Table Of ContentPhilosophy as
Saṃvāda and Svarāj
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Philosophy as
Saṃvāda and Svarāj
Dialogical Meditations
on
Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi
Edited by
Shail Mayaram
Copyright © Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
First published in 2014 by
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Philosophy as saṃvāda and svarāj : dialogical meditations on Daya Krishna and
Ramchandra Gandhi / edited by Shail Mayaram.
pages cm
Includes several papers presented at a Seminar held at the Indian Institute of
Advanced Study, Shimla from April 28–30, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Krishna, Daya—Congresses. 2. Gandhi, Ramchandra, 1937–2007—Con-
gresses. 3. Philosophy, Indic—Congresses. I. Mayaram, Shail, editor of com-
pilation.
B5134.K734P55 181’.4—dc23 2013 2013042442
ISBN: 978-81-321-1121-4 (HB)
The SAGE Team: Sutapa Ghosh, Punita Kaur Mann, Rajib Chatterjee and
Rajinder Kaur
Contents
Foreword by Peter Ronald deSouza ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction by Shail Mayaram xv
Prologue by Kapila Vatsyayana xli
PART I: Of Love, Liberation and Līlā
1. Figure and Ground: Reflections on Two Exemplary 3
Indian Thinkers
Fred Dallmayr
2. Ramlīlā: A Metaphysics of the Everyday 28
Anuradha Veeravalli
3. ‘Falling in Love with a Civilization’: A Tribute to 34
Daya Krishna, the Thinker
Bettina Bäumer
PART II: The Idea of Svarāj: Asymmetries of Power,
Knowledge and Alternative, Ethical Politics
4. Gandhi and the Stoics: Squaring Emotional Detachment with 43
Universal Love and Political Action
Richard Sorabji
5. A Still, Small Voice 62
Tridip Suhrud
6. Learning to Converse 71
Michael McGhee
vi Philosophy as Saṃvāda and Svarāj
PART III: Modes of Saṃvāda
7. Towards a New Hermeneutic of Self-inquiry 85
Devasia M. Antony
8. On Philosophy as Saṃvāda: Thinking with Daya Krishna 95
Daniel Raveh
9. The Dialogue Must Continue 108
Mustafa Khawaja
PART IV: Language, Selfhood and Philosophy
10. The Virtue of Being a Self 123
Bijoy H. Boruah
11. Daya Krishna’s ‘Presuppositionless Philosophy’: 139
Sublimity as the Source of Value and Knowledge
Prasenjit Biswas
12. The Moral and the Spiritual: A Study of the Self and 161
the Not-self in Daya Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi
Ramesh C. Pradhan
13. On Missing and Seeming to Miss: Some Philosophical 177
Ramblings on the Subjective/Objective Distinction
in Memory of Daya Krishna
Arindam Chakrabarti
14. Dialogical Investigations on Daya Krishna and 199
Ramchandra Gandhi
Probal Dasgupta
PART V: Re-thinking Issues in the Arts/Ethics/
Science/Mathematics
15. The Applicability of Indian Aesthetic Theory of Rasa to 217
Visual Arts: A Rejoinder to Daya Krishna’s Article,
‘Rasa—The Bane of Indian Aesthetics’
Neelima Vashishtha
16. The Harmony Principle 232
C. K. Raju
Contents vii
17. On Mathematics and the Physical World 251
S. Lokanathan
PART VI: On Life and Death and Dying
18. Matricide and Martyrdom: Cancer and Karm in the Kalyug 263
Shankar Ramaswami
Afterword: An Imagined Dialogue between Daya Krishna 278
and Ramchandra Gandhi by Shail Mayaram
About the Editor and Contributors 292
Index 297
Foreword
On a tombstone in a cemetery in Panjim is the epitaph: ‘Don’t cry
for me because I have died but rejoice because I have lived.’ These
are words that aptly capture our memories of the philosophers, Daya
Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi. They were two of the most interesting
minds of the last half century in India, thinkers who were equally pro-
ficient in both Western and Indian philosophical traditions and who, in
their personal and professional communications, raised interesting and
novel questions for us to consider today. When I first composed the pre-
vious sentence, I did not use the word ‘philosophers’, saying only Daya
Krishna and Ramchandra Gandhi, but on rereading it I felt it to be too
bald and incomplete. The salt seemed to be missing. The word ‘philoso-
pher’ was needed, was in fact crucial to make the sentence both whole
and wholesome. I had to tell myself that it was about remembering them
as philosophers that was the inspiration for our seminar.
Ramchandra Gandhi and Daya Krishna had just passed away within
a few months of each other. The Indian Institute of Advanced Study
(IIAS), where both had spent some time in an earlier decade, and where
both had been integral to its vibrant community of minds, felt that we
must pay our tribute to them by celebrating their lives and thoughts.
The IIAS felt duty-bound to honour two playful and probing minds by
organizing a seminar relating to their philosophical persona, not just
because of what they had contributed or who they were, but also because
of what they had come to represent. This book is an outcome of that
wonderful deliberation that took place over more than two days. The
deliberations, in fact, could not be contained by the two days allotted
to the seminar, and with hindsight, this seemed inevitable if we were
to truly honour these two philosophers. Being conventional was not an
option available to us.
