16 research outputs found
Form of life" as transcendental dhvani meaning
No full text"Meaning" has been an evergreen concept in Indian philosophy and poetics. Traditional Indian philosophical and literary schools have been competing with each other in the conceptual clarification of how one arrives at the meaning of a word and on what basis. This paper is concerned with one such conception of "meaning" called dhvani (suggested meaning), aiming at a philosophical rationale for the concept of dhvani. In discourses pertaining to Indian theories of meaning, dhvani occupies an important place. Often the concept of dhvani is found in poetic and literary discourses. This paper focuses on one important aspect concerning what makes suggested meaning possible. It focuses on the philosophical rationale of how one can understand a suggested meaning. How can a suggested meaning be understood by one and not by another? What are the conditions for the possibility for an individual to understand? To answer these questions, the author follows the philosopher Wittgenstein\u27s notion of "form of life", developing it further to claim that "form of life" is the conditions for the possibility of having a dhvani meaning. Thus this paper aims at exploring the conditions that give rise to the possibility of suggested meanings through the concept of "form of life"
"Form of Life" as Transcendental Dhvani Meaning Venkataraman Prabhu
No full text"Meaning" has been an evergreen concept in Indian philosophy and poetics. Traditional Indian philosophical and literary schools have been competing with each other in the conceptual clarification of how one arrives at the meaning of a word and on what basis. This paper is concerned with one such conception of "meaning" called dhvani (suggested meaning), aiming at a philosophical rationale for the concept of dhvani. In discourses pertaining to Indian theories of meaning, dhvani occupies an important place. Often the concept of dhvani is found in poetic and literary discourses. This paper focuses on one important aspect concerning what makes suggested meaning possible. It focuses on the philosophical rationale of how one can understand a suggested meaning. How can a suggested meaning be understood by one and not by another? What are the conditions for the possibility for an individual to understand? To answer these questions, the author follows the philosopher Wittgenstein\u27s notion of "form of life", developing it further to claim that "form of life" is the conditions for the possibility of having a dhvani meaning. Thus this paper aims at exploring the conditions that give rise to the possibility of suggested meanings through the concept of "form of life"
"Form of Life" as Transcendental Dhvani Meaning
No full textAbstract. "Meaning" has been an evergreen concept in Indian philosophy and poetics. Traditional Indian philosophical and literary schools have been competing with each other in the conceptual clarification of how one arrives at the meaning of a word and on what basis. This paper is concerned with one such conception of "meaning" called dhvani (suggested meaning), aiming at a philosophical rationale for the concept of dhvani. In discourses pertaining to Indian theories of meaning, dhvani occupies an important place. Often the concept of dhvani is found in poetic and literary discourses. This paper focuses on one important aspect concerning what makes suggested meaning possible. It focuses on the philosophical rationale of how one can understand a suggested meaning. How can a suggested meaning be understood by one and not by another? What are the conditions for the possibility for an individual to understand? To answer these questions, the author follows the philosopher Wittgenstein's notion of "form of life", developing it further to claim that "form of life" is the conditions for the possibility of having a dhvani meaning. Thus this paper aims at exploring the conditions that give rise to the possibility of suggested meanings through the concept of "form of life"
Resonance in <i>Dhvani</i> Aesthetics and the Deleuzian Logic of Sensation
No full text This paper undertakes an intersectional reading of visual art through theories of literary interpretation in Sanskrit poetics in close reading with Deleuze's notions of sensation. The concept of Dhvani – the Indian theory of suggestion which can be translated as resonance, as explored in the Rasa – Dhvani aesthetics offers key insights into understanding the mode in which sensation as discussed by Deleuze operates throughout his reflections on Francis Bacon's and Cézanne's works. The paper constructs a comparative framework to review modern and classical art history, mainly in the medium of painting, through an understanding of the concept of Dhvani, and charts a course of reinterpreting and examining possible points of concurrence and departure with respect to the Deleuzian logic of sensation and his notions of time-image and perception. The author thereby aims to move art interpretation's paradigm towards a non-linguistic sensory paradigm of experience. The focus of the paper is to break the moulds of normative theory-making which guide ideal conditions of ‘understanding art’ and look into alternative modes of experiencing the ‘vocabulary’ of art through trans-disciplinary intersections, in this case the disciplines being those of visual art, literature and phenomenology. </jats:p
The environmental rule of law in India
No full textThis thesis offers a new conceptual frameworkâthe environmental rule of lawâto describe weaknesses in the development of Indian environmental law, and uses this description to critique the dominant discourse on environmental institutional reform. A secondary frameworkâfragmentation is also used to supplement the analysis of Indian environmental law.
Part I develops the conceptual framework of the environmental rule of law by considering the special challenges that the inherent polycentric and interdisciplinary nature of environmental law present for commonly understood rule of law values such as clarity, certainty and consistency. It also relies on Jeremy Waldronâs conception of articulated governance to demonstrate that the rule of law is linked to the principle of separation of powers. This conception lays emphasis on the role of the three institutions of governmentâthe legislature, the executive and the judiciaryâin strengthening or weakening the rule of law. To determine institutional contribution to the rule of law, I develop three broad indicators to assess the legal quality of the instruments of each of these institutions of government. These indicators are: a) capacity of statutes to guide executive and judicial behaviour by goal-setting and balancing competing interests; b) the ability of the executive to make flexible yet reasoned decisions grounded in primary legislation; and c) the use of statutory interpretation and consistent standards of judicial review by the courts as they give effect to environmental rights and principles. Through the use of case studies in Part II that span environmental impact assessment, forest conservation, and indigenous rights, I demonstrate that the lack of adherence to these indicators produces a body of environmental law that is fragmented i.e. one characterised by multiple overlapping yet self-contained legal regimes with conflicting provisions and the absence of unifying norms.
In Part III, I use this understanding of fragmentation to critically analyse environmental legal and institutional reform proposals. I show that existing proposals address only the structure, rather than the process of functioning of the institutions of government. The rule of law framework that I develop also has potential for application to other areas of the law.</p
Effects of Combining Meditation Techniques on Short-Term Memory, Attention, and Affect in Healthy College Students.
No full textMeditation refers to a family of self-regulation practices that focuses on training attention and awareness to foster psycho-emotional well-being and to develop specific capacities such as calmness, clarity, and concentration. We report a prospective convenience-controlled study in which we analyzed the effect of two components of Preksha Dhyāna – buzzing bee sound meditation (Mahapran dhvani) and color meditation (leśyā dhyāna) on healthy college students. Mahapran and leśya dhyāna are two Preksha Dhyāna practices that are based on sound and green color, respectively. The study population represents a suitable target as college students experience different stress factors during the school year. This study measures the individual and combined effects of two techniques (one focusing on sound and one focusing on color), on short-term memory, attention, and affect, in novice meditators. We used a battery of cognitive, performance, and compared results with baseline and control values. We found improved cognition, especially attention, short-term memory, and affect in terms of positivity and reduced negativity. Overall, the two techniques produced variable benefits and subjects showed improved scores over baseline for short-term memory, cognitive function, and overall wellbeing. Further studies are required to understand underlying mechanisms for the observed differences between the two techniques and to elucidate mechanisms underlying the more pronounced and global benefits observed with the combined techniques. These results underscore a need to examine individual components of meditation practices in order to individualize treatment approaches for attention disorders in young adults
Avivakṣitavācya-dhvani and the Deterritorialization of Signifier: A Liberating Experience for Language, Author and Reader
No full textThe so-called Vyaṅgyavyākhyā: selected remarks for reading it philologically
No full textA Review Article of "Vyaṅgyavyākhyā: The Aesthetics of Dhvani in Theatre". Edited by K.G. Paulose, New Delhi : Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan - D.K. Printworld, 2013, xvi + 546 pp.
K.G. Paulose provides us for the first time with the text of the [Subhadrā-]Dhanañjaya- and [Tapatī-]Saṃvaraṇa-dhvanis forming the so-called Vyaṅgyavyākhyā. This commentary on the states of mind (sthāyibhāva), modes of enacting (prayogamārga) and also backgrounds (pūrvasambandha) of the characters at their respective entrances (praveśika = praveśaka) on the stage, following the show of the royal playwright himself, was made, according to its brahmin author, for explaining the dhvanis to the spectactors (prekṣaka) of good taste (rasin/sahṛdaya). As such, the text raises a series of questions. Despite Paulose’s view of it as a ‘performance text’, viz. a kind of stage manual, according to the late A. K. Warder it does not seem to have been composed for actors (like the later āṭṭa-prakāraṃs in Malayalam for the Kūṭiyāṭṭam). Another difficult problem is the dating of Kulaśekhara’s two plays together with this double commentary, supposed to be more or less contemporary. On the basis of the different arguments, the dates of their composition range from the 9th to the 12th centuries. A close look at the quotations in the Vyaṅgyavyākhyā, most of them remaining untraced, and how they serve the main issues of the work, will contribute to shed new light on both the nature and the date of this atypical commentary
Kumārila's Theory on the Meaning of Sentence (vākyārtha) : Preliminary Notes (No. 550 Commemoration Issue)
No full text第五百五十號記念特集號The problem of the meaning of śabda (speech, language) was discussed by many schools in classical India. For the Mïmāṃsakas, who are engaged in the investigation of dharma (religious duties), the śabda with which they are primarily concerned is the injunctive sentences (vākya) of the Vedic texts. The philosophical study of the problems concerning the śabda is found in the Mimāṃsāsūtra (=MS), I. 1. 6-23 and in the Vṛttikāra-grantha cited under the Śabarabhāṣya (=ŚBh) , I. 1. 4-5. However, the śabda treated therein is either the sound (dhvani) or the word (pada), and not the sentence. It is in the MS, I. 1. 24-26 (vākyādhikaraṇa) that the sentence is taken up for the subject of discussion. In his Ślokavārttika, Kumārila (ca. 600-650 A. D.) fully develops the idea set forth in this portion of MS and ŚBh, and expounds the views that bhāvanā is the meaning of a sentence, and that the meaning of a sentence is formed by the construction of the meanings expressed by the component words (abhihitānvaya). The author of this paper intends to make a detailed examination of Kumārila's theory of bhāvanā and that of abhihitānvaya in the main article which will appear later
A Transcultural Study of the Fiction of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Shashi Deshpande in Light of the Rasadhvani
No full textThe thesis sets out to prove the efficacy of the rasadhvani, a traditional Indian aesthetic, to
enable a transcultural reading of six literary texts by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Shashi
Deshpande. The mainstream of post-colonial critical practice has already identified the need
for adequate theoretical models within the field of post-colonial literary studies. But these
same models become problematic with transcultural writers like Jhabvala and Deshpande
because they move beyond the boundaries of traditional post-colonial approaches. Post
colonial theory, in other words, mainly studies literary works which are based in a rich
diversity of cultural settings outside Britain but are written by authors who share the English
language as a means of literary expression. Post-colonial theoretical approaches, therefore,
define themselves in terms of the ethnic origin of the author under critical examination.
My claim is that the rasadhvani theory facilitates a transcultural reading which moves beyond
the categorical limitations of culture and even of gender that we often unwittingly set up
whenever we regard literature as the unproblematic expression of the ethnicity or gender of
the author. In practice, the theory involves a particular kind of close study with the aim of
discovering and identifying the presiding emotion (rasa) of a literary work. The concept of
rasa refers to a heightened level of emotional response to a play in performance, a poem, a
novel or even a painting or sculpture through the process of dhvani (suggestion).
When it is applied to writing it considers the text in terms of two levels; the level of statement
based on words alone (vacya) and the level of suggested meaning (vyaṅgya), where both
words and meaning convey a further sense. In six close readings of fictional works by
Jhabvala and Deshpande, I set out to resituate the critical discussion of these two writers using
Indian literary concepts. In other words, the rasadhvani transforms basic human feelings
aroused by incommunicable personal traumas into transcultural emotions which reach out to
readers from any particular culture
