| Course Type | Course Code | No. Of Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation Elective | NA | 4 |
Course coordinator and team Lawrence Liang
1. Does the course connect to, build on or overlap with any other courses offered in AUD?
SLGC currently offers a core course on jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. The. Core course that introduces the students to some of the fundamental debates in legal philosophy but it is a course which is grounded primarily within the Western legal tradition. The jurisprudence of the Mahabharata course extends the students understanding of legal philosophy by introducing them to debates within the Indian intellectual tradition. It also fulfils the aim of the school in establishing innovative and interdisciplinary legal curricula.
2. Specific requirements on the part of students who can be admitted to this course: None (Pre-requisites; prior knowledge level; any others – please specify)
A general awareness of the narrative of the Mahabharata
3. No. of students to be admitted (with justification if lower than usual cohort size is proposed): As per cohort size
4. Course scheduling (semester; semester-long/half-semester course; workshop mode; seminar mode; any other – please specify): Semester long
5. How does the course link with the vision of AUD?
The University constantly strives to create innovative syllabus that develops inter disciplinary approaches to the study of a particular field, and this course is designed keeping that vision in mind as it draws on a range of disciplines that have contributed to the discourse of legal philosophy in India
6. How does the course link with the specific programme(s) where it is being offered?
This course extends the domain of what is traditionally seen as sources for the study of legal philosophy. Approaching the Mahabharata as a conceptual universe, it examines some of the key questions explored in other courses including the nature of law, legal obligation, sovereignty, justice, legitimacy etc. from the prism of the narrative and philosophical universe of the Mahabharata. It is arguably the first course to focus entirely on the legal universe of the Mahabharata, and aims to expand the realm of interdisciplinary legal scholarship in India..
7. Course Details:
a. Summary:
The Mahabharata is not merely the ur-epic of India, it is also often described as a text that embodies our national (un)conscious (Devy, 2022). At the narrative core of the Mahabharata is a legal battle of sorts: a violent succession dispute over who can claim to be the rightful king. But this narrative core, consisting of the battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, is merely the surface under which lies an encyclopaedic work that encompasses poetry, moral philosophy, ancillary tales, didactic instruction and practical as well as abstract speculations on the human condition.
It would therefore be more productive to think of the Mahabharata (both as a text and as a living tradition) in terms of a “conceptual universe”, and examine how the concepts embedded in it serve as a resource for thinking fundamental philosophical and existential questions. In this course, we explore the jurisprudence of the Mahabharata, by which we mean, a specific examination of what the narrative offers us by way of legal philosophy. If the question of what is Dharma constitutes the philosophical essence of the text, we will explore the overlaps between questions of law, natural justice, ethics and Dharma as it plays out in specific episodes, and through particular thematics in the Mahabharata. A.K. Ramanujan says that in the Mahabharata, “the dubeity and oscillation of fortunes, outcomes and emotions are fully matched by the legal or legalistic ambiguities, arguments and counter- arguments that precede and succeed every major act”.
Classical jurisprudence revolves around a set of legal and normative questions whose intellectual roots are primarily located in the Western philosophical tradition. Attempts at mapping an idea of Indian jurisprudence have often turned to the textual and scriptural tradition as embedded in the Shastras or the Manu Smriti. This course is premised on an assumption that while these texts areuseful in providing us an account of Indian law in a historic sense, it is the Mahabharata which we must turn to, for a richer account of jurisprudence in India. The Mahabharata does not offer us a theory of justice in a singular sense of the term in the way that we find in the different schools of jurisprudence (positivism, natural law, normative philosophy etc.), it instead invites us into a sidewards glance into jurisprudence: the pursuit and experience of justice via a set of narrative dilemmas that accompany the act of inhabiting the world with others.
For the course we will rely on three primary translations of the Critical edition of the Mahabharata.Relevant extracts of episodes will be provided per module. The three translations are by Bibek Debroy, John Smith and J.A.B. Van Buitenen.
b. Objectives:
i. To explore various legal and philosophical questions that emerge from Mahabharata
ii. To compare and contrast key similarities and differences between western and non-western tradition on legal and moral dilemmas
iii. To develop an understanding of the relationship between Dharma and justice
c. Expected learning outcomes:
On successful completion of the course, students would demonstrate knowledge of
i. A structural understanding of the different dimensions of the Mahabharata- the textual, the literal and the performative
ii. An appreciation of narrative jurisprudence as a different way of approaching legal questions
iii. A knowledge of key concepts from the philosophical universe of the Mahabharata including Dharma, Appaddharma, Anrsamsya to name a few
d. Overall structure (course organisation, rationale of organisation; outline of each module):
8. Pedagogy:
a. Instructional strategies: Close reading of extracts from the epic along with extensive engagement with secondary literature
b. Special needs (facilities, requirements in terms of software, studio, lab, clinic, library, classroom/others instructional space; any other – please specify): classroom, projector, library
c. Expertise in AUD faculty or outside: SLGC faculty members are equipped to transact this course
d. Linkages with external agencies (e.g., with field-based organizations, hospital; any others):
Jurisprudence of The Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is not merely the ur-epic of India, it is also often described as a text that embodies our national (un)conscious (Devy, 2022). At the narrative core of the Mahabharata is a legal battle of sorts: a violent succession dispute over who can claim to be the rightful king. But this narrative core, consisting of the battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, is merely the surface under which lies an encyclopaedic work that encompasses poetry, moral philosophy, ancillary tales, didactic instruction and practical as well as abstract speculations on the human condition.
It would therefore be more productive to think of the Mahabharata (both as a text and as a living tradition) in terms of a “conceptual universe”, and examine how the concepts embedded in it serve as a resource for thinking fundamental philosophical and existential questions. In this course, we explore the jurisprudence of the Mahabharata, by which we mean, a specific examination of what the narrative offers us by way of legal philosophy. If the question of what is Dharma constitutes the philosophical essence of the text, we will explore the overlaps between questions of law, natural law, ethics and Dharma as it plays out in specific episodes, and through particular thematics in the Mahabharata.
Classical jurisprudence revolves around a set of legal and normative questions whose intellectual roots are primarily located in the Western philosophical tradition. Attempts at mapping an idea of Indian jurisprudence have often turned to the textual and scriptural tradition as embedded in the Shastras or the Manu Smriti. This course is premised on an assumption that while these texts are useful in providing us an account of Indian law in a historic sense, it is the Mahabharata which we must turn to, for a richer account of jurisprudence in India. The Mahabharata does not offer us a theory of justice in a singular sense of the term in the way that we find in the different schools of jurisprudence (positivism, natural law, normative philosophy etc.), it instead invites us into a sidewards glance into jurisprudence: the pursuit and experience of justice via a set of narrative dilemmas that accompany the act of inhabiting the world with others.
For the course we will rely on three primary translations of the Critical edition of the Mahabharata. Relevant extracts of episodes will be provided per module. The three translations are by Bibek Debroy, John Smith and J.A.B. Van Buitenen.
Background Readings (Recommended for those unfamiliar with the Mahabharata)
1. V. S. Sukthankar, On the meaning of the Mahabharata, Motilal Banarsidass (Reprinted, 2012)
2. James L. Fitzgerald, Mahabharata in Sushil Mittal & Gene Thursby, The Hindu World, Routledge, 2004.
Module 1: Introduction: Approaching the Mahabharata
Despite A.K.Ramanujan’s famous claim that no Indian ever encounters the Mahabharata for the first time, approaching an encyclopaedic and all-encompassing text like the Mahabharata in a scholarly fashion can be a daunting task. In the first module, we undertake a survey of some approaches to a reading of the Mahabharata, as well as circumscribe the questions that will be the main focus in this particular course, namely the question of justice in the Mahabharata.
Essential Readings
Module 2: A Jurisprudence of Dilemma
David Shulman distinguishes between the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, describing the former as a poetics of perfection and the latter as a poetics of dilemma. In philosophy, moral dilemmas arise not out of a conflict between what is right and what is wrong, but between two competing conceptions of the right. The Mahabharata is filled with infinite examples of characters who are conflicted about what is the right thing to do and what constitutes Dharma. In this module, we use the conceptual category of dilemma as an extremely fertile mode of interrogating what a Jurisprudence of Dilemma would look like.
Themes & Episodes:
Readings
Additional Readings
Module 3: Dharma and Justice in the Mahabharata
Through a reading of the debate between Arjun and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, Amartya Sen argues for an important conceptual distinction to be made between two concepts of justice namely Niti and Nyaya. Sen elaborates on this distinction, broadly identifying Krishna as embodying a deontological ethics and Arjun’s arguments as are consequentialist one. Identifying the former as an instance of the universal justice associated with law and the latter as a context specific idea of justice, Sen opens up an interesting set of questions through which we can explore the relationship between Dharma in the Mahabharata and ideas of law and justice that we have inherited from Western jurisprudence. Most translators of the Mbh. have struggled with how to translate the word Dharma, and Van Buitenen for instance, mistranslates it as Law. In this module, we take the conceptual dilemmas posed by these tensions as a productive tension, through which we can arrive at a more nuanced understanding of justice.
Themes & Episodes
A warrior throws down his weapons: The Bhagavad Gita Yudishtra and Draupadi debate dharma in the forest The Yakshraprashna
Additional Readings
Themes & Episodes
Kaushika and the hunter
Additional Readings
Module 4: Narrative and Dialogic justice
In contrast to a transcendental idea of justice that is always already preordained and known, the poetics and politics of dilemma in the Mahabharata produces an image of justice that is necessarily rooted in narrative and in dialogue. Indeed, many of the key episodes (such as Draupadi’s question in the Mahasabha) within the Mbh. can be read as interrogative explorations of the nature of justice. In particular, what emerges in some of these conversational moments is a form of antagonistic justice where characters question and challenge each other’s conception of the just,
and offer competing philosophical accounts of Dharma and justice. A crucial word that occurs in the Mahasabha Parva in the word Suskshma, used by Bhishma to indicate the subtlety of Dharma.
We excavate various instances in which this subtlety is encountered in the Mahabharata and explore how narrative and dialogic justice may be distinguished from theories of justice.
Themes & Episodes
Readings
Additional Readings
Arindam Chakrabarti, Just Words :An Ethics of Conversation in the Mahābhārata in Chakrabarti, A., & Bandyopadhyay, S. (2017). Mahabharata Now: Narration, Aesthetics, Ethics. Routledge, pp. 115-131
Module 5.1 Ethics, Violence & Vengeance
In this module, we turn our attention to the Sauptikaparvan which deals with the violent revenge that Ashwathamma extracts from the Pandavas, after his father Dronacharya is killed through a lie uttered by Yudishtra. Using this episode, we explored the question of violence, nonviolence and justice in the Mbh. We will focus on two crucial concepts Anrshamsya (non cruelty) and Āpaddharma (dharma in times of distress) as extremely productive ways of thinking beyond the binaries of violence-nonviolence and law-exception.
Themes & Episodes
Readings
Additional Readings
Module 5.2 Sovereignty and Legitimacy in the time of Crisis
Themes & Episodes
Readings
Module 6: Justice as translation
In the last module, we turn our attention to the “smaller traditions” of the Mbh. in the form of regional, folk and tribal variations of the Mbh. Using these living traditions of the Mbh. and their challenges to dominant narrative traditions, we explore what James Boyd White formulates as “justice as translation”.
Readings
Additional Readings
Assessment:
Note:
Recommendation of the Board of Studies: Passed by the BoS
