1st Edition
The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya
This book engages in a dialogue with Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (K.C. Bhattacharyya, KCB, 1875–1949) and opens a vista to contemporary Indian philosophy.
KCB is one of the founding fathers of contemporary Indian philosophy, a distinct genre of philosophy that draws both on classical Indian philosophical sources and on Western materials, old and new. His work offers both a new and different reading of classical Indian texts, and a unique commentary of Kant and Hegel. The book (re)introduces KCB’s philosophy, identifies the novelty of his thinking, and highlights different dimensions of his oeuvre, with special emphasis on freedom as a concept and striving, extending from the metaphysical to the political or the postcolonial. Our contributors aim to decipher KCB’s distinct vocabulary (demand, feeling, alternation). They revisit his discussion of Rasa aesthetics, spotlight the place of the body in his phenomenological inquiry toward “the subject as freedom”, situate him between classics (Abhinavagupta) and thinkers inspired by his thought (Daya Krishna), and discuss his lectures on Sāṃkhya and Yoga rather than projecting KCB as usual solely as a Vedānta scholar. Finally, the contributors seek to clarify if and how KCB’s philosophical work is relevant to the discourse today, from the problem of other minds to freedoms in the social and political spheres.
This book will be of interest to academics studying Indian and comparative philosophy, philosophy of language and mind, phenomenology without borders, and political and postcolonial philosophy.
Entrée Introduction Daniel Raveh; K.C. Bhattacharyya: A Philosophical Overview Daya Krishna Lexicography 1. The Concept of Demand: Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s Key to Spiritual Progress Elise Coquereau-Saouma; 2. Feeling and Factuality: K.C. Bhattacharyya’s□ Reflections on□ Śaṅkara’s Doctrine of Māyā Nir Feinberg; 3. Vocabularies of the Heart: Reflecting on Hr̥dayasaṃvāda and Sahr̥daya in Light of K.C. Bhattacharyya’s New Commentary on Rasa Dor Miller Philosophical Junctions 4. Three Absolutes and Four Types of Negation: Integrating Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s Insights? Stephen Kaplan; 5. "Felt" Body and "Interiority" of Space in the Thought of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya Kalyankumar Bagchi; 6. Up Down Backwards on the Stairs of the Self: From Bodily to Spiritual Subjectivity Arindam Chakrabarti; 7. Between Abhinavagupta and Daya Krishna: Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya on the Problem of Other Minds Nalini Bhushan and Jay L. Garfield Sāṃkhya and Yoga 8. K.C. Bhattacharyya and Spontaneous Liberation in Sāṃkhya Dimitry Shevchenko; 9. Bhattacharyya-Vṛtti: K.C. Bhattacharyya’s Commentary on the Yogasūtra Daniel Raveh Debating Freedom 10. Three Moods in Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya A. Raghuramaraju; 11. The Concept of Freedom and Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya D.P. Chattopadhyaya; 12. The Problem of Freedom and the Phantasmagoria of Swaraj: Reflections on a Necessary Illusion Murzban Jal
Biography
Daniel Raveh is Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, Israel. His publications include Exploring the Yogasūtra (2012), Sūtras, Stories and Yoga Philosophy (Routledge 2016), and Daya Krishna and Twentieth-Century Indian Philosophy (2020).
Elise Coquereau-Saouma is a research affiliate at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, and Erwin Schrödinger Post-Doctoral Fellow (Austrian Science Fund). Her books Intercultural Dialogues: Conceptions, Divergences and the Limits and Creativity of Knowledge and Intercultural Dialogues: Thinking with Daya Krishna are forthcoming with Routledge.
