from syncretism to symbiosis: an approach to integral ...

Anekaant: A Journal of Polysemic Thought, No. 2 (2014)

FROM SYNCRETISM TO SYMBIOSIS: AN APPROACH TO INTEGRAL KNOWLEDGE IN HUMANITIES Maulik Vyas

Reviewing the Metaphor

Integral knowledge is, paradoxically, both a fact and an ideal. It is a fact because all organic and non-organic forms are interlinked in this universe. It is an ideal to achieve, for human intellectual practices have belied this fact. Michel Serres, a 20th century French philosopher, refers to an ancient tradition of holistic thinking that embraced humanities, arts and sciences equally. In his view, “Philosophy relies on a totalization of knowledge, he who practices it must do his fieldwork, must travel everywhere.”1 The works of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Pascal, Hegel and August Comte, to Serres, submitted an entire encyclopaedia of knowledge of their times. This philosophic outlook adopted synthetic, not just analytic, method of study. In the Semitic culture, signature of this interdisciplinarity can be explicitly traced in the works of a High Renaissance figure, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), a painter, sculptor, architect, designer engineer, scientist and a visionary, who developed empirical and systemic approach to study the processes of transformation in nature. Fritjof Capra, a particle physicist, in his talk on his recent work The Science of Leonardo at the Forum at Grace Cathedral Episcopal Church in San Francisco quotes Leonardo’s caveat towards fragmentation and isolation of disciplines which he found in the works of Abbreviators, who were adherents to a school of thought who compartmentalized and organized works in sync with their subject matter. Leonardo states: The Abbreviators do harm to knowledge and to love of what uses he, who in order to abridge a part of things of which he professes knowledge to give complete knowledge, leaves out a greater part of the things of which the whole is composed. O human stupidity! Don’t you see that you fall into the same error as he who strips a tree of adornment of branches, laden with leaves, intermingled with fragrant flowers or fruit in order to demonstrate a suitability of the tree for making planks?2

This holistic take on the quantum of knowledge is discernibly pitched against the extreme specialization of our era. It is this noetic mapping of all human endeavours that ancient thinkers introduced in their works. Interestingly, the interlinked truth of all disciplines has a henotheistic countenance of Indian metaphysics. To return to Serres, his approach is often singled out as “non-modern”3—rather than modern or postmodern—as it proposes a polymorphus corpus that invites almost every area of human thought

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and resists easy categorization. And thus the wandering philosopher “peregrinates” among the clouds of ideas. One more reason why one should consider unifying all forms of knowledge is that the peregrinating intellectuals of the society speak in a specific language that goes with a tacit assumption of addressing fundamental issues of humanity. As these issues emerge from our rational, emotional and physical acts, they remain either sparsely or coterminously on the spectrum of human intellection, often influencing or counter-influencing one another, to be crystallized in forms of knowledge viz. mythology, theology, philosophy, humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, anthropology among others. However, the intellectual enterprise carried out in singularity of scope, method and register veil over multilateral interconnections prevailing amongst these domains. In the pursuit of integral knowledge, one realizes that theoretical abstractions verily pervade all the domains of knowledge. Intellectual praxis with theories or systemic thinking inherently becomes multidisciplinary. By the law of necessity, therefore, Eagleton’s intellectual, who is not simply a narrow specialist, meanders through more than one discipline. In his view, intellectuals of the classical time delved into the maze of ideas and their bearing on humanity as a whole. More so, while getting into the fundamental social, political and metaphysical questions, they required to know about more arenas. Consequently, it became difficult to identify the nature of their work or describe what kind of thinkers they are. Eagleton therefore asks, “What academic label, for example, could be pinned on writers like Raymond Williams, Susan Sontag, Jürgen Habermas, Julia Kristeva or Michel Foucault?”4 Their works defy easy categorization. Thinkers have often figuratively conceptualized this phenomenon as some intellectual environs wherein the plenitude of ideas is set to harmony. It is about naming and identifying the intellectual environment—as distinct from intellectual praxis—where awareness about interlinked fields of knowledge is developed. Interdisciplinary method assists as a means to strengthen such intellectual environment. Here, it would be fit to note that concepts of interdisciplinarity and integral knowledge are different. Interdisciplinarity as a conceptual category best enjoys its meaning and purpose in the presence of fragmentation of knowledge, i.e., specialization. Both have their distinct utility value. Nonetheless, what is perceived and known in parts and combinations serves only the underlying principle of integrality. Philosophically, the integral enquiry has a gnostic harmony about it which is born of interconnections, combinations and permutations of disciplines. The term gnosis carries sense of “special knowledge”; something not only an “insight,” but a move to self-redemption that is purifying or freeing from bondage. The composite take on human action and thought redeems one from fragmentations caused by super-specialization of knowledge which became a commodified value in the global economic culture. However, it appears that amidst the academic calls for inter/ multi-disciplinarity, specialized practices stand tall with their universalist claims. Along with our high hopes for a happy confluence of all knowledge fields, words of Robert Hodge ring with caution according to which knowledge field can as much be occupied as any geophysical space. He observes: Just as physical space is subdivided and assigned to specific functions and ‘owners’, so aspects of the ‘field of knowledge’ are also subdivided and organized by noetic regimes under the control of particular groups and owners....especially since the domain of knowledge is typically associated with specific physical spaces which are sites of dominance of the owners of that knowledge (e.g. hospitals as site and guarantor of medical knowledge, churches as the site of religious knowledge, etc.).5

The overwhelming concern, what Hodge worries about the control of noetic regimes over individual knowledge fields, can equally be true of the intellectual environs. The situation will be no

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different from what it is today, if again noetic regimes control and own the intellectual environs for integral knowledge. It will be indeed forethoughtful of our intelligentsia should they worry about this as well. In the past years some tropes like “global village,” “cyber-culture,” and “Cyborg” denoted environs for holistic knowledge. The idea of global village emerges in the wake of communication technologies with new strategies for worldwide production and distribution in the capitalist culture. Cyber-culture is mediated by electronic communication technologies with a dimension of virtual world, and Cyborg stands for a life form created from the fusion of organic and machinic systems. These tropes communicate a sense of space where all human thoughts interact with one another in a definitive, systematic and controlled atmosphere. They come to us best as tropes of economic and technological cultures whose historical frameworks also admit of deferral imports of capitalist excesses, virtual and therefore unreal reality and highly programmed (inter)actions in a closed system. In 1976 Deleuze and Guattari proposed an interesting metaphor called “rhizome” in contrast to the yester-year’s metaphor of “tree” which has a hierarchical structure. This aborescent model of thought also implied binary opposition. Instead, rhizome, a botanical term, is a horizontally growing underground stem that forms a discontinuous surface without depth or centre. The metaphor of rhizome suggests an acentred, non-hierarchical and non-signifying system in a constant state of becoming, an in medias res without beginning and end. This metaphor, however, was somewhat technical and puzzling and rarely found favour with other popular academic concepts or economic formulas. This apart, in a value system which has ever been two-valued, linear, and exclusivistic, it is no wonder application of this trope had to be precluded on other western thoughts and practices. In the late years of the 20th century, the most talked about unicolour metaphor of “melting pot” gave way to postmodern colourful “syncretism” which at best amalgamated different religions, cultures, or schools of thought. Although syncretic worldview gained favour in the Western academics and later in other parts of the world, it passed unnoticed with its pathological arrogance inherited from past intellectual traditions. Having its roots in Greek political history, the term sunkrētizein implied “to unite against a third party.” Like previous tropes for interaction of human thought, syncretism remained a West-centric, hegemonic figure of thought that adorned the impudence of Western universalism, and homogenizing tendencies. Consequently, it ended up being a hierarchical syncretism in practice where non-western counterparts play as junior partners. By “Western universalism” is meant a belief whereby what is good for one is good for all. It is a value-belief that permeates most forms of transaction of the West with the non-west. One of many instances is the norms of standardization—be it for technological implements, industrial management, performance of academic institutes, or even publication of a book or research paper such as this for instance— that are codified in Western terms and thereof exported to the rest of so called (post)modernizing non-western societies. This turns out to be a subtle persuasion with sophisticated linguistic and philosophical expertise with a desire to impose a set of logic, values and systems on the rest of the world. The West sees its logic as inevitable and universal, and it demands that other cultures also understand its doctrines and map their diverse specificities on its universalist framework. After the institutionalization of faith, nation-state, and universities western history has more or less remained a history of aggression on the non-westerns—regionally, economically, culturally and intellectually. Western universalism is another such aggression. And justification for this is offered from the viewpoint of their material wealth and success in various disciplines. In the present times, the examples of such universalist models in practice can be seen in ISO Certification, and Six Sigma quality tests for manufacturing and other forms of accreditations. In fact, today there are quality norms and tests for almost everything. The problem is not in having one, but to tag one as “the model” and export it to other countries that just have different circumstantial variables, consumption

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habits, cultural practices, environs, etc. On non-compliance of method or operation, such business concerns or institutes are deemed lesser; not meeting international standards and therefore substandard. Non-western units for the fear of not being modern enough; lagging behind in progress— for such impressions are directly linked to their broad acceptance and so monetary performance, see to it that they anyhow fit into these universalist models. Today, these universalist models have found their legal status in the post-colonial bureaucratized India. It is a matter of time to see whether or not these universalist models fashioned to context-free applications positively improve functioning of context-sensitive Indian subjects.6 It is not only difficult but impolitic also to adopt such conceptual frameworks of environs for interdisciplinary studies across different knowledge cultures. Also, it may well be fruitful to consider symbiosis, a term from biology as a trope for allowing different knowledge systems to co-exist disarmingly. The concept of symbiosis is offered here to signify co-existence of otherwise mutually exclusive conceptual categories and frameworks that can exist with the mutual respect for difference. It is not aimed here to offer another universalist category with an intent of homogenizing. Interdisciplinary studies would achieve some authentic cognitive and utility values if a plane of interaction is neutralized of cultural biases, universalisms, and ideological vigour. Interdisciplinary studies across knowledge cultures necessitate such environs where interaction between two diverse disciplines exists in close cognoscitive associations, especially to the advantage of both. Integrality of all forms of knowledge is not an alternative, but a fact. Unfortunately, such views appear a trifle of academic privilege in the era of lucrative specializations. It will be a forward gesture to “nonmodernize,” “rhizomatize,” and “symbiosize” the environs for cross-fertilizing thoughts for integral knowledge. However, before admitting any of these figurative posits into a system of thought these tropes must be committed to a thorough critical scrutiny lest any obliquity remains unobserved. In Indian context, integral unity is rather perceived as an ontological reality observed in interdependence of natural phenomena, season cycles and all forms of human action. Pursuit of knowledge in ancient Indian cultural framework embodied all forms of human action.7 No system of thought and practice in Indian knowledge culture was developed with so called modern(ist) ideals of exclusivity and specialization, for all human activities to an integralist mind culminate in knowledge. Kapil Kapoor suggests in this regard that knowledge was not conceived to be an end itself, nor was it interpreted as power. The basic purpose of knowledge in Indian context has been understood as that of upholding the inherent equipoise in the individual, the society and the cosmos.8 In the framework of materiality continuous processes of balancing in nature unify the diversified ontology. In the framework of consciousness these processes are observed as nonduality of one and many. The frameworks, however, differ in their view depending on their gaze whether turned outward or inward, but they do not contradict each other. Neither of the frameworks is contradistinctive or dismissive of the differing position. Such observations prepared the ground for a vast confluence of nāma (sign/language), rūpa (form/perception) and kriyā (elemental force/ action). As a result, subtle interlinking ramifications flourished in all forms of human activities which when held in sacred esteem almost developed into a pluralist worldview. Art, architecture, philosophy, folk song, classical music and dance, sculpture, painting, theatre, literature, grammar, rituals, religious narratives, medicines, botany, mathematics, astrology, architecture, agriculture, commerce, polity, ethics among others existed in synergy and freely co-opted terms and techniques from one another.9 One who has never been exposed to such pluralist, non-linear, multi-dimensional, acentric and synchronic way of life might at first deem this integrality as chaos; nonetheless its orderliness persists which is just different from the popular notion of “order.” In Vedic and Buddhist discourses, this existential matrix is symbolized with even greater abstraction by “Indra’s Net”—an infinite net with jewels embedded in it where each one glitters by reflecting the shine of other ones. This trope signifies a universe with unending inter-linkages of all sentient and non-sentient inter-


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beings. No entity exists independently but only in a vast matrix of inter-relations—such is the nature of collective reality. This is a non-linear, non-hierarchical and acentric character of reality which when brought to human realm of actions as a method and mode of perception can reformulate all our pursuits of knowledge, especially the western education system born of 19th century industrial compulsion.10 Rajiv Malhotra in his work, Being Different, informs as to how this trope of “Indra’s Net” helped develop new scientific theories. He states that Michael Talbot’s recent theory of the holographic nature of the physical universe and Douglas Hofstadter’s work on interrelations of physical, symbolic and conceptual parts of a system, inspired by the metaphor of “Indra’s Net,” are a case in point among others (114) .

Inter-Study in Humanities

Literary discourse amidst other domains of knowledge in modern knowledge culture effortlessly assumes polymorphus corpus. Literary and critical theories as they prevail today exhibit crossdisciplinary connections emerging over centuries. Literary discourse in particular possesses a genial disposition to an attempt towards integrating diverse knowledge fields in its practice. Bhāmaha, a 6th century Indian poetician, in the fifth “Pariccheda” of his Kāvyalamkāra notes that every human experience, actual or imaginary, is worthy of literary treatment. In other words, any subject matter, scientific or imaginative, can be appropriated for literary purpose. The poet’s responsibility, therefore, is great.11 A possible argument follows that if literature thrives on a vast diversity of sources of meaning, why should then poetical study of literature remain only literary? More so, it is a common experience of all academics whereof critical theory reading at its advanced level branches off into disparate systems of thought. In English studies of our time, particularly poetics in Indian university courses, it is high time our courses at post-graduate level incorporated new fields of study.12 This academic liberalism could be helpful to intensify study and research practices of critical discourse. The study of poetics can be said to have its functions at the following three levels: 1. Pragmatic level—a chronological study that surveys and postulates the units of study ontologically. This is more useful within a canonical purview of one critical tradition. It is matter-of-fact and historical in character. 2. Theoretic level—a synchronic study of ideas and its application on literary instances. This allows comparative as well as parallelistic study of history of ideas in more than one critical tradition. It is speculative and creative in character. 3. Systemic level—a non-chronological, diffusive and acentred mode of study that simultaneously allows diverse terra epistēmē (knowledge fields) from different time and space. More than comparative, it is synthetic in essence with an aim to provide with non-hierarchical placing of different conceptual frameworks. It is non-exclusive and indefinite in character.

Poetics has been most explored at the first level and then at the second one. A rich background prepared at both these levels should be now put to actualizing the third systemic level. At this third stage, it will require an ensemble of different epistemological systems, philosophies of language, taxonomic systems, aesthetic traditions, and theory and practice of other forms of fine arts. The list is not exhausted though; these above knowledge fields together constitute an integral understanding of age old literary issues. A caveat in his regard, however, must be sounded. That is, one-to-one paralleling outside their contextual frameworks at its gross level and eisegetic interpretations domineering the counterparts would only result in perpetuating hierarchical relations which are but to be ridden off. Selection of these knowledge fields, however, bears self justification. Epistemological categories help us know the means of cognition and validity of knowledge. The validity of knowledge would

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subsequently lead to the limbs of logic that help in cognizance which also touch upon the issues of analogy and inference. This accommodates language: how language constructs knowledge. Further enquiry into the modalities of expression lead us to the issues of what is apparent and real and how language affects (re)articulation of the apparent and the real along with beautifying the expression with its rhetorical devices, for aestheticizing is a unique function of language. This consequently approaches the aesthetic end of what is thought and known artistically. Hence, in some distant way though, knowing subtle elements of epistemological categories is going to impress upon our literary reception or aesthetic experience of other arts. These correlated knowledge fields are further expanded when their respective Western and Indian traditions are set together in their respective frameworks. The work becomes overwhelmingly ambitious for a single life-time. However, in order for a researcher and teacher to benefit, a model course may be prepared on the ideal of integral knowledge in symbiotic environs with a qualified reductionism. The following select units could be proposed for a composite course in each domain:

• Epistemological Theories: Indian and Western theories of 1) valid cognition and its means, 2) causal systems, 3) logic, and 4) nature of reality as in Aristotle’s 10 categories; Hume’s rejection of traditional essentialism and causality; Kant’s 12 categories. In the Indian context 16 and 7 padārtha-s (categories) of Nyāya-Vaiśesika respectively; 25 tattva-s of Sāmkhya; 36 tattva-s of Kāśaida; and theories of causal doctrines.13 Here, the epistemological categories vary from being perceptual, material, empirical, a priori beliefs to even mystical and metaphysical. Since modern philosophers usually consider scientific method to be a reliable way of acquiring knowledge, the elemental categories from molecular physics should as well be included here with their electron configurations, isotopes and mass and atomic numbers. The purport behind this is to elicit valid formulations in the history of philosophy as it would either corroborate or put aside inadequate or erroneous formulations which have hitherto gone uncontested and untested in singularity of their subject. The idea is, epistemological theories of philosophy at some point must extend unconflicting accompaniment to the findings of physics of their time and if the latter changes its position for better, the former then must respond to it. It will be opportune to note that the above study on the comparative or parallel grounds should be attended with the awareness of basic metaphysical differences that exist in the Western and Indian worldviews. PT Raju in his Introduction to Comparative Philosophy (1992) elucidates this issue.

• Philosophies of language: semantic/cognitive concerns as in 1) Wittgenstein; Saussure; Derrida, JL Austin, Korzybskian view of language 2) Bhartrhari; Nāgārjuna; Kumārila Bhatta and Prabhākara; Dhvani and Symbolism. • Taxonomic systems: Structural criteria, purpose and function of classification in given knowledge system. Examining the specifics such as 1) song, poetry and common speech in early Greek literature; generic classification as in Aristotle’s Poetics; Sidney’s cataloguing of literary forms; Northrop Frye’s theory of literary classification, 2) Generic classifications offered by Bhāmaha, Agnipurāna, Viśvanātha, Hemcandācārya; Rājaśekhara’s system divisions; modern forms of writing in Western and Indian literary traditions. • Aesthetic traditions: 1) Greek idea of kalokagatheia (kalos + aghatheia), i.e., beautiful and goodness fused into one; affective principle of catharsis; the binary of the useful and nonuseful arts; Scholastics’, particularly Aquinas’s idea of beauty; the sublime; the beautiful in existentialist and Modernist contexts. 2) Bharata’s affective principle of rasa; concepts of camatkāra, cārutva, vicitra, bhoga, carvanā, saundarya, ramanīya among others. 3) Abhinavagupta’s critique of rasa in the conceptual framework of Kāśmīra śaivism (variously known as Kāśaida or Trika darśana).


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• Forms of fine arts: theories and practice of classical dance, music and paintings in Western and Indian traditions. The folk variants of fine arts may be incorporated according as the scope and depth of the course work.

This model of inter-study with selective entries is a small step in the direction of a non-exclusivist approach to knowledge fields which not only intersect but transect with one another. The objectives of this approach are clear: ●● ●● ●●

to construct symbiotic frameworks that not only distinguish but juxtapose closely the so called defined boundaries of concerned knowledge fields, to provide a background to aspiring research scholars and teachers for developing further literary and critical theories, to make available to the students Western and Indian history of ideas and in-depth understanding of source texts in respective traditions.

Methodologies of the study here involve postulation of major critical formulations in their respective frameworks of arts, philosophy and science; method of analysis and synthesis (anvayavyatireka); comparison of critical processes; text or author based study with possible case-study; tabulations, and enlisting differences or similarities along with pictorial presentations. While carrying the study on these lines, it must be clarified that divisions, categories and abstracts drawn from the work are absolutes only for the concerned work with certain reductionism involved therein and in no way offer universal posits in their conclusions. Like the countless interlinked jewels in Indra’s Net, there could be many other knowledge fields reflecting their light and in turn being reflected in the process. Such an approach to inter-study in symbiotic frameworks holds in its view a fact and an ideal of integral knowledge.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Encyclopaedia of Postmodernism, eds., VE Tailor and CE Winquist, p. 362. Fritjof Capra in an interview with Rev. Alan Jones, Dean, Grace Cathedral. Video talk on www.Fora. tv/2007/11/18/Fritjof_Capra_Science_of_Leonardo as on 16th April, 2014. Bruno Latour calls this “nonmodern.” Serres’s interdisciplinary works establish conceptual relations among biology, painting, fiction, geometry, physics, sculpture, and other fields. Ibid. Terry Eagleton, After Theory, p. 81. Robert Hodge, Literature as Discourse, p. 23. A.K. Ramanujan in his noted essay “Is There an Indian Way of Thinking” distinguishes between “context-free” and “context-sensitive” approaches to ethic that respectively characterize the West and India. He writes: Cultures may be said to have overall tendencies to idealize, and think in terms of, either the contextfree or the context-sensitive kind of rules. Actual behaviour may be more complex, though the rules they think with are a crucial factor in guiding the behaviour. In cultures like India’s, the contextsensitive kind of rule is the preferred formulation.

On the other hand, Western thought and practice of values minus context is seen as a criterion of truth or valid action. One may here point to another context-free tendency in Kant. His posit of categorical imperative is valued, for it is supposed to be relevant in all times and places without considering any binding context. This makes it universalist. 7. 8.

“sarva karma-akhilam Partha jnane parisamaptaye” (All action in its entirety, O Partha, attains its consummation in knowledge) Bhagvad Gita IV: 33. See Literary Theory: Indian Conceptual Framework, p. 10.

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9.

In India knowledge culture, one of the obvious examples of inter-systemic prevalence is the category of “Rasa” which is a category of medicine, chemistry, cooking, literary aesthetic and Vedāntin darśana. 10. Sir Ken Robinson, a British educationist, holds that the modern existing education system and its debilitating consequences came into existence particularly after the rise of industrial economy in the West in the 19th century. See his talk on “Changing Educational Paradigms” on http://www.ted.com/talks/ ken_robinson_changing _education_paradigms.htm/ as on 25th November, 2013. 11. Na sa śabdo na tad vācyam na sa nyāyo na sā kalā | Jāyate yanna kāvyāngamaho bhāro mahān kaveh (Kāvyālamkāra, 5.4) 12. Although common knowledge, helpful it would be to have a broad-brush distinction between “critical theory” and “literary theory.” It could be observed that critical theory resorts to ideological positions and at times conceives of literature with redemptive powers. It locates literature in culture. Literary theory, whereas, points to the domain of epistemology of knowledge and discoursal devices; metaphysics and cosmology of literature in given knowledge tradition. 13. Theories of valid cognition and means in the West include Plato’s anamnesia (theory of recollection), Aristotle’s hylomorphism, debate between the rationalists and the empiricists, Kant’s synthetic a priori among others with their causal systems. In the Indian context, Nyāya-Vaiśesika (causal systemAsatkāryavāda), Sāmkhya (Satkāryavāda), Vedānta (Vivartavāda), Buddhist (Pratityasamutpāda), Jaina (anekānta), and Kāśmīra Śaivism (Ābhasavāda). The epistemological categories are as follows: Western Philosophy: Aristotle: substance (ousia, essence or substance), quantity (poson, how much), quality (poion, of what kind), relation (pros ti, towards something), place (pou, where), time (pote, when), position (keisthai,”to lie,” posture), state (echein, to have or be, condition), action (poiein, to make or do), affection (paschein, to suffer or undergo) (Metaphysics, 1b25-2a4) Kant’s a priori concepts: a. Quantity—unity, plurality, totality; b. Quality—reality, negation, limitation; c. Relation—inherence & subsistence, causality & dependence, community; d. Modality— possibility-impossibility, existence-nonexistence, necessity-contingent Indian Darśana: Nyāya → 16 padārtha-s (cognitive categories) Vaiśesika → 6 (+1) padārtha-s Sāmkhya → 25 tattva-s Vedānta → 2 (cita and acita) Rāmānuja → 3 (cita, acita and Iśvara) Mimāmsā (Old Prābhākaras) → 8 padārtha-s [dravya (substance), guna (quality), karma (action), sāmānya (commonness), viśesa (particularity), pārtantrya (dependence), śakti (power), niyoga (duty)] Mimāmsā (New Prābhākaras) → 9 padārtha-s [dravya, guna, karma, sāmānya, viśesa, samavāya, śakti, sankhyā (number), and sādraśya (similarity)] Jainaism → 8 tattva-s [jīva (individual soul), ajīva (non-soul), āśrava (defilement), sambara (prevention), nirjara (destruction), bandha (bondage), moksa (liberation), and paryāya (changing status)] • • •

Śaivism → 36 tattva-s 1-5 tattva-s of Universal Experience: Śiva tattva, Śakti tattva, Sadāśiva tattva or sadākhyāta tattva, Iśvara or Aiśvarya tattva, Sadavidyā or Śuddhavidyā tattva 6-11 tattva-s of Limited Individual Experience: Māyā, Kalā, Vidyā, Rāga, Kāla, Niyati. Kalā is fivefold: Nivrtti kalā, Pratisthā kalā, Vidyā kalā, Śāntā kalā, and Śāntātīta kalā 12-13 tattva-s of Limited Individual Subject-Object: Purusa, Prakrti


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14-16 tattva-s of Mental Operation: Buddhi, Ahamkāra, Manas 17-31 tattva-s of Sensible Experience: (17-21 Jñānendriya-s or sense perception: smelling, tasting, seeing, feeling, hearing); (22-26 Karmendriya-s or organ action: speaking, handling, walking, excreting, sexual act); (27-31 Tanmātrā-s or subtle elements of perception: śabda, sparśa, rupa, rasa, gandha) • 32-36 tattva-s of Materiality (Pañcabhuta): Ākāśa, Vāyu, Teja, Āpas, Prthvi [The tattva-s from no. 12 to 36 are taken from Sāmkhya system.] • •

REFERENCES

Capra, Fritjof. “Interview with Alan Jones at Grace Cathedral,” video on www.Fora.tv/2007/11/18/Fritjof_ Capra_Science_of_Leonardo as on 16th April, 2014. Bhāmaha. Kāvyālamkāra. Trans. & ed. PU Nagnath Shastri. Tanjore: Wallace Printing House, 1927; Delhi: Motilal Banrsidass, 1970. Eagleton, Terry. After Theory. London: Penguin Books, 2004. Hodge, Robert. Literature as Discourse. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Kapoor, Kapil. Literary Theory: Indian Conceptual Framework. New Delhi: Affiliated East-West Press Pvt. Ltd, 1998. Ramanujan, A. K. “Is There an Indian Way of Thinking: An Informal Essay,” India Through Hindu Category. Ed. M. Mariott. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1990. Sir Robinson, Ken. “Changing Educational Paradigms,” a talk on http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_ changing _education_paradigms.htm/ as on 25th November, 2013. Srimad Bhagvad Gita. Trans. Swami Swarupananda. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2004. Tailor, VE and CE Winquist, eds. Encyclopaedia of Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 2005.

XVII International Conference (A Silver Jubilee Event of the Forum on Contemporary Theory) Jointly Organized by The Forum on Contemporary Theory, Baroda & The International Lincoln Centre for American Studies Louisiana State University, Shreveport, USA Re-Imagining Theory: Towards New Horizons in the Humanities and the Social Sciences 21-24 December 2014 Venue International Centre, Goa Convener R. Radhakrishnan Chancellor’s Professor of English and Comparative Literature University of California at Irvine, USA Submission Deadline 500-word abstract or proposal is due by August 31, 2014. The abstract should have a title for the presentation along with the name and institutional affiliation of the presenter and should be mailed as an email attachment to R. Radhakrishnan, the Convener of the Conference ([email protected]), with a copy marked to Prafulla Kar ([email protected]). Registration Deadline The last date for receiving the registration fee is September 20, 2014. The fee may be paid through a bank draft drawn in favor of Forum on Contemporary Theory payable in Baroda. Keynote Speakers 1. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor, Columbia University, New York City (Keynote address: “Theory as Practice.”) 2.

Arjun Appadurai, Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University (Keynote address: “The Failure of Theory and a Theory of Failure.”)

For details please visit our website www.fctworld.org