and nature of prama.
Let us now look at the classification of knowledge so that we can also
understand the concept of aprama or non-valid/invalid knowledge.
The most comprehensive classification would be in a table that is a
combination of the Nyaya and the Advaita school so that it includes
all the apramas (types of non-valid/invalid knowledge) as well as the
maximum number of pramanas (sources of valid knowledge). The
table could be presented in the following manner:

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 79

Cognition (jnana)

Presented to experience Memory

(anubhava) (smrti)

Valid Non-valid/invalid True False

(prama) (aprama) (Yathartha) (Ayathartha)

Doubt Error Hypothetical argument

(Samsaya) (Viparyyaya) (Tarka)

Perception Inference Comparison Testimony Presumption Non-

cognition
(Pratyaksa) (Anumana) (Upamana) (Sabda) (Arthapatti) (Anupal
abdhi)

In the table presented above, we can see that all cognition has been
divided on the basis of whether it has been presented to senses, i.e.,
immediate experience (anubhava), or it is an impression of a past experi-
ence, i.e., memory (smrti). Immediate experience is further divided into
valid knowledge (prama) and non-valid/invalid knowledge (aprama).
Valid knowledge can be of any of the six types—perception (pratyaksa),
inference (anumana), comparison (upamana), testimony (sabda), pre-

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 80 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

sumption (arthapatti), and non-cognition (anupalabdhi). The cases

of non-valid knowledge are doubt (samsaya), error (viparyyaya), and
hypothetical argument (tarka). The means of valid knowledge will be
discussed in detail in the last chapter. Let us discuss the cases of non-
valid/invalid knowledge here:
(1) Memory (smrti)—Memory has a special place in Indian episte-
mology. It is not non-valid knowledge but it is not valid knowl-
edge either, because it does possess the essential characteristic
of ‘being previously unacquired’, which is required of prama.
Memory is a case in which the object remembered is absent.
What happens in memory is that our previous experience of
the object is retained by us and its impression is brought back to
the mind. True memory (yathartha) represents the real nature
of the objects remembered, whereas false memory (ayathartha)
does not match with the real nature of the objects remem-
bered. So far as considering memory as prama is concerned, it
does not make a difference whether a memory is true or false
because prama, by its very definition, excludes memory.
(2) Doubt (samsaya)—Doubt is neither absence of cognition nor
denial of knowledge. It occurs when more than one mutually
incompatible notions regarding the same object are cognized
simultaneously. In doubt, the mind alternates between different
conflicting notions about the same object. When we refer to
two or more contradictory properties of the same object at the
same time but have no such definite cognition, which would
help us decide between the conflicting alternatives, doubt
arises. Doubt is not true or false cognition, but it is not lack of
cognition either. The cognition, however, is of mutually exclu-
sive properties with reference to the same object.
(3) Error (viparyyaya)—Error is invalid knowledge and, as such, is
the opposite of prama or valid knowledge. Whereas in prama
we cognize the object as what it really is, in error or invalid
knowledge we cognize the object as what it really is not. In
error, we cognize the object as having some such characteristics
that it really does not have, due to which we cognize the object
as something which it is not. For example, when we errone-
ously cognize rope as snake, the characteristic of snakeness is
attributed to the rope, in which it is really not found. Error is

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 81

different from doubt. In doubt, there is uncertainty between

two or more alternatives and the mind oscillates between these
without coming to a decision, and, therefore, it is non-valid
cognition. In error, there is certainty as a definite assertion is
made in reference to an object, but it is false as it is in negation
of the real characteristic of the object.
(4) Hypothetical argument (tarka)—When there are two equally
plausible yet contradictory alternatives available on a particular
issue and we cannot decide between them, in order to end the
uncertainty we sometimes take the help of hypothetical argu-
ment. The argument supports one alternative against the other
by trying to adduce logical reasoning in its favour so that a deci-
sion can be reached. The process of hypothetical argument is
such that we start by questioning the consequences of accepting
or rejecting an alternative. If by accepting it as true lands us into
a contradiction, then we conclude that the particular alternative
is invalid and the other alternative is valid. Similarly, if by reject-
ing it as false lands us into a contradiction, then we conclude
that the particular alternative is valid and the other alternative
is invalid. Tarka is not considered as an independent source of
valid knowledge or pramana, but it is considered as an aid to
pramana. The reason for this is that establishing one alterna-
tive as invalid does not provide us with the proof of validity of
the other alternative. However, it cannot be denied that it helps
facilitate the process of our reaching a conclusion. Though it
is neither invalid nor non-valid cognition, by itself it still falls
short of being an independent means of valid cognition.

It is important for us to know what knowledge is. At the same time,

it is equally important for us to know the classification between valid
knowledge and invalid/ non-valid knowledge, so that we can identify
instances of either category with lesser confusion and more certainty.

CONCEPTS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE

INDIAN TRADITION
To comprehend the Indian theory of knowledge in a better way, it is
important that we understand certain key concepts. Let us begin with

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 82 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

the concept of jnana (cognition). Cognition is the backdrop for all

knowledge-related concepts in Indian philosophy. Cognition is the
awareness that takes place in a subject with reference to any object.
All cognitions do not necessarily qualify as cases of valid knowledge.

RELATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

There are four factors involved in all cases of relational knowledge—

the knower, the object known, the process in which knowledge has
been acquired, and the resultant knowledge. All cognitive enterprise
presupposes pramata, i.e., the subject or the knower at one end, and
prameya, i.e., the object or the known at the other. There cannot be
any knowledge without there being a subject or a self, which is the
abode of intelligence or consciousness. The object of cognition may
be covered in the entire range from things to emotions, from acts to
qualities, from the existent to the non-existent.
The most important concept around which epistemology revolves
is that of prama or valid knowledge. There is no fixed definition of
prama. Each philosophical system has its own defining character-
istics of prama. The cognitions that fulfil these requirements are
treated as prama by the respective schools.
There are different means through which the knower acquires valid
knowledge. These means of prama are called pramanas. The essential
characteristic of valid knowledge is to present and not to represent.
Therefore, cases of memory (smrti) and recognition (pratyabhijna)
are not considered as pramana, or their resultant knowledge as
prama. The pramanas are six in number, viz. perception (pratyaksa),
inference (anumana), comparison (upamana), testimony (sabda),
presumption (arthapatti), and non-cognition (anupalabdhi).
Opinion has been divided about the jurisdiction of these pramanas.
The view that the jurisdiction of each pramana is mutually exclusive
of the jurisdiction of the other is called Pramana-vyavastha. There
is another view, which contends that the jurisdiction of various pra-
manas may overlap and need not necessarily be mutually exclusive
of each other. This view is called Pramana-samplava. The Buddhists
subscribe to the former and claim that two pramanas accepted by
them, viz. perception and inference, have each got their distinct and

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 83

separate jurisdiction. According to them, a unique particular can be

known only by perception. Inference can never be applied to know a
particular. The jurisdiction of inference is restricted only to univer-
sals. The schools of Nyaya and Vaisesika, on the other hand, believe
in the latter. They hold that the same object that was being known
by one pramana could well be known by another, given a change of
circumstances. They are opposed to restricting jurisdiction of the
pramanas.
It is generally understood that knowledge reveals its object to the
subject. But how is knowledge known? When a person knows some-
thing, e.g., a book, does he also at the same time know that he knows
the book? Those who answer this question in the positive believe
in the svatah-prakasa-vada, or the theory of intrinsic manifested-
ness of knowledge, and those who answer this question in the nega-
tive champion the paratah-prakasa-vada, or the theory of extrinsic
manifestedness of knowledge. The svatah-prakasa-vada theory says
that when a person knows an object, say a jar, along with the knowl-
edge ‘This is a jar’, he also has the knowledge ‘I know the jar’. The
jar and the knowledge of the jar are both known at the same time.
The Sankhyas, the Prabhakar Mimamsakas, and the Advaita Vedan-
tins uphold this theory. They claim that knowledge is such by nature
that along with its object, it reveals itself. It is not known by any
other knowledge. Like sunlight, it shines by itself and needs no other
light to be known. Contrary to this position are the paratah-prakasa-
vadins, who maintain that knowledge is not manifested by itself but
by another knowledge. This view is held by the Nyaya and the Bhatta
Mimamsa schools.
There are similarly two theories about validity of knowledge. The
theory that supports the idea that the validity of knowledge is intrin-
sic is called svatah-pramanya-vada. This view is held by the Sankhya-
Yoga, Vedanta, and both the Prabhakara Mimamsa and the Bhatta
Mimamsa Schools. They believe that the totality of causes that pro-
duce knowledge also gives rise to the validity of knowledge. Accord-
ing to them, knowledge arises the moment the specific conditions
necessary to generate it are fulfilled. The validity of prama is inherent
in its actual causes and is not given to it by anything outside. If the
pramana is free of defects, then the resultant knowledge is intrinsi-
cally valid. On the other hand, we have the paratah-pramanya-vada,

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i.e., the theory of extrinsic validity of knowledge which is advocated

by the Nyaya–Vaisesika School. This theory says that the validity of
knowledge depends not on the causes of knowledge but on condi-
tions external to them. The validity could rest on additional condi-
tions like soundness of the organ of vision, sufficiency of light, etc.,
in case of visual perception. It does not arise spontaneously from the
causes of knowledge.
We have already discussed the concept of error in the previous chap-
ter. Let us now examine the concept of illusion, or khyati, which is
the special case of error of perception. It is also known as adhyasa.
Illusion is different from memory, dream, hallucination, or recog-
nition. While in illusion also the presented object must be located
externally as in normal visual perception, it always stands on extra-
mental footing. An illusion necessarily involves superimposition,
which is not possible without a substratum. In fact, in illusion there
is invariably a mix-up between two cognitions. A non-existent or
totally false object like hare’s horns cannot be cognized. Therefore,
either of the two cognitions cannot be absolutely false. To explain the
concept of illusion is not very simple. When there is illusion of silver
in a shell, does it happen due to the object itself or is it because of our
subjective attitude towards the object? In dealing with the problem
of illusion, the different schools have given different explanations.
The main ones are the following:
(1) The asat-khyati-vada of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhism—
The essential philosophy of this school is nihilism or voidness
of all existence. In accordance with their philosophy, the Mad-
hyamaka Buddhists hold that in illusion there is apprehension
of the non-existent (asat) as existent. In the shell–silver illusion,
the silver is apprehended as real even though it does not exist
at all. However, being nihilists, they say that even the shell is as
unreal as the silver. The non-existent or unreal silver appears
on the equally non-existent or unreal shell. This view is widely
criticized by all the other schools on the ground that if shell
and silver are both unreal, then why the silver is subsequently
contradicted by the shell.
(2) The atma-khyati-vada of the Yogacara school of Buddhism—
Being idealists, the Yogacara Buddhists deny the existence of
external objects, but admit the existence of internal ideas.

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 85

They believe that nothing exists apart from the internal ideas.
According to them, the silver is not absolutely unreal as claimed
by the nihilists. As a form of inner cognition, the silver is real as
the shell. The illusion occurs when we take it to be of the form of
the external object. This view has been criticized on the ground
that if shell and silver are both forms of inner cognition, there
can be no distinction between valid perception and illusion.
(3) The anyatha-khyati-vada of the Nyaya school—True to their
realistic view, the Naiyayikas believe in the reality of everything.
According to them, in illusion, something is perceived as other
than (anyatha) what it really is. The shell and the silver are both
separately real. The shell is present to the senses. The silver has
been cognized in some other place at some other time. Due to
some problem like bad light or defective eyesight, the shell is
not perceived as shell. The memory of silver is revived, instead,
and the shell is perceived as silver. Illusion consists in the mis-
apprehension or the wrong synthesis of the presented (shell)
and the represented (silver). This view has been criticized on
the ground that to consider the silver as real, it should be pres-
ent ‘here and now’ and not elsewhere.
(4) The sadasat-khyati-vada of the Sankhya school—The Sankhyas
contend that under different conditions the same thing can be
regarded as both real as well as unreal. Therefore, they hold
that in illusion there is apprehension of a real and an unreal
object. When shell is wrongly apprehended as silver, the silver
is real (sat) so far as it exists in the silversmith’s shop, but unreal
(asat) so far as it is superimposed on the shell. They explain
illusion as a conjoint perception of a real and an unreal object.
This view is considered untenable as it assumes that something
unreal (asat) can be perceived. This is unacceptable to most of
the schools.
(5) The akhyati theory of the Prabhakara Mimamsa school—The
Prabhakara Mimamsakas maintain that illusion is not due to
wrong apprehension of one thing as another, but only due to lack
of apprehension of the distinction between them. The vague per-
ception of the brightness of shell revives the memory of silver.
We are not able to discriminate between the present object (shell)
and the remembered object (silver). Illusion arises when we fail

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to perceive the difference between perception and memory.

This view cannot be maintained because in illusion, error is not a
passive act of omission but an active case of commission.
(6) The viparita-khyati theory of the Bhatta Mimamsa school—
This school claims that illusion is not due to mere omission
of discrimination between two cognitions, but due to the
commission of a wrong synthesis of two unrelated imperfect
cognitions in a single unitary knowledge. The individual char-
acteristics of the shell and the silver are overlooked, and on
account of the common qualities of whiteness and brightness,
the shell is erroneously perceived as silver. Even though the
two cognitions are not united in fact, they appear to be so in
illusion. One object is perceived as another, which, in fact, it is
not. Although this theory resembles the anyatha-khyati theory
of the Nyaya school, there is an important difference between
them. In anyatha-khyati one cognition is mistaken for another,
whereas in viparita-khyati two partial cognitions are welded
together as one. The problem with this view is that it accepts
error as an act committed by the subject. This contradicts its
theory of intrinsic validity of knowledge, which says that if pra-
mana is defect-free, then knowledge would naturally be valid,
and denies any role of subject in it.
(7) The anirvacaniya-khyati theory of the Advaita Vedanta school—
So far, all the theories have maintained that in the shell–silver
illusion, the silver does not exist where it appears. However, it is
absurd because even in illusion, since the cognition is immedi-
ate and direct, the silver should be present ‘here and now’ and
not elsewhere. This silver cannot be real because it disappears
once the mistake is realized. Nor is it unreal as it was definitely
perceived. This silver is in a category of objects beyond those of
normal experience. It cannot be both real and unreal, as these
are contradictory attributes and cannot be found in the same
object. It is neither real nor unreal. It is indefinable, or anirva-
caniya. This view would clearly be unacceptable to realists who
find everything real, knowable, and nameable.
These are the various ways in which the different schools of Indian
philosophy tried to explain the concept of illusion, which occurs
sometimes during perception.

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 87

METHODOLOGIES OF THE INDIAN

KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS
The history of Indian philosophy shows that the Indian knowledge
systems have not evolved on the basis of any parallel development
in the methodology. Philosophy is different from disciplines like sci-
ences—natural or social—in which empirical study is very impor-
tant. In such subjects, any development in methodology indicates an
immediate shift in their cognitive enterprises.

SYSTEM-BUILDING IN INDIAN KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS

We can say that one methodology that the systems of Indian knowl-
edge subscribed to was that of system building. From the very begin-
ning, the idea was to learn from one’s teacher and carry the idea as
well as the tradition forward. This had to be accomplished in the
face of competitive theories and pointed criticisms from the rival
schools. The continued existence of the different schools of Indian
philosophy demanded that each system had an impregnable defence
against the others. To build up a defence of such high standard can-
not be achieved by one person. Each system was, indeed, founded
by one person. But thereafter, it took the combined effort of all those
who belonged to a system, in succession and simultaneity, to defend
and propagate its ideas further. It became somewhat incumbent
upon all the entrants to not waste any effort in criticizing the school
from within. It was a given that they would accept the words of their
predecessors and direct their resources in defending it and strength-
ening it further by adding their arguments in its favour and criti-
cizing the opponents. Thus, the central ideas of a system remained
sacrosanct and the system was built around it.
This attitude towards system building can be seen reflected in the
development of the literature of each school. The Vedas and/or the
Upanishads directly or indirectly gave rise to philosophical specula-
tions in most of the schools. Then, the exponent of each school wrote
his own understanding of this philosophy in the form of sutras,
which were the first systemic literary expressions of their philosophy.
Examples include the Jaimini Sutra of the Mimamsa, the Gotama
Sutra of the Nyaya, the Kanada Sutra of the Vaisesika, the Patanjali

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 88 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

Sutra of the Yoga, and the Badrayana Sutra of the Vedanta schools.
On these sutras, the next line of followers wrote their own commen-
taries called the bhasyas. These offered the explanation of the sutras,
which were brief. Further down the line, these bhasyas were com-
mented upon, and the resulting literature was called the vartikas.
The line continued through tikas, dipikas, etc. We can see the system
building continuing through the line of literature in which the cen-
tral idea was preserved by each school and added to.

PURVA-PAKSHA
A very common methodology employed by nearly all the schools is
that of purva-paksa. In giving a full exposition of its philosophy, a
school would itself present its own criticism. It would pretend as if
the criticism were coming from the opponent and then destroy the
opponent’s position in what was called the uttar-paksha. The idea
here was to pre-empt the opponent’s move through purva-paksha
and demolish it through uttar-paksha, thereby crediting itself and
discrediting the enemy.

TARKASHASTRA: SCIENCE OF REASONING

OF THE NYAYA SCHOOL

Reason would be the other methodology, which was initially adopted

and promoted by the Nyaya school. That is why this school was
also known as tarkashastra, or the science of reasoning. It also had
the concept of fallacy or hetvabhasha. The concept of reason soon
became popular with some other schools as well. The methodology
of reason is critiqued by the dialectic method. Dialectic is a method
that examines the pros and cons of a question. It says that reason gets
so muddled up in the antimonies and hints that the way out of this
deadlock is by rising to a plane higher than reason.

PRASANGA

A methodology applied by the Madhyamaka Buddhists is the dialec-

tic or the prasanga method propounded by Nagarjuna. We know that
there are two basic alternatives to any position, i.e., its affirmation or

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 89

negation. Given the structure of language, there are four possibilities

in which any thought can take shape. Thus, the form of dialectic is:
(i) There is a positive thesis.
(ii) It is opposed by a negative counter-thesis.
(iii) These two are conjunctively affirmed to form the third alterna-
tive of both ‘is’ and ‘is not’.
(iv) These two are disjunctively denied to form the fourth alterna-
tive of neither ‘is’ nor ‘is not’.
Nagarjuna lays down the four possible alternatives in front of us and
says that in any philosophical issue, all the options would be negated
and then there would be progression of thoughts.

SYADAVADA

The Jaina doctrine of syadavada, or the theory of relativity of judge-

ment, is a methodology that is in direct opposition to the dialectic
of Nagarjuna. Whereas the Buddhists say that none of the alterna-
tives is possible, the Jainas claim that all judgement is relatively true.
Like Nagarjuna, they also say that absolute affirmation and absolute
denial is not possible. According to them, reality has infinite aspects.
In our ignorance, we cannot perceive them all. All our judgements
are conditional, i.e., made from a particular point of view. Therefore,
we should always qualify our judgements by the word syat, which
means ‘relatively speaking’. The Jainas formulate seven forms of
judgement, viz.
(i)Syadasti: Relatively, a thing is real.
(ii)Syannasti: Relatively, a thing is unreal.
(iii)Syadasti nasti: Relatively, a thing is both real and unreal.
(iv) Syadavaktavyam: Relatively, a thing is indescribable.
(v) Syadasti cha avaktavyam: Relatively, a thing is real and is inde-
scribable.
(vi) Syannasti cha avaktavyam: Relatively, a thing is unreal and is
indescribable.
(vii) Syadasti cha nasti cha avaktavyam: Relatively, a thing is real,
unreal, and indescribable.

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Jainism admits all of these seven forms of judgement, each of which

is relative. It neither affirms nor denies any particular option. These
seven options are supposed to remove all contradictions among dif-
ferent points of view. To accept that one knows only partially, leads
one to truth.
These are the methodologies practiced in the Indian knowledge
systems.

INDIAN THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

We have already been introduced to the different systems of Indian
philosophy in the first section. We have also briefly mentioned their
ideas regarding metaphysics (theory of existence), epistemology
(theory of knowledge), ethics, etc. In this chapter, we are going to
discuss their respective theories of knowledge in detail. In accor-
dance with its metaphysics, each school formulated its theory of
knowledge. The means or instruments or methods of valid knowl-
edge were called pramanas. In the classification of knowledge pre-
sented in an earlier section, we can see that the maximum number
of pramanas accepted in Indian philosophy is six, viz. perception,
inference, comparison, testimony, presumption, and non-cognition.
Not all schools believe in all of these. Some believe in only one, while
some believe in all the six. We shall now examine the epistemology
of each school one by one to understand the methods of knowledge
accepted by them.
(1) The Carvaka school—This school believed in only one source
of valid knowledge or pramana, i.e., perception or pratyaksa.
Its philosophy of admitting the existence of only that which is
experienced by the senses goes very well with its epistemologi-
cal position of admitting only that pramana which reveals what
can be experienced by the senses. Since perception reveals to
us only the material, they reject the idea of imperceptibles like
the soul, consciousness, or ether as the fifth element. It rejects
every other pramana.
Inference is a source of knowledge that is considered valid by every
school other than the Carvakas, who refute its validity on the ground
that it is not certain. A typical example of inference as a means of
knowledge would be as follows:

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 91

There is smoke on the hill.

Wherever there is smoke, there is fire.
Therefore, there is fire on the hill.
According to Carvakas, we cannot infer with certainty the presence of
fire in the mountain on seeing smoke rising from it. To do so, we would
have to first claim beyond doubt that in all cases smoke is accompanied
by fire. However, we can never claim this sort of universal knowledge
because we cannot experience all cases of smoke to check whether each
of these is accompanied by fire. None of us can be present in all places
where there are cases of smoke. Presently, even if we did manage to
somehow cover all these cases and saw that smoke was indeed accom-
panied by fire, what is the guarantee that the same shall continue in
future as well? We cannot conclusively establish the relation of invari-
able concomitance, or vyapti, between smoke and fire. The process of
inference cannot be complete without the knowledge of this relation.
Vyapti cannot be established by inference for the purpose of establish-
ing inference because it would commit the fallacy of begging the ques-
tion. Nor can vyapti be proved by testimony of the trustworthy since
testimony itself presupposes inference. Also, if inference would depend
on testimony, then no one would be able to infer anything by oneself.
The Carvakas say that we are only doing guesswork in the process of
inference because even though inference does sometimes lead us to
fruitful results, there are times when it does not. Therefore, inference
is not a reliable source of knowledge.
Similarly, they question the authority of testimony of reliable per-
sons as pramana. They contend that our acceptance of testimony is
derived through inference the form of which is as follows:
This authority is reliable.
All reliable authority should be accepted.
Therefore, this authority should be accepted.
They have already shown inference to be unreliable. Besides, like
inference, even testimony sometimes yields positive results and
sometimes error.
Thus, perception is the only pramana accepted by the Carvakas.
However, they have been criticized for their narrow-mindedness by

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other schools on the ground that perception itself is not foolproof.

We perceive the earth as flat and static while it is round and mov-
ing around the sun. Besides, their conclusion that all perception is
valid and all inference is invalid is itself arrived at through inferential
process.
(2) The Jaina school—The Jainas classify knowledge into immedi-
ate (aparoksa) and mediate (paroksa). Immediate knowledge is
extraordinary and extrasensory type of perception. It is of three
kinds, viz. clairvoyance (avadhi), telepathy (manah-paryaya),
and omniscience (kevala). In avadhi, things are known directly
even from a distance of space and time. However, it is limited
in nature because it functions within a limited area and up to
a limited time. Avadhi-jnana is not free from the possibility of
error. In manah-paryaya, one can directly know the thoughts of
others. Limitations of time and space apply here as well. These
are considered to be immediate knowledge because in both of
the cases, the soul has direct knowledge without the help of
any of the sense organs or the mind. In kevala-jnana, the soul
has unlimited and absolute knowledge without the finite con-
ditions of space and time. Manah-paryaya and kevala-jnana
are free from error.
The Jainas believe in the possibility of ultimate knowledge or omni-
science being achievable by every soul. They consider consciousness
to be the essential property of every soul. Consciousness, like sun-
light, has the power to manifest itself as well as everything else, unless
there is some obstruction in the way to its reaching the object. Karmic
particles that stick to the soul act as obstructions and prevent the soul
from achieving omniscience. Only the liberated souls can acquire it.
Mediate (paroksa) knowledge is ordinary and does not arise imme-
diately in the soul. The soul knows only through the medium of the
senses or the mind. Mediate knowledge is of two kinds: mati and
sruta. Mati is generally understood as knowledge that is obtained
through the senses or the mind. Perceptual and inferential knowl-
edge are included in mati. Interestingly, the Jainas count perceptual
knowledge as mediate even though it is considered to be immediate
by other schools. They say that perception is immediate only rela-
tively speaking, i.e., when it is compared to inference. Otherwise,

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 93

perceptual knowledge arises only from the operation of the senses

or the mind.
According to the Jainas, in the beginning of the process of percep-
tion, there is only a distinct sensation. Its meaning is not clear. This
is the primary state of consciousness called avagraha, which means
grasping the object. Then the mind starts to raise queries about the
sensation. The state in which the mind questions is called iha. Then
a definite judgment is formed about the sensation. This state is avaya
or removal of doubt. This ascertained judgement is then retained in
the mind. This state is known as dharana, i.e., holding in the mind.
Sruta means knowledge obtained from authority, i.e., testimony.
Thus, we see that for ordinary purposes, the Jainas believe in three
pramanas, viz. perception, inference, and testimony.
Apart from the above, the Jaina school has a unique theory about
judgement, which is called syadavada or the theory of relativity of
judgement. They believe that every object has innumerable aspects and
only an omniscient being can know them all simultaneously. Ordinary
human beings are imperfect and cannot do so. We know only one or
some aspect(s) at a time and, hence, our knowledge is partial. This par-
tial knowledge is called naya. When we make a judgement, we make it
only from a particular point of view on the basis of the limited aspects
that we know. Therefore, we can never be absolutely right or absolutely
wrong. Every judgement that we make using our partial knowledge is
true only from that particular point of view and that particular aspect
of the object. We should qualify all our judgements by the word syat,
which means ‘in some respect’. This realization would put an end to all
strife and disagreement. This theory is called syadavada and it hopes
to establish harmony amongst all beings.
(3) The Buddha school—The Buddhist theory of knowledge is a
direct result of its theory of reality. The Buddhists admit only
two kinds of objects of cognition, viz. the direct unique par-
ticularity or svalaksana as received in pure sensation or pure
consciousness, and the indirect vague universality or samany-
alaksana as given in thought construction. Corresponding
respectively to each of these, they admit of two pramanas: per-
ception and inference.

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(i) Perception: The general understanding of perception

among the Buddhists is that it should be essentially devoid
of determinations. It should not be associated with any
names. Basically, what they are trying to say is that percep-
tion occurs in that instant when the object is presented
to the senses before one starts searching for its name in
the memory. Perception is a presentation that is gener-
ated only by the object and should be free of any subjec-
tive inputs from the perceiver’s end. Only that cognition
qualifies as perception whose content is not determined
by anything that lies outside the object. One is able to put
a name to an object only when it is associated in his mind,
by remembering it, as the same object that was perceived
before. It is as necessary for perception that the senses
come in contact with the object as that object is presented
as it is. But recognizing and naming the object interferes
with this process of perception. The object of perception
should be the unique individuality (svalaksana) of it, and
the uniqueness can be preserved by not searching for its
name, which applies to all similar objects as well.
(ii) Inference: The Buddhists consider inference to be the
means to cognize that which is not presented to our senses
directly. For example, we infer the presence of fire on the
hill from the perception of smoke on the hill, through our
previous knowledge of universal relation (vyapti) between
smoke and fire. This is the form in which inference is gen-
erally understood to work. What sets Buddhists apart from
others is their treatment of vyapti. They alone advocate
that this universal relation should be either of the nature
of cause and effect (tadutpatti), or of the nature of iden-
tity (tadatmya). As mentioned earlier, for them the object
of inferential knowledge is samanyalaksana or universals.
The object of inference is cognized through the mark that
must have the following three characteristics:
(a) It must be present in the paksa.
(b) It must be present in the sapaksa.
(c) It must be absent from the vipaksa.

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The Buddhists classify inference into two types. The first type is
svarthanumana or inference for oneself. The second type of inference
is pararthanumana or inference for others, which must be expressed
in the form of a syllogism. While the Nyaya school uses five steps in
this syllogistic inference, Buddhists reduce it to two steps only.
(4) The Nyaya school—The Nyaya system has a very well-formed
theory of knowledge, which supports its theory of reality. It
believes in four distinct pramanas, viz. perception or pratyaksa,
inference or anumana, comparison or upamana, and testimony
or sabda. Let us now examine each of these.
(i) Perception: The Naiyayikas understand perception as defi-
nite cognition that results from the sense–object contact
and is error-free. However, some cognitions like those of
pleasure, pain, God, etc., do not arise by sense–object con-
tact. Therefore, perception was also regarded by some as
the pramana in which we perceive the object directly, i.e.,
it is not dependent on any previous knowledge or any rea-
soning process.
Perception has been classified in different ways. To begin with, we
have the distinction between laukika (ordinary) perception and
alaukika (extraordinary) perception. Laukika perception occurs
when there is a contact of the senses with the object in the usual
way. It is of two kinds—bahya (external) and manasa (internal).
In external perception, the objects are in contact with the external
sense organs and the resultant perceptions are visual (caksusa), audi-
tory (srautra), tactual (sparsana), gustatory (rasana), and olfactory
(ghranaja). In internal perception, the mind is in contact with psy-
chical states and processes, and the resultant perception is mental
(manasa). In all, there are six kinds of laukika perception.
In alaukika perception, the objects are not present to the senses
in the ordinary way but are conveyed through an extraordinary
medium. It is of three kinds—samanyalaksana, jnanalaksana, and
yogaja. The Naiyayikas believe that the universals are a distinct class
of reals, which are perceived through samanyalaksana. We have only
seen particular instances of cows. Nevertheless, we can perceive the
universal ‘cowness’, which is shared by all the cows. We have not seen
all the cows of the world existing in the past, present, and future. If it

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were not for the perception of universals, how else would we know
a previously unperceived cow for a cow? It is only the knowledge of
class characteristic which helps us identify a cow as a cow through
the samanyalaksana extraordinary perception.

Jnanalaksana is the second kind of extraordinary perception. It is

a complex process of perception through association, which occurs
when different sensations become associated and become integral
parts of a single perception. We make statements like ‘ice looks cold’
or ‘stone looks hard’ even though we cannot perceive qualities like
coldness and hardness through our eyes, since they are available only
to our sense of touch. In such a case, the visual perception of, say,
ice revives in memory the idea of coldness, which was perceived in
the past through the sense of touch, by association. According to the
Nyaya theory, the past tactual experience of coldness closely associ-
ated with the visual appearance of ice whenever we have touched it
in the past is revived. This causes the present visual perception of ice
along with that of its coldness. This is called jnanalaksana, which
is extraordinary perception as is brought about by a sense organ,
which is otherwise incapable of perceiving coldness.

The third kind of extraordinary perception is called yogaja. When

some supernatural power is attained through rigorous practice of
yogic meditation, a person gains the ability to intuitively and imme-
diately perceive all objects—past, present, and future.

According to Naiyayikas, perception occurs in two stages. The ear-

lier stage is called nirvikalpa or indeterminate perception, and is the
direct sense experience. In it, we have immediate apprehension, raw
awareness, which we have not yet analysed, related, differentiated,
or assimilated. The sensation is then immediately analysed and we
arrive at differentiated, relational judgement. This stage is savika-
lpa perception, in which we have proper conceptual and articulate
knowledge. These stages are distinguishable only in thought and a
line cannot be drawn between them in reality. This classification can
be best understood through an example. When we step into a dark
movie hall from broad daylight, we only have vague impressions of
everything at first. A little while later, we can begin to see things
clearly. The earlier stage here is the indeterminate perception and the
later stage is the determinate perception.

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(ii) Inference: The means through which we get such knowl-

edge (mana) which arises after (anu) some other knowl-
edge is called inference or anumana. It is indirect or
mediate knowledge, which is inferred on the basis of
another piece of knowledge. For example, upon perceiv-
ing smoke on the hill, we infer that there is fire on the
hill on the basis of our previous knowledge that there
is a universal relation between smoke and fire. Given
the syllogistic structure of inference, there would be at
least three terms in a minimum of three propositions in
it. As mentioned in the above example, in inference we
arrive at the knowledge of something (fire in the hill)
via the knowledge of some mark (smoke in the hill)
and the knowledge of the universal relation between
the mark and the inferred thing (relation of invariable
concomitance or vyapti between smoke and fire). Thus,
in Indian logic, we have the three terms, viz. the paksa
(minor term), which is the hill as it is the subject of con-
sideration; the sadhya (major term), which is fire as it
is something to be established with reference to the hill;
and the linga or hetu (middle term), which is the smoke
as it is the mark indicating fire. Western logic like the
Indian logic admits of three categorical propositions in
inference. In the Western logic, the order of propositions
is major premiss, minor premiss, and conclusion. This
order is reversed in Indian logic, where conclusion is
stated first, then the minor premiss, and at last the major
premiss.

There are three different classifications of inference in the Nyaya

school. They are as follows:
(a) The first classification deals with inference on the basis
of the following difference between them.
• Inference for oneself (svarthanumana)—Here, no
formal statement of the process of inference is
required.
• Inference for others (pararthanumana)—It re-
quires that inference be stated in the form of five

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propositions. The abovementioned example is to be

stated as:
■ The hill has fire (pratijna).
■ Because it has smoke (hetu).
■ Whatever has smoke has fire, e.g., an oven (uda-
harana).
■ The hill has smoke, which is invariably associated
with fire (upanaya).
■ Therefore, the hill has fire (nigamana).
(b) The second classification discusses the three kinds of
inference, which are as follows:
• Purvavat—When we infer the unperceived effect on
the basis of perceived cause, e.g., when we infer that
it will rain from the dark clouds gathering in the sky.
• Sesavat—When we infer the unperceived cause on
the basis of perceived effect, e.g., when we infer that
it has rained from the mud on the streets.
• Samanyatodrsta—When we infer something on the
basis of two things uniformly coexisting, e.g., when
we infer the hooves of an animal on the basis of its
horns, as the two always coexist.
(c) The third classification of inference is based on the
nature and means of establishing vyapti. These are as
follows:
• Kevalanvayi—When the middle term is always
positively related to the major term, i.e., these terms
agree always in presence and never in absence, e.g.,
wherever there is smoke, there is fire.
• Kevalavyatireki—When the middle term is always
negatively related to the major term, i.e., these terms
agree only in absence and never in presence, e.g.,
wherever there is no fire, there is no smoke.
• Anvayavyatireki—When the middle term is posi-
tively as well as negatively related to the major
term, i.e., these terms agree both in presence and
in absence, e.g., the combination of the above two

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 99

examples, i.e., smoke always present in cases of fire,

and fire always absent in cases of absence of smoke.
(iii) Comparison: The means by which we derive the knowl-
edge of the relation between a word and its denotation is
comparison or upamana. Suppose a trustworthy person
tells us that a word denotes a class of objects having a cer-
tain description. On the basis of that person’s description,
if we apply the word to an object that fulfils the descriptive
requirement even though we have never seen it before,
and successfully gain some knowledge, then the means of
attaining the knowledge is called upamana. For example,
suppose a person does not know what a gavaya, or a wild
cow, is. He is told by an authoritative person that it is an
animal that looks like a cow. He happens to go to a for-
est and comes upon an animal that resembles a cow and,
thereby, fits the description of gavaya given to him. If he
recognizes it as gavaya, then the knowledge he acquired is
due to comparison or upamana.
(iv) Testimony: When we gain knowledge by means of rely-
ing on the words of a trustworthy person and understand
their meanings, we are said to have got knowledge by
sabda, or verbal testimony. All verbal statements do not
constitute valid knowledge. It should come from a reliable
source. Therefore, sabda as a means of valid knowledge
requires understanding of the statements of a trustworthy
person. Testimony is classified in two different ways. The
first classification divides sabda into the following:
• Vaidika—It is scriptural testimony containing the words
of God. It is, therefore, essentially perfect and infallible.
It is always valid.
• Laukika—It is secular testimony containing the words
of human beings. It is, therefore, fallible. It is valid only
when uttered by authoritative and trustworthy persons.
The second classification of sabda deals with the nature of objects
referred to by it. It is divided into the following:
• Drstartha—It contains testimony relating to percep-
tible objects of the world, e.g., statements of a reliable
botanist about plants.

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• Adrstartha—It contains testimony relating to impercep-

tible objects or super-sensible realities, e.g., statements
of a reliable nutritionist about vitamins.
Knowledge through sabda pramana comes to us only via under-
standing of oral or written sentences of trustworthy persons. Hence,
it is important that we also realize the conditions for intelligibility of
sentences. There are four such conditions:
• Akanksa (expectancy)—A word in isolation cannot
convey complete meaning. The words must be interre-
lated mutually in a meaningful way in order to convey
sense. Unrelated words placed together will not convey
meaning. We cannot have a meaningful sentence like
‘Elephant noodles bar child’.
• Yogyata (fitness)—Words in a sentence should not be
contradictory to the meaning conveyed. They should
have fitness to convey the sense. There cannot be a sen-
tence like ‘water the grass with fire’.
• Sannidhi (proximity)—In order to be meaningful,
words must be uttered in close proximity. If each word
of a sentence is spoken after long interval, the meaning
of the sentence is lost.
• Tatparya (intention)—One word may have more than
one different meaning. It is important that the word is
taken in the context of intention of the speaker; other-
wise, it will not make any sense. For example, the word
saindhava means ‘horse’ as well as ‘salt’. If a person who
is eating asks for saindhava, it is pointless to get him a
horse.
(5) The Vaisesika school—As already mentioned before, the Vais-
esika school is the partner of the Nyaya school, and the two
complement each other. Vaisesikas supplied the ontology and
Naiyayikas the epistemology. Thus, with minor differences,
Vaisesikas share the elaborate epistemology of the Naiyayikas.
However, Vaisesikas accept only perception and inference as
valid independent pramanas. So far as these pramanas are con-
cerned, they accept the Nyaya theories of perception and infer-
ence. They do accept the validity of comparison and verbal

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 101

testimony, but they reduce them to inference and do not grant

them the status of independent pramanas.
(6) The Sankhya school—The epistemology of the Sankhya school
is the direct result of its metaphysical belief in dualism. The
Sankhyas define valid knowledge as definite, non-erroneous
cognition of an object, which takes place when there is modi-
fication of buddhi or intellect, which reflects the consciousness
in it. They believe in only three independent means of valid
knowledge, viz. perception, inference, and testimony. They
maintain that other sources of knowledge like comparison,
postulation (arthapatti), and non-cognition (anupalabdhi) are
already included in the pramanas accepted by them and, hence,
do not consider them as independent sources of knowledge.
(i) Perception: Like others, the Sankhyas also believe that per-
ceptual knowledge arises when an object is directly cog-
nized because of its contact with some sense. When an
object, say a book, comes into the vision, it results in a
contact between the book and the eyes. The book brings
about some impressions of modifications in the eyes,
which are analysed and assimilated by the mind, or the
manas. Through this activity, the buddhi becomes modi-
fied and transformed into the shape of the book. However,
being an evolution of prakrti and, therefore, of the nature
of jada or the unconscious, buddhi cannot by itself know
the book even though the form of the book is present in
it. But buddhi predominantly has sattva, due to which it
shines and reflects like a mirror. The conscious self or
the purusa is reflected in it. With the reflected conscious-
ness of the purusa, the unconscious modification of the
buddhi into the form of the book becomes illuminated.
When the light of the lamp falls on the mirror, it reflects
the light in which other things become manifested. Simi-
larly, the transparent yet unconscious buddhi reflects the
consciousness of the purusa and illuminates the objects of
knowledge into cognition.
Just like the Nyaya, the Sankhya also believes in the indeterminate
and determinate stages of perception. It calls the former alocana and
the latter vivecana.

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 102 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

(ii) Inference: Apart from stressing on the need for repeated

observations of concomitance (which most of the Naiyayi-
kas anyhow do), the Sankhya theory of inference is very
much like the Nyaya theory of inference. There is, how-
ever, a slight difference in the classification maintained by
the two. The Sankhyas initially divide inference into two
kinds—vita or affirmative, and avita or negative. The former
occurs when the inference is based on universal affirmative
proposition. This kind of inference is further subdivided in
Nyaya terms into purvavat and samanyatodrsta. The latter,
viz. avita, is what the Naiyayikas call sesavat. (Refer to the
Nyaya theory of inference) The Sankhyas agree to the five-
membered logical form of inference of the Nyaya school.
(iii) Testimony: It is the third pramana accepted by the
Sankhyas. They believe that authoritative statements
(aptavacana) yield knowledge of objects which cannot be
revealed by perception and inference. Sabda is generally
considered to be of two kinds—laukika, i.e., testimony of
reliable persons, and vaidika, i.e., testimony of the Vedas.
The Sankhyas reject the former and admit only the latter
as an independent source of valid knowledge.
(7) The Yoga school—Being an ally of the Sankhya school, this
system follows the epistemological position held by them.
Accordingly, it believes in perception, inference, and testimony
as independent sources of valid knowledge.
(8) The Mimamsa school—For the Mimamsakas, valid knowledge
is that which gives some fresh information about something,
is not contradicted by any other knowledge, and is not due to
any defective condition like the jaundiced eyes. This school
is divided into two: the Prabhakaras and the Bhattas. Both of
them admit the independence of at least five sources of valid
knowledge, viz. perception, inference, comparison, testimony,
and postulation. The Bhatta school acknowledges the sixth pra-
mana, i.e., non-perception. Just as most other schools do, the
Mimamsakas also admit two kinds of knowledge—immediate
and mediate.
(i) Perception: It is immediate knowledge that occurs when
an existing object comes into contact with any of the five

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 103

external sense organs or with the internal organ, i.e., the

mind. The Mimamsakas also admit two stages in per-
ceptual knowledge, i.e., the indeterminate (nirvikalpaka)
stage or bare awareness, and the determinate (savikal-
paka) stage when the awareness is processed into definite
knowledge. (For details, see Nyaya theory of perception)
The second stage is implicitly there even when the first
stage is in process. Thus, we see that it is not possible to
separate the two.
(ii) Inference: The Mimamsa theory of inference is quite simi-
lar to that of the Nyaya’s and need not be repeated.
(iii) Comparison: The Mimamsakas agree with the Naiyayikas
in admitting comparison or upamana as an independent
means of valid knowledge, but their process of acquiring
knowledge through upamana is different from the Nai-
yayikas’. They believe that upon perceiving an object that is
present before me now, if I find it to be similar to an object
perceived by me in the past, then through the means of
comparison, I gain the knowledge that the remembered
object is like the perceived one. For example, I have seen
what a cow looks like at home. I go to the forest and see
a gavaya or wild cow, and perceive that it is similar to the
cow at home. By the knowledge of this similarity, I have
gained through comparison the new knowledge that the
cow is like a gavaya.
(iv) Testimony: The entire philosophy of Mimamsa revolves
around Vedic ritualism. Therefore, it becomes very impor-
tant for them to establish and justify the authority of the
Vedas. Testimony or authority as a source of knowledge
has, thus, received the greatest care and support in the
Mimamsa theory of knowledge. For Mimamsakas, all
meaningful sentences give us knowledge except when they
come from an unreliable source like an untrustworthy
person. This is their principle of testimony. They believe
testimony to be of two kinds—personal (pauruseya) and
impersonal (apauruseya). The former contains the written
or spoken testimony coming from human source, whereas
the latter denotes the authority of the Vedas. The former

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 104 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

is not valid by itself. Its validity is dependent on the trust-

worthiness of the person. Doubt, error, or contradiction
may creep into it. The latter has intrinsic validity and is
valid in itself. The Mimamsakas claim that the Vedas are
beyond all doubt, error, or contradiction because they are
eternal and authorless.
Testimony is of two kinds. It can either give us knowledge of the
existent objects or may issue commands towards performance of
some action. The Mimamsa school has an elaborate theory of words,
meanings, and their relations to establish that the Vedas are eternal.
It is, however, not possible to discuss it here.
(v) Postulation: It is considered an independent means of
knowledge by the Mimamsakas. It is also known as pre-
sumption, implication, or arthapatti. When two apparently
inconsistent facts cannot be explained in any other way,
then presumption or postulation becomes the only way to
resolve the contradiction. It is the process of assuming an
unperceived fact so that we can explain away the inconsis-
tency existing between two perceived facts. For example,
we see that a person is fasting during the day and we also
see that at the same time he is growing fat. There is an
inconsistency between ‘being fat’ and ‘not eating during
day’, which demands an explanation. We cannot under-
stand or explain this contradictory situation without sup-
posing an unperceived fact that the person eats during
the night. This is the only explanation for the apparent
contradiction between fatness and fasting. We employ this
method of presumption very often in our daily lives with-
out being aware of it. If we go to meet a friend who we
know is alive and do not find him at home, we presume
that he must have gone out even though we have not seen
him go out. This is the only way to explain how a person
who is alive cannot be at home.
The Mimamsakas divide arthapatti into two: drstarthapatti and sru-
tarthapatti. The former is used to explain visual contradiction and
the latter to explain inconsistency in the meanings of words.
(vi) Non-perception: The Bhatta Mimamsakas believe in non-
perception or non-apprehension (anupalabdhi) as an

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 105

independent pramana. It gives us the knowledge of non-

existence of an object. Existence of objects is revealed
by perception. But how do I know the absence of, say,
a pot on the ground? I cannot know it by perception
because perception requires the presence of the object
for the sense–object contact, and the pot is not present
in this case. The absence of the pot cannot even be said
to be inferred from its non-perception because inference
would presuppose the knowledge of vyapti between non-
perception and non-existence of the pot. It means that we
should already know that when the pot is not perceived, it
does not exist. But this is what we seek to establish through
inference, assuming it would be begging the question. Non-
existence cannot be known by comparison or testimony
either. Therefore, the only recourse left to us is to admit
that non-perception is an independent pramana through
which we get the knowledge of non-existence.
The Mimamsakas are careful to point out that not all cases of non-
perception are cases of non-existence. Just because we cannot see the
pot in the dark, we cannot claim that it does not exist. Existence of
imperceptible entities like atom, ether, etc., also cannot be denied on
the basis of their non-perception. Non-perception should be quali-
fied by yogyata or fitness. If an object would have been perceived
under certain circumstances and is not being perceived despite those
circumstances, then and then only can we claim that its non-percep-
tion reveals its non-existence.
(9) The Vedanta school—Vedanta philosophy is host to many dif-
ferent interpretations of the Vedas. It is not possible to discuss
each of their epistemology separately. Taking Advaita Vedanta
to be the representative of the entire Vedanta School, we shall
discuss the Advaita epistemology here. The Advaitins believe
in all the six pramanas, viz. perception, inference, comparison,
testimony, postulation, and non-cognition.
(i) Perception: The Advaita Vedanta holds that in perception,
the mind (antahkarana) comes into contact with the object
through the medium of senses and becomes transformed
into the form of the object. They give the example of water
and say that just as water assumes the shape of the vessel

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 106 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

that contains it, similarly, the mind goes out through the
senses and assumes the form of the objects it comes in
contact with. The modified state of the mind is called vrtti.
Upon assuming its shape, the antahkarana illuminates the
object by the steady light of the pure consciousness (cit).
The ignorance about that object is lifted and the object is
perceived.
(ii) Inference: This topic has been dealt with by the Naiyayi-
kas in a very exhaustive manner over centuries. They have
the most comprehensive account of inference. The other
schools merely agree or disagree with the Nyaya account
of inference. The Vedantins believe that we infer some-
thing on the basis of our knowledge of concomitance
(vyapti) between two things. With reference to the exam-
ple of fire and the hill, when I see smoke on the hill, my
earlier idea of concomitance of smoke and fire is revived
in my subconscious and, then, I infer that there is fire on
the hill.
The Vedantins insist on only one form of concomitance, i.e., the
kevalanvayi, which is the method of agreement in presence. They
discard the other types of inference. Even here, the Vedantins do not
ask for repeated instances to establish vyapti. They consider even one
meaningful case to be sufficient for the purpose.
Besides, where the Nyaya school had formulated a five-step inferen-
tial process, the Vedantins accept only the following three steps:
• The hill is fiery (pratijna)
• Because it has smoke (hetu)
• For example, in the kitchen (drstanta)
Other than these minor differences, the Vedantins agree with the
Nyaya theory of inference.
(iii) Comparison: The Advaita Vedanta view of comparison is
identical with that of the Bhatta Mimamsa view, which
has already been discussed in the previous school. We
need not repeat it here.
(iv) Testimony: The Advaita Vedanta school has a very elabo-
rate theory of verbal testimony, or sabda pramana, which

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 107

cannot be discussed in full detail here. The Advaitins do

not just consider testimony as an independent pramana,
but they grant it a very high status as they are themselves
dependent on the authority of the Vedas. They claim that
it is the only pramana that communicates the facts of the
sensible universe as well as enlightens us on the supra-
sensible truths. The Vedantins believe that reliance on the
words of the trustworthy is a matter of faith, which needs
no verification. For them, sabda pramana means agama or
the authentic word that does not have any flaws.
Advaitins maintain that there are two kinds of verbal testimony: the
secular and the scriptural. They believe that it is the special purpose
of the scriptural texts to reveal the truths that are beyond a normal
person’s experience. Dependence on testimony as pramana also
becomes extremely important in the context that superconscious
experience is invariably preceded by verbal knowledge. Before one
is able to develop intuitive perception, it is necessary to know about
the self and brahman from scriptures or from a qualified teacher, or
from both.
A sentence is a unit of sabda pramana. The meanings of all the maha-
vakyas of the scriptures are not contained merely in their constituent
words. In order to grasp their true import, one has to know not only
the meanings of the individual words but also the relation among the
meanings of the words. The Advaitins also believe in the four condi-
tions of meaningfulness of a sentence, viz. akanksa, yogyata, san-
nidhi, and tatparya. These have been already discussed in the Nyaya
theory of testimony.
Sabda pramana gains a special place in Vedanta philosophy because
of their belief that it is the hearing of the mahavakya aided by rea-
soning and meditation that leads us to the realization of brahman
and to liberation.
(v) Postulation: The Advaita Vedanta view of postulation is
also quite similar to that of the Bhatta Mimamsa view,
which has already been discussed in the previous school.
We need not repeat it here. However, there is one differ-
ence between the two. Like the Bhatta Mimamsakas, the
Advaitins also divide arthapatti into drstarthapatti and

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 108 THE HUMANITIES: METHODOLOGY AND PERSPECTIVES

srutarthapatti. But the Advaitins go further and again

divide srutarthapatti in the following two kinds:
(a) Abhidhananupapatti—This is one in which the
speaker fails to make a grammatically complete state-
ment. Here, only a part of the sentence is uttered by
the speaker, which does not fully express the speaker’s
intention. The hearer presumes the words that are
missing. For example, when the speaker merely utters
the word ‘dvaram’ (door), the hearer cannot under-
stand what the speaker wants unless he presumes the
missing word ‘pidhehi’ (close).
(b) Abhihitanupapatti—This is where the sentence is com-
plete, but its meaning remains incomplete without the
presumption of a fact. For example, the meaning of
the sentence ‘one who desires heaven should perform
the jyotistoma sacrifice’ cannot be understood unless
one presumes apurva, a potency produced by the per-
formance of the sacrifice that abides in the performer’s
soul till the attainment of heaven.
(vi) Non-cognition: Generally speaking, the Advaitins share
their theory of admitting non-cognition as an indepen-
dent pramana with the Bhatta Mimamsaka school, whose
position has already been discussed under the previous
school. Therefore, we do not need to repeat the same.
These are the different schools of Indian philosophy with their
respective theories of knowledge.

REVIEW EXERCISES

Short Answer Type Questions

1. Discuss the classification of the Indian philosophical systems

into heterodox and orthodox schools.
2. What is the difference between pramana-vyavastha and pra-
mana-samplava?
3. Elucidate the difference between svatah-pramanya-vada and
paratah-pramanya-vada.

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 INDIAN PHILOSOPHY 109

4. What is secular testimony according to the Nyaya school?

5. Discuss the Epic period of Indian philosophy.

Long Answer Type Questions

1. Discuss the different kinds of invalid knowledge.

2. Discuss the Jaina theory of relativity of judgement in detail.
What is its moral significance?
3. Discuss extraordinary perception and its types as maintained
by the Nyaya school.

Essay Type Questions

1. What is illusion? Discuss the different explanations given by

the different schools regarding illusion.
2. Discuss the Nyaya theory of inference along with its various
classifications. What is the difference between the Nyaya and
the Advaita views of pararthanumana?

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 Multiple Choice Questions
Chapter 1
1. Modern science depends on 6. Literature is primarily a subject
a) opinions of
b) beliefs a) natural sciences
c) facts b) social sciences
2. The building blocks of theory c) humanities
are
7. History deals with
a) ideas
a) fictions
b) concepts
b) hypotheses of the past
c) hypotheses
c) records of facts
3. Which of the following subjects
is a part of the social sciences? 8. Who primarily attempted to
a) psychology shape social sciences as a scien-
b) physics tific discipline?
c) classics a) J. S. Mill
4. The classical Greek notion of b) M. Weber
humanities was c) A. Comte
a) to improve our social world
b) to educate its citizens 9. The hermeneutic tradition in
social sciences is contributed
c) to demarcate the natural and
by-
social world
a) F. Engels
5. The central concern of philo-
sophy is b) H. Gadamer
a) to determine the origin of life c) G. Myrdal
b) to distinguish truth from 10. David Hume was a
wrong
a) French literary figure
c) to discuss the role of mat-
ter and mind with respect to b) German scientist
our existence c) British philosopher

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 112 MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

Chapter 2
1. Name the theorist who dis- 6. Which one of these is a pre-
cussed the concept of the langue Independence novel written by
and parole an Indian?
a) Roland Barthes a) Kanthapura
b) Ferdinand Sassure b) Midnight’s Children
c) Claude Levi Strauss c) Shadow Lines

2. The context in which language 7. Who amongst the following is

produces meaning is called not a freedom fighter?
a) discourse a) Gandhi
b) semiotics b) Fanon
c) culture c) Sassure

3. Berger and Luckmann coined 8. Balchandra Nemade is associ-

the term ated with
a) social construction a) nativism
b) discourse b) structuralism
c) cultural materialism c) feminism
9. Who has written the poem
4. T. B. Macaulay’s Minutes were
A Far Cry from Africa?
prepared in which year?
a) Ngugi Wa Thiongo
a) 1857
b) Derek Walcott
b) 1905
c) Wole Soyinka
c) 1835
10. Chutneyfication means
5. Who called for the abolition of
a) The mixing of English and
the English Departments?
native languages in literature
a) Raja Rao
b) Writing grammatically
b) Chinua Achebe incorrect English
c) Ngugi Wa Thiongo c) Writing anti-colonialist
literature

Chapter 3
1. Name the ancient Greek philos- 2. Narrative is an act of
opher who discussed poetry? a) communication
a) Thucydides b) Imagination
b) Heraclitus c) mysticism
c) Plato

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 MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS 113

3. Wimsatt and Robert Penn 7. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is

Warren belong to a group called about the quest of a
a) Feminists a) explorer
b) Psychoanalysts b) poet
c) New Critics c) scientist

4. Who wrote the essay ‘Death of 8. Who wrote Wide Sargasso Sea?
the Author’ a) Jean Rhys
a) Roland Barthes b) Charlotte Bronte
b) Jacques Derrida c) Daniel Defoe
c) Foucault 9. Pick the odd one out of the
following options
5. Who wrote Shamela?
a) Michael Joyce
a) Nathanial Hawthorne
b) Shirley Jackson
b) Henry Fielding
c) J M Coetzee
c) Samuel Richardson
10. With which religion would you
6. J M Coetzee’s Foe is a retelling associate the narrative strategies
of of Hadith?
a) Jane Eyre a) Hindu
b) Robinson Crusoe b) Judaism
c) Wide Sargasso Sea c) Islam

Chapter 4
1. Which one of the following 3. Which one of the following is a
pramanas is considered valid by type of valid knowledge?
all schools of Indian philosophy? a) Viparyyaya
a) Testimony b) Arthapatti
b) Inference c) Smrti
c) Perception
d) Tarka
d) Comparison

2. Which among the following is a 4. Which one of the following is a

heterodox school? type of invalid knowledge?
a) Nyaya a) Sabda

b) Vaisesika b) Samsaya
c) Buddhist c) Samanyatodrsta
d) Vedanta d) Sannidhi

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 114 MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

5. Which pramana is considered 8. Which of the following is not

valid by the Carvaka School? a condition for intelligibility of
a) Inference sentences according to Nyaya?
b) Perception a) Yogyata
c) Testimony b) Tatparya
d) Comparison c) Sesavat
6. Which of the following schools d) Akanksa
has propounded the doctrine of
syadavada? 9. Through which of the following
pramana do we get the knowl-
a) Buddhism
edge of non-existence?
b) Jainism
a) Arthapatti
c) Sankhya
b) Anumana
d) Yoga
c) Upamana
7. Identify the correct sequence in
d) Anupalabdhi
which the five steps of Nyaya
inference, viz. (1) udaharana, 10. Which of the following pra-
(2) nigamana, (3) hetu, (4) manas is not accepted by the
pratijna, (5) upanaya occur. Sankhyas?
a) 12345 a) Perception
b) 43152 b) Inference
c) 53241 c) Comparison
d) 23541 d) Testimony

Answer keys
Chapter-1
1. c 2. b 3. a 4. b 5. c
6. c 7. c 8. c 9. c 10. c

Chapter-2
1. a 2. a 3. a 4. c 5. c
6. a 7. c 8. a 9. b 10. a

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 MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS 115

Chapter-3
1. c 2. a 3. c 4. a 5. c
6. b 7. c 8. a 9. c 10. c

Chapter-4
1. c 2. c 3. b 4. b 5. b
6. b 7. b 8. c 9. d 10. c

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 Glossary

anti-essentialism: A view of subjectivity and identity as based on

difference, cultural contexts, and repetition that reject the assumption
that there is a core, unchanging identity of any group or individual.
architextuality: The relationship of a text to other texts in the same
genre/type.
Astika school: A school of thought in Indian philosophy that rejects
the authority of the Vedas.
aural language: Language or its components in the form of spoken
words.
autodiegetic: A first person narrative where the narrator is narrating
his/her own story.
autodiegetic narrator: A homodiegetic narrator telling his/her own
story. Seen most clearly in autobiographies.
axioms: The conclusions drawn from experiments in the natural
sciences and considered to be ‘true’ till they are refuted.
belief system: A set of ideas that become guide to moral action in
society, usually linked with clearly defined rewards and punishment.
Carvaka system: Also called the Lokayat school. Literally, ‘the
thought of the people’, this school considers matter to be the only
reality. Also called the materialists, they accept the existence of only
four eternal elements—earth, water, fire, and air.
chutneyfication: The act of hybridizing the English language with
Indian languages.
class: Economic group to which a person belongs.
class relation: The relation of power between social classes that orig-
inate due to unequal control of the means of production.
cultural theory: Culture theory is a multidisciplinary theoretical
approach towards understanding human culture. It borrows from
various social science disciplines, such as sociology and anthropol-
ogy, and also from semiotics and linguistics.

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 118 GLOSSARY

culture: The sum of ideas, beliefs, values, knowledge, and artifacts,

which are learned and internalized by people as members of their
society.
diegesis: The act of reporting events in a narrative.
discourse: The social, political and economic context in which any
expression and use of language happens or is situated.
empirical proof: Objective truth verifiable through perception.
ethnicity: A term which represents social groups with a shared his-
tory, sense of identity, geography, and cultural roots, which may
occur despite racial difference.
gestural language: Language or its components in the form of ges-
tures or signs.
habitualization: A local cultural practice from which codes of con-
duct evolve.
heterodiegetic narrator: A narrator who is outside the story s/he is
narrating, commonly known as the third person.
heterodiegetic-intradiegetic narrator: A heterodiegetic narrator
that narrates a story about other characters but from the inside of
the story.
historiography: The process of constructing history.
homodiegetic narrator: A narrative wherein the narrator is a
character.
humanities: Academic disciplines that study the human condition
using methods that are primarily analytic or speculative. Literature,
performing and fine arts, and philosophy are some of the disciplines
under humanities.
hypertextuality: It refers to texts that come later or after the original
text.
hypotheses: Assumptions which are to be proven through research/
experiments/surveys.
identity: A sense of personal and social self possessed by any indi-
vidual or group. Identity could be of caste, class, race, gender, nation-
ality and so on.
ideology: A set of ideas, which provides a theoretical and opera-
tional framework for any thought or action of its adherents.

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 GLOSSARY 119

institutionalization: A process by which, in a society, social interac-

tion leads to the creation of knowledge in the form of mental pic-
tures, concepts and beliefs influencing the way we see the world and
other people.
intertextuality: Relationship and reference of one text in another.
jnana: All forms of cognition or knowledge, true or untrue.
metatextuality: The relationship between a text and the critical
commentaries, biographical commentaries and other references on
the main text.
Mimamsa school: Founded by Jaimini, Mimamsa provides reasons
in defence and favour of the ritualism prescribed by the Vedas.
mimesis: The act of narration where incidents are not reported but
shown as happening.
narratee: To whom the narrative is addressed to.
narration: Telling about the unfolding of action in a story.
narrator: The one who ‘tells’ or ‘shows’ a narrative.
Nastika school: The school of thought in Indian philosophy that
does not reject the authority of the Vedas.
nativism: The argument that Indian writing in English contin-
ues imperial oppression and that we need to abandon the use of
English.
Nyaya school: Nyaya undertakes to establish the right ways of know-
ing. According to Nyaya philosophy, there are four ways of acquiring
valid knowledge, perception, inference, comparison, and testimony.
Orientalists: People who stereotype Asia and the Orient as exotic,
erotic, uncivilized, and irrational as opposed to the stereotype of the
West as cultured and rational.
paratext: Parts of the text that are somehow connected to the main
narrative, such as epigraphs.
positivism: Popularized by Auguste Comte during the late 18th cen-
tury, it is a school of thought that takes the analysis of social phe-
nomenon away from metaphysical speculation towards the methods
used by natural sciences.
postmodern novel: A novel that refuses to have a central narrative
or style of narration and is conscious of its own creation.

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 120 GLOSSARY

prama: True cognition or real knowledge.

race: A human population considered distinct based on physical
characteristics. It is important to note that race is predominantly
a social construct—in other words, scientists have discovered that
only 2 per cent of our genes are ultimately responsible for the visible
differences such as skin color.
representation: Any usage of language to express any meanings.
Sankhya school: This school of dualistic realism was founded by
Kapila. It believes in the existence of two mutually independent ulti-
mate realities, prakrti and purusa.
self-reflexivity: A condition where a text talks about itself.
social structure: Enduring patterns of relations between groups in
a society, which get formalized as norms and institutions, and shape
the social behaviour of individuals.
subject position: A term used to describe the location of an individ-
ual within a social structure where power determines his/her class,
gender, racial identity.
subjectivity: An individual’s personal perspectives, feelings, opin-
ions and beliefs that originate from his/her interpretation of is/her’s
lived experiences.
syadavada: Theory of relativity of knowledge in the Indian philo-
sophical system. It maintains that reality has innumerable aspects.
Human knowledge is finite and cannot comprehend them all.
symbolic universes: Symbolic universes are a set of beliefs that every-
body knows and shares, but with little scientific validity or proof.
taste: The socially learned attitude about things that are considered
appropriate, desirable, aesthetic or proper.
The Four Noble Truths (Catvari Arya-satyas): The central doctrine
of Buddhism that maintains that a) there is misery, b) that there is a
cause of misery, c) that there is cessation of misery, d) and that there
is a path leading to the cessation of misery.
Vaisesika school: The school of thought in Indian philosophy that
devotes itself to the exposition of reality. It classifies all realms under
the seven categories of substance, quality, action, generality, particu-
larity, inherence, and non-existence.

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 GLOSSARY 121

values: Set of beliefs about preferable acts, things or ideas, held by

the member of a society.
Vedanta: ‘Vedanta’ is a composite of two words ‘Veda’ and ‘anta’, or
end, and literally means ‘the end of Vedas’. The philosophy of this
school arose from where the Vedas ended.
visual language: Language or its components in the form of visible
symbols, such as alphabets/script.
Yoga school: Founded by Patanjali, and closely allied to the Sankhya
school, it maintains that discriminative knowledge, or vivekajnana,
is necessary for liberation and it can be attained through the practice
of Yoga.

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 About the Authors

Abhijit Kundu is Associate Professor of Sociology at Sri Ven-

kateswara College, University of Delhi, Delhi. He completed his PhD
from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has published
widely in national and international journals.
Pramod K. Nayar teaches English at the University of Hyderabad.
He specializes in literary theory, cultural studies, and English colo-
nial writings on India. His most recent books include Postcolonial
Literature (Pearson Longman), A Short History of English Literature
(Cambridge University Press) and Seeing Stars: Spectacle, Society
and Celebrity Culture (Sage). His Contemporary Literary and
Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism is forthcoming
from Pearson.
Shweta is presently an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Miranda
House, University of Delhi. She has been awarded her Doctorate
by the University of Delhi. She has published a book titled Human
Rights: A Gandhian Perspective.’

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