This book engages in a dialogue with Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (K.C. Bhattacharyya, KCB, 1875-1949) and opens a vista to contemporary Indian philosophy.
KCB is one of the founding fathers of contemporary Indian philosophy, a distinct genre of philosophy that draws both on classical Indian philosophical sources and on Western materials, old and new. His work offers both a new and different reading of classical Indian texts, and a unique commentary of Kant and Hegel. The book (re)introduces KCB's philosophy, identifies the novelty of his thinking, and highlights different dimensions of his oeuvre, with special emphasis on freedom as a concept and striving, extending from the metaphysical to the political or the postcolonial. Our contributors aim to decipher KCB's distinct vocabulary (demand, feeling, alternation). They revisit his discussion of Rasa aesthetics, spotlight the place of the body in his phenomenological inquiry toward "the subject as freedom", situate him between classics (Abhinavagupta) and thinkers inspired by his thought (Daya Krishna), and discuss his lectures on Sāṃkhya and Yoga rather than projecting KCB as usual solely as a Vedānta scholar. Finally, the contributors seek to clarify if and how KCB's philosophical work is relevant to the discourse today, from the problem of other minds to freedoms in the social and political spheres.
Elise Coquereau-Saouma and Daniel Raveh's The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy: Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (Routledge, 2022) will be of interest to academics studying Indian and comparative philosophy, philosophy of language and mind, phenomenology without borders, and political and postcolonial philosophy.
Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.
