Full of God
Ashtavakra and Ideas of Justice in Hindu Texts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v3i2.167Keywords:
comparative religion, disability, gender, Hinduism, Mahabharata, sexualityAbstract
The paper examines how ideas about disability, sexuality, gender, desire and aversion, have circulated in Hindu texts through the figure of the disabled sage Ashtavakra. In the Mahabharata, Ashtavakra learns from a woman teacher that no one is immune to desire. The Ashtavakra Gita explicitly states that a wise person sees no difference between man and woman. Two medieval devotional texts, which tell the story of a child born to two women who have sexual intercourse, invoke Ashtavakra as an authority. The texts move away from the abstract question of sex between any two women, and towards the specific instance of these two women’s relationship. Narrative, unlike medical and legal texts, is impelled towards particulars, not abstract theories. Ashtavakra represents an ascetic tradition that tends to be opposed to pleasure. But because he is disabled, he is represented as aware of the vulnerability of living beings and their susceptibility to desire; he is therefore ideally suited to make the right ethical choice in this particular instanced. Hindu ethics tend to value the particular over the general, which is why Hindu law favors local custom over universal principle.
References
Apte, Vaman Shriram. 2000. The Student’s Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Avasthi, Nandkumar (ed.). 1966. Krittivasa Ramayana, with Hindi translation. Lucknow: Bhuvan Vani.
Chinmayananda, Swami. 1997. Preface to Revised Edition of Astavakra Gita. Mumbai: Chinmaya Mission Trust.
Feuerstein, Georg. 1974. Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita: Its Philosophy and Cultural Setting. Madras/London: Theosophical Publishing House.
Ganguli, Kisari Mohan (anonymous translator). 1889–96. The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose: Published and distributed chiefly gratis by Pratapa Chandra Ray. 10 vols. Calcutta: Bharata Press.
Ganguli, Kisari Mohan (trans.). 1990–91. The Mahabharata of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, 5th edn. 12 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal (corrected from the 3rd edn, same publisher, 1972–1976).
Malik, Rajiv. 2004. ‘Discussions on Dharma.’ Hinduism Today (October–December 2004): 30–31.
McGregor, R. S. 1997. The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Mukerjee, Radhakamal (ed. and trans.) 1997. Astavakra Gita. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Nussbaum, Martha. 2004. Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame and the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Parsons, Susan Frank. 2006. ‘Ad Imaginem Dei.’ In Mark D. Jordan (ed.), Authorizing Marriage: Canon, Tradition, and Critique in the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions: 139–50. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Partridge, Eric. 1984. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. 8th edn; ed. Paul Beale; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Ramcaritmanas. 2003.Ramayana: Srimad Gosvami Tulsidasji krt Ramcaritmanas. Mathura: Ramayan Press. Citation gives kanda and doha numbers, and page numbers in this edition.
Rao, A. Venkoba. 2002. ‘ “Mind” in Indian Philosophy.’ Indian Journal of Psychiatry 44(4): 315–25.
Sastri, Ashoke Chatterjee (ed.). 1972. The Swarga Khanda of the Padma Purana. Varanasi: All-India Kashiraj Trust.
Sukthankar, V. S., S. K. Belvalkar and P. L. Vaidya, et al. (eds.). 1933–66. The Mahabharata for the First Time Critically Edited. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
Sunstein, Cass. 1993. After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
van Buitenen, J. A. B. (trans. and ed.). 1975. The Mahabharata. II: The Book of the Assembly Hall and the Book of the Forest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Vanita, Ruth. 2003. ‘The Self is Not Gendered: Sulabha’s Debate with King Janaka.’ NWSA Journal 15(2): 76–93. doi:10.2979/NWS.2003.15.2.76
— 2005. Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
