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Apr 9, 2024
Puruṣa
Personhood in Ancient India
Summary
The concept of the puruṣa, or person, is implicated in a wide range of ancient texts throughout the Indian subcontinent. In Puruṣa: Personhood in Ancient India, published in 2024 by Oxford University Press, Matthew I. Robertson traces the development of this concept from 1500 BCE to 400 CE: in the Ṛg Veda, the Brāhmaṇas, the Upaniṣads, Buddhist Pāli suttas, the Caraka and Suśruta Saṃhitā, and the Mahābhārata. Pushing back against the interpretation of personhood as a cosmological microcosm, Robertson argues instead that, in these texts, personhood and the “world” (loka) are interrelated concepts. He investigates how persons were understood to expand to the fill the horizons of their world, attending to ritual-political, aesthetic, yogic, and medicinal techniques deployed for this purpose.
Your Host
Malcolm Keating
Malcolm Keating is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Smith College. His research focuses on Sanskrit works of philosophy in Indian traditions, in the areas of language and epistemology. He is the author of He is the author of Reason in an Uncertain World: Nyāya Philosophers on Argumentation and Living Well (Oxford University Press, 2024) and host of the podcast Sutras & Stuff.
