The early nineteenth-century German engagement with India is a topic that is important not only to intellectual historians but also to philosophers working across the boundaries of the Indian and Western intellectual traditions.Footnote 1 In an increasingly globalized world, and at a time when questions about the methodologies and aims of comparative philosophy are being considered with increasing vigour and sophistication, a fuller consideration of this pioneering era would seem to be a desideratum. As Wilhelm Halbfass explains, ‘Together, Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer represent what is still the most memorable episode in the history of European philosophical responses to India’ (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1988: 100). Despite this, the distinctive character of this German effort has not as yet been fully brought to light, especially in regard to critiques of Western Indology such as that of Edward Said. In this general context, the paper by Jon Stewart makes a welcome contribution.
Stewart states his central finding as follows:
[Hegel’s] objection [to Hinduism] ultimately concerns what he takes to be the mistaken conception of what it is to be a human being that underlies the Hindu view. This conception, he argues, undermines the development of subjective freedom that he takes to be so important. (Stewart 2016: 281).
This finding emerges from an extensive discussion of the Hindu conception of the divine, which for Hegel ‘is a reflection of the conception of the human being’ (Stewart 2016: 281). It is because this conception of the divine ‘is too abstract and therefore empty of content’ that ‘the conception of self-consciousness has no meaningful content. There is no subjectivity or inwardness that we take to characterize the modern individual’ (Stewart 2016: 296). This leads to a ‘conception of humans as simply a part of nature’, which in practical terms means that ‘human value and dignity is not recognized … the Hindus were indifferent to the value of human life’ (Stewart 2016: 296). The abstract nature of the divine also means it is cut off from the rich sphere of actuality that consists of particular actions and thoughts … [the] particular actions [of Brahmins] are entirely detached from any universal principle’ (Stewart 2016: 290).
Without disclaiming the evidence raised by Hegel to support his characterization of Hinduism, this article endeavours to draw on the varied intellectual resources of Hinduism to show how a response to Hegel’s critique might be fashioned. Specifically, this article will seek to put pressure on various links in the above argumentative chain. In the first section, the idea that the Hindu conception of the divine is unable to guide the concrete actions and behaviours of daily life will be questioned, by describing how the function of the Veda is to provide a contentful normative guide for conduct. In the second section, it will be suggested that separation from nature is not a necessary condition for subjective freedom and related features of modernity. This will be done by examining a classical Indian debate about human freedom.
In the third section, the alleged lack of subjective freedom as an empirical fact, which is the specific topic of the final section of Stewart’s paper, is considered. Here Stewart also explains how Hegel evinces various cultural aspects of Indian society as evidence supporting his interpretation. Specifically, Hegel’s claim is that Hinduism lacks recognition of human value and dignity, recognition of the inward sphere of subjectivity, and genuine ethical relationships. Hegel’s critique is questioned through a consideration of textual materials relating to one case study, the situation of women.
In a discussion of Hegel, Wilhelm Halbfass locates Hegel in his contemporaneous intellectual context. Halbfass presents Hegel as inter alia a follower of Indological research, whose understanding of Hinduism was undergoing continuing development. Hegel’s discussions of Hinduism were presented in lecture courses that continually evolved in response to such research, rather than as a final summing-up. Thus, Halbfass explains:
There are signs of change, of a process of learning in Hegel’s later and latest statements on Indian thought; there is an increasing readiness to differentiate, to await the results of further research, and perhaps even to reconsider some of his own earlier generalizations. (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1988: 97).
Indeed, a somewhat more positive characterization of Hinduism is seen in certain publications by Hegel, including his lengthy review article on Humboldt’s essays on the Bhagavadgītā, and later revisions to his lectures reflecting the findings of H. T. Colebrooke’s ongoing research. In particular, Colebrooke published a series of detailed essays on seven different branches of Indian philosophy between 1824 and 1829, while Hegel was lecturing at the University of Berlin. Accordingly, any assessment of Hegel’s views must acknowledge their evolving character and allow a degree of empathy. This article explores some vulnerabilities in Hegel’s critique, mainly by consideration of a wider body of textual evidence than was available to him.
I. Veda and human action
In Section One of his article, Stewart describes Hegel’s criticism of Brahma as the highest conception of the divine. Hegel expresses the idea as follows: ‘Since this extreme abstraction has no particular content and is not visualized as a concrete personality, it affords in no respect a material which intuition could shape in some way or other’ (quoted from Stewart 2016: 283).
A full understanding of the conception of the divine in Hinduism should be informed by an understanding of the status of the Vedic scriptures in Hinduism, which are often equated with Brahma itself. The Veda is thus considered to be the orthodox core providing normative guidance for Hinduism. As Halbfass explains, ‘Among the criteria of Hindu “orthodoxy”, recognition of the validity and authority of the Veda is by far the most significant one’ (Halbfass 1992: 23).
Halbfass surveys the varying views of the Mīmāṃsā philosopher Kumārila, the linguistic philosopher Bhartṛhari and the Vedāntic philosopher Śaṅkara in regard to the role of the Veda. Kumārila considers that Vedic injunctions pertain only to the realm of dharma, encompassing ritual, legal and ethical duties. Ordinary empirical judgments are not subject to Vedic injunctions and must be made by unaided human reason, and even reasoning about the meaning of the Veda is separate from the Veda itself. By contrast, ‘Bhartṛhari does not draw a strict border between the uncreated Veda and the traditions of human thought and exegesis’ (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1992: 37). Thus Halbfass explains:
Bhartṛhari’s Veda is brahman’s unfolding into the world; it extends into the social and natural world as its underlying structure and basis. The Veda itself is a dynamic process, initiating its own division into different parts, branches, and recensions; this process of differentiation and expansion is continued and extrapolated in the work of human exegesis. (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1992: 37)
Śaṅkara concurs with the ideas of Bhartṛhari, making a similar claim that Halbfass paraphrases as follows:
[T]he Veda reveals the dharma; but it also reveals brahman, the ultimate essence and origin of the world. … there is no realm of merely factual truth that would be entirely excluded from the jurisdiction of the Veda. (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1992: 36)
In summary, for all three thinkers, ‘The idea of the Veda is the vehicle of intense reflection on fundamental problems concerning human thought and action’ (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1992: 38–39). Such reflection on practical problems through Vedic exegesis is the speciality of the Mīmāṃsā exegetes. As John Taber explains:
Mīmāṃsā, drawing on an ancient tradition of Vedic exegesis, provides us with a system of rules and principles, as clear and objective as the rules of logic, for interpreting [the Veda]. One need only learn how to apply the proper methodology—which … it is in fact one of the main tasks of the Mīmāṃsā to elucidate—and the meaning of the Veda will unfold. (Taber Reference Taber2012: 127–28)
Specifically, the content of the Veda is taken to consist in concrete norms to guide legal reasoning, ethical reasoning and practical deliberation in particular situations. Jonardon Ganeri thus explicates the Mīmāṃsā theory as a model of moral and practical deliberation, and explains that: ‘Although it has its origins in a particular context, the Mīmāṃsā theory is clearly a theory of practical reason, a method for deciding what properly is to be done’ (Ganeri Reference Ganeri2004: 211). Similarly, K. P. Saksena explains that ‘the duty of interpreting the law was always in the hands of Brahmins conversant with the law, and they, in order that their decision might carry weight, were always bound to follow fixed principles of interpretation mainly derived from the highest authority, Mimansa Sutras’ (Reference Saksena1941: 22). Indeed, some illustrations of these principles of interpretation are given by Colebrooke in his 1826 discussion of Mīmāṃsā (Colebrooke Reference Colebrooke1826: 455–60).
II. Nature and human action
Stewart describes how, for Hegel, the problematic lack of subjective freedom is associated with the fact that Hindus ‘have not yet developed a conception of themselves as something higher than nature. They have not yet managed to conceive of themselves as spirit’ (Stewart 2016: 294). This section will start by considering a very similar discussion of this criticism by Wilhelm Halbfass, who also draws on classical Indian materials to provide a response. Although Halbfass finds only limited evidence to challenge Hegel’s claim, more recent scholarship provides evidence for a stronger notion of subjective freedom in Hinduism. Further, the assumption that separation from nature is necessary for subjective freedom will be challenged, by consideration of other evidence, making space for the possibility of subjective freedom within a paradigm of ‘creative power of nature’ (Stewart 2016: 291).
In an article, ‘Man and Self in Traditional Indian Thought’, Halbfass begins with Hegel’s critique: ‘Hegel … claimed that “man … has not been posited” in India and that Indian thought sees the concrete human individual only as a “transitory manifestation of the One”, of an abstract Absolute, and as being without any “value in itself”’ (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1992: 265). Like Stewart, Halbfass considers that this is associated with ‘the Indian indifference towards man as man, the lack of interest in singling him out among other living beings’ (265). Halbfass further explains:
Traditional Indian thought seems to be preoccupied with the ātman, that ‘self’ and immortal principle in man which it also finds in animals and other forms of life; manuṣya, man as a particular species of living beings, man as homo sapiens, seems to be insignificant compared to this self in man and other beings’. (265)
Halbfass asks, ‘Is Hegel right? Has man “not been posited” in India?’ (Halbfass 1992: 267). Halbfass addresses this question by adducing evidence for a positing of man as separate from nature from a variety of Indian source materials. Texts reviewed by Halbfass include passages from Vedic texts, from the Mahābhārata, and from the Mīmāṃsā literature.
In the Vedic literature, Halbfass finds as follows:
Man as an earthly, temporal being plays a more significant role in these texts; and words like ātman or puruṣa, which in later thought are commonly associated with the absolute self, are in their Vedic usage often closer to the embodied person, to man in his concrete individuality. Moreover, there are various explicit attempts to define man as man and to draw that borderline between man and animal that seems to be so much less important in later philosophical literature. (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1992: 268)
Halbfass next considers the Indian epic Mahābhārata, which ‘refers to man’s earthly, secular capabilities and to his dominating role among the creatures of the world’ (1992: 271). Yet, as Halbfass notes, ‘this same chapter of the Mahābhārata continues by suggesting that it might be better not to use such special abilities and powers and not to get involved in worldly affairs at all’ (271–72).
Halbfass identifies Mīmāṃsā as ‘one Hindu system that takes up the old notion of man as a thinking and planning creature and applies it explicitly to describe man as manuṣya, and to single him out among other living beings’ (1992: 275). Halbfass focuses on the work of Śabara, who characterized man as ‘the subject of empirical life’ (276) and distinguished the human from the animals on the basis of ‘man’s openness for the future, the open temporal horizon that allows him to go beyond the fulfillment of immediate needs and desires and to make plans not only for this life, but also for future lives’ (275–76). Yet, for subsequent thinkers of this school, ‘certain distinctions within mankind appear far more significant than the definition and demarcation of mankind as such’ (277). Thus ‘questions concerning the definition of man and his distinction from the animals are not further elaborated upon in later Mīmāṃsā’.
Given the limited amount of evidence for a demarcation of the human from nature, Halbfass concludes somewhat pessimistically:
[T]here is nothing like … European anthropocentrism in India; there is no comparable fascination with man as planning, thinking, temporal creature, as rational animal. … The idea of man as planning, intelligent, future-orientated creature has, indeed, been articulated and considered … But the interest in this idea has remained ephemeral. … In a sense, it simply evaporated in the climate of Indian ritual and soteriological thought. (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1992: 281–82)
However, Halbfass’s conclusion appears overly pessimistic. More recent scholarship on the topic of agency in Indian philosophy has found features of subjectivity within the general concept of substance employed by some Hindu thinkers. Thus Matthew Dasti compares the Nyāya view to an alternative Sāṃkhya view as follows: ‘Nyāya defends a more robust notion of selfhood, placing desire, aversion, volition, and moral responsibility alongside cognition as the self’s distinctive qualities. These various aspects of selfhood come together neatly when we consider agency’ (Dasti and Bryant 2014: 112–13). According to certain Nyāya thinkers surveyed by Dasti, ‘agency is a capacity to initiate action with some degree of independence … an individual ātman is held to be an agent’ (120).
In regard to the Mīmāṃsā exegetes, Elisa Freschi explains that they ‘are keen to prove the existence of something closer to the Western common-sense notion of “subject” or “person” than to that of an underlying ātman’ (Dasti and Bryant Reference Dasti and Bryant2014: 148). The Mīmāṃsā conception of the subject is described as follows:
Even if the subject truly undergoes change and engages directly with the world, it may still maintain a dynamic identity. This position is due to the Mīmāṃsā emphasis on the moral and epistemological aspect of the subject over the ontological permanence of the ātman. (Dasti and Bryant Reference Dasti and Bryant2014: 12)
Hegel explicitly claimed that ‘the doctrine of the plurality of souls … should not be confused with the true concept of a person or the free, self-affirming individual’ (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1988: 97). However, Hegel’s views were dependent on the scholarship of Colebrooke on these topics, which did not provide sufficient evidence for a confident conclusion on this topic. In particular, Colebrooke’s Reference Colebrooke1826 discussion of Mīmāṃsā did not present any materials related to the Mīmāṃsā concept of a person.
Further, Halbfass seems tacitly to accept Hegel’s claim that separation from nature is a precondition for subjective freedom. However, a range of evidence from the wider intellectual context of classical India, and the place of the nature-doctrine within it, may suggest otherwise. Accordingly, some aspects of this wider intellectual context will now be discursively surveyed in relation to the question of subjective freedom and humanity’s place in nature.
In a recent publication (Bhattacharya Reference Bhattacharya2012), Ramkrishna Bhattacharya carefully distinguishes between two world-views circulating in India in the early centuries AD, which differ in part according to whether or not humans have the power to determine outcomes.Footnote 2 These views he denotes activism (kriyā-vāda) and inactivism (a-kriyā-vāda). Bhattacharya explains:
if the world is viewed as created and moved by chance or accident, any human effort to achieve some end in life is bound to be futile. … If, on the other hand, the world is conceived as an ordered entity, every effect having a cause of its own, the philosophy of life that would follow would uphold human endeavour and resoluteness. (Bhattacharya Reference Bhattacharya2012: 606)
In this way, the two positions on the efficacy of human endeavour are the corollaries of two larger metaphysical world-views. As Bhattacharya explains, metaphysical doctrines such as that of ordained destiny, lack of causal efficacy and supernatural influence such as that of a deity lead to inactivism. In contrast, the doctrine of karma and the doctrine of nature (svabhāva) lead to activism, or belief that humans can affect outcomes through endeavour. The doctrine of karma retains an element of anti-naturalism in that it requires an unseen mechanism to link the earlier moral cause with the later moral effect, and also because the balancing of causes and effects was thought to spill over into future lifetimes. As Colebrooke explains: ‘The action ceases, yet the consequence does not immediately arise; a virtue meantime subsists unseen, but efficacious to connect the consequence with its past and remote cause, and to bring about, at a distant period or in another world, the relative effect’ (1826: 455). In contrast, the doctrine of nature (svabhāva) is one which ‘admits nothing supernatural beyond this world. Here causality is not something imposed from above or existing outside natural phenomena, yet every action would have its natural effect’ Bhattacharya Reference Bhattacharya2012: 606–7). The doctrine thus ‘den[ies] the existence of any power or force beyond nature and man’ (598–99).
Appeals to such ideas can be seen in the play ‘Śakuntalā’ by Kālidāsa, which was one of the earliest works to be translated into European languages. It was translated into English by Sir William Jones in 1798 and a German translation was made from this English translation by Georg Forster in 1791. It made an immediate impact in the Germanophone world, especially amongst the Romantics. Charles Nuckolls notes that this was ‘regarded as one of the texts that seem to typify something essential about Indian culture, past and present’ (1987: 289). In an analysis of this play, Nuckolls examines how characters ascribe responsibility for events either to fate or to ‘merit’, this latter concept being the fruition of past good deeds in accordance with the theory of karma. Here Nuckolls identifies broadly one form of each of the two types of world-view above, inactivism and activism respectively. Thus, Nuckolls explains,
fate and merit differ chiefly in the degrees of human control, either real or imaginary, which they allow. Generally, fate allows none at all. … Merit, on the other hand, demands consideration of the nature of human actions and their role in influencing events. … Explanations based on merit thus necessarily accept the possibility of human intervention in causality. (1987: 291)
However, such ascriptions do not constitute objective explanatory theories. Rather, as Nuckolls observes, certain emotional contexts are conducive to certain types of ascriptions. Fate is conceived of in two ways by characters in this play. It is sometimes presented as an immutable and omnipotent force, by characters who are in a mood of detachment or resignation. Alternatively, fate is seen as making selective and capricious interventions in particular situations, either for good or for bad, but ones that can perhaps be mitigated by taking prescribed measures (Nuckolls Reference Nuckolls1987: 292–94). Characters appeal to such a conception ‘in order to justify as well as to explain or diagnose past events’ (295). Thus Nuckolls explains:
Śakuntalā … manipulates the schema of fate in order to portray her present situation (accedence to the King’s advances) as the result of a force too powerful for her to control. She is helpless and must give in. She uses the schema not so much to explain the event, though that is the pretext, but to justify further enjoyment and repetition of the allegedly ‘fated’ event. (295)
Conversely, Nuckolls notes, ascriptions of negative outcomes to the fruition of the karma of earlier actions constitute a method for characters to take personal responsibility for the outcomes that transpire. Thus:
heroic characters naturally try to shift responsibility to themselves and to their own shortcomings, even when attributing blame to external factors would be logical and easy. Their ennobling self-attributions add to the reader’s perception of them as heroic. (299)
In this way, assumption and abdication of responsibility for individual behaviours interact in complex ways, and the world-views identified as activism and inactivism are not mutually exclusive.
The Indian doctrine of nature described by Bhattacharya characterizes human action as part of nature precisely in order to support the efficacy of human endeavour.Footnote 3 The various groups of nature-advocatesFootnote 4 in India included ancient Indian doctors, who maintained that the restoration of patients to health from various ailments was due to the kinds of curative powers that are the innate natures of kinds of medicine. This presented a rival explanatory model to the explanatory notions listed above. By making their claim, the ancient Indian doctors were denying that the patient’s recovery was due to the influence of destiny, to mere chance, to the intervention of a deity, or to the maturation of the effect of a patient’s earlier good deeds as per the karma theory.
Stewart has demonstrated how Hegel’s criticism of Hinduism involved the idea that the human is conceived of as being part of nature rather than as spirit. Hegel then reasons from this that Hinduism does not provide for the development of human freedom. Thus Hegel states: ‘It is implied by this [viz. humans’ being part of nature] that the life of man has no higher value than the being of natural objects, the life of any natural thing; the life of man has value only if it is in itself or essentially higher; but among the Hindus human life is despised, and is esteemed to be of little worth—there a man cannot give himself value in an affirmative, but only in a negative manner’ (quoted from Stewart 2016: 296).
However, Hegel perhaps moves too quickly from the idea that humans are part of nature to the idea that human life is of little worth. In the classical Indian context, the idea that human agency lay outside nature was associated with the views described above, which led to inactivism, thereby diminishing the value of human life. The doctrine that man is part of nature was thus associated with the rejection of supernaturalism in favour of a form of naturalism. The classical Indian dichotomy of nature and non-nature is thus one which places autonomy firmly on the side of nature.
The idea that human endeavour can effect change in the world lays the ground for ‘historical progress towards the enhancement of man and the world’ (Halbfass Reference Halbfass1988: 90) and for the exercise of subjective freedom by the individual through his actions, albeit that this implication is not made explicit in the writings of the nature-advocates. As such, the nature-advocates would seem to be Hegel’s natural allies, and they make an allied objection, not to Hinduism considered monolithically, but to specific intellectual positions within its compass.
III. The manifestation of subjective freedom
A comprehensive analysis of subjectivity and human freedom in Hinduism is beyond the scope of a single article. This section will engage with Hegel’s remarks about the status of women in India, which are briefly summarized by Stewart as one practical example of the lack of subjective freedom.
Some of Hegel’s remarks appear prima facie unjustified even on the basis of the materials available to Hegel. Thus Hegel’s claim that ‘The female gender is wholly excluded from a right of inheritance, and even debarred as such from making a will’ appears to contradict two legal texts, the Dayābhāga of Jīmūta-vāhana and the Mitākṣara, which were both translated into English by Colebrooke in 1810. These are ‘the standard authorities of the Hindu law of inheritance in the schools of Benares and Bengal respectively’ (Colebrooke Reference Colebrooke1810: iii). The Dayābhāga draws on the statements of previous legal authorities to establish the following edict:
What has been given to a woman by her father, her mother, her son, or her brother, what has been received by her before the nuptual fire, what has been presented to her on her husband’s espousal of another wife, what has been given to her by kindred, as well as her perquisite, and a gift subsequent, are a woman’s separate property. (Colebrooke Reference Colebrooke1810: 68)
Further, ‘wealth given to her by her husband, she may dispose of, as she pleases, when he is dead; but, while he is alive, she should carefully preserve it’ (72). The Mitākṣara concurs with all this (364), but also holds that ‘if the woman “leave progeny;” that is, if she have issue; her property devolves on her daughters. … On failure of all daughters, the granddaughters in the female line take the succession …’ (369).
The situation of women in classical India can perhaps be also understood from a study of literary characters in the classical Indian plays and epic literature. Romila Thapar compares Kālidāsa’s play, discussed above, with the character of Śakuntalā in the Mahābhārata from which Kālidāsa borrowed. Thapar explains that ‘The women of the Mahābhārata are strong personalities, cherishing their autonomy and willing to argue for their rights’ (Thapar Reference Thapar2002: 15). Thus the character of Śakuntalā in the Mahābhārata ‘is in the mould of the other epic heroines—Draupadī, Kuntī, Gāndhārī—strong women who as mothers and wives dominate the story and whose individuality cannot be overlooked’ (41). In the circa 5th century reworking of the story of Śakuntalā by Kālidāsa, however, ‘Śakuntalā herself is extremely shy and retiring’ and ‘there is a decline in the empowerment of women’ (52, 73). This heterogeneous picture of the situation of women is reinforced by evidence from other Sanskrit dramas.
However, Hegel’s exaggerated concern about the status of women in India becomes more comprehensible in light of the vigorous attention that was being paid to women’s rights and other social injustices in India in the 1820s and 1830s. Social reformers such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy were at this time making a vigorous campaign against sati. Conversely, as A. F. Salahuddin Ahmed describes, other Hindus waged counter-campaigns against reform on this and other matters (Ahmed Reference Ahmed1965: 26–51, 85–89, 108–26 et passim). Through such debates, issues concerning social injustice were being elevated into the public consciousness in British-ruled Bengal to an unprecedented degree, and such debates would have resonated in Europe too. In this way, Hegel’s strong remarks reflect similarly condemnatory remarks by social reformers in India.
In summary, this article has attempted to indicate briefly how the intellectual resources of the Hindu traditions can be drawn on to yield a theoretical conception of subjective freedom in Hinduism that would underlie human progress, to elucidate its general character, and to briefly illustrate the awareness of such a conception in Indian society by reference to canonical texts. No complete picture of Hinduism has been attempted, but rather those aspects have been highlighted which might put pressure on some of Hegel’s views.
Hegel’s criticisms of specific injustices in Indian society, such as caste and gender discrimination, have not been contested. However, it has been suggested that Hegel’s diagnosis of the source of these injustices may be misplaced in at least two ways. First, an overly abstract conception of the divine does not seem to be a prominent feature of Hinduism. Second, the inclusion of humanity as part of nature is not necessarily an impediment to the development of subjective freedom, either theoretically or empirically.
