Bhattacharjee2022 Article ReasonDeathAndTheAnimalTheMahā(1)

Swadharam Journal, 2009

Westerners have long admired certain qualities of the Eastern spirituality. This article examines the Hindu religious tradition through myths and scripture, moral teachings and contemporary comment, to explore the Hindu vision of how human beings fit into the larger universe, and how we ought to interact with other creatures. This article is not critical in nature, but reveals how much we might learn from the spiritual and moral teachings of the Hindu tradition concerning our proper place in nature. I do not turn away my dog; I turn away you. (Mahabharata) Cite as: “Hindu Ethics and Nonhuman Animals.” Swadharam Journal 3 (April 2009): 32-45

Religious Studies, 2022

Traditionally, the problem of evil, in its various formulations, has been one of the strongest objections against perfect being theism. In the voluminous literature on this problem, the motif of evil has usually been discussed with respect to human flourishing. In recent decades more focused attention has been paid to animal suffering and the philosophical problems that such suffering poses for perfect being theists. However, this growing body of literature, in Anglo-American philosophical milieus, is largely aimed at sketching a specifically Christian or Christianity-inflected theodicy that would reconcile animal suffering with the existence of an omni-God. In contrast, there are few, if any, systematic attempts to put forth a Hindu theodicy that aims to offer morally justifiable reasons that God has for allowing animal suffering. In this article, we address this scholarly lacuna by illustrating how a Hindu perfect being theist might respond to the problem of animal suffering.

Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 2018

T his paper seeks to advance the understanding of the idea of non-violence or ahirhsa in Hindu systematic thought-philosophy and theology-by focusing on the justification of animal sacrifice in the Srfbhii$ya commentary on the Brahma-Siitra (BS) written by the great Vaisnava Vedantin Ramanuja (ca. .1While the issue of condemnation and vindicationof animal sacrifice in Hindu systematic thought has received valuable scholarly consideration in the last decade of the 20 th century, particularlyin the work of Wilhelm Halbfass (1991),Jayashree Gune(1993), andjan Houben(1999), Rarnanuja receivedcomparativelylessattention than the earlier Mimarnsakas and Vedantins.There is,therefore, enough space to say something more on the topic,' Byreading Ramanuja in his context and with the help of his commentator Sudarsana Siiri, I propose to show here that Ramanuja rejected two classical justificationsof ritual killing that were associated with the Mimarnsakas Kumarila (ca. and Prabhakara (ca. and had dominated the Vedantic discourse. I claim that Ramanuja's justification of animal sacrifice stands alone in the commentarial tradition of the BS, and that while his argument was by no means novel, it was significant for the context insofar as it turned the glance from the wellbeingof the perpetrator of violenceto that ofthe victim.

Journal paper, 2019

According to Darwinism, every creature on the earth survives at the cost of others and thus the conflict in existence is inevitable. Theory of evolution believes that human being by using its intellect have established domination over other creatures. Indian Dharmic tradition however gives us a cognitive tool to think about life from alternative perspectives through the maxims like "Vasudhaiva Kutṵmbakam', (the world is one family), which tells us that all the creatures of the earth should be treated with due consideration. These two ideas i.e. inevitability of conflict and desire to coexist in peace, apparently contradict each others. The Mahābhārata seems to be trying to find a synthesis between these two. Though the inevitability of violence in existence is accepted, it seems to be cautioning us in a different way to put a check on it. The disrespectful treatment of the lives of non-human creatures brings its retribution. Though the wars and hunting are perceived as manly, the epic gives a message that it is compassion that makes a better human being.

Conversations with the Animate Other: Historical Representations of Human and non-Human Interactions in India, Bloomsbury, 2023

Bulletin of The School of Oriental and African Studies-university of London, 1992

Swadharam Journal, 2009

“Hindu Ethics and Nonhuman Animals.” Swadharam Journal 3 (April 2009): 32-45. No longer in print; can be accessed at <http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/an-tpr-Hindu-ethics.html>

Environmental Values, 2022

Full Abstract: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/whp/ev/pre-prints/content-whp_ev_3319 This paper explores the underlying ontological bases for ethical behavior and ethical failure in the context of the vexed relationships between human animals and non-human animals by drawing on resources in phenomenology, social cognition and Buddhist philosophy. In agreement with Singer and the utilitarian project, I argue that the basis for ethical behavior with regard to animals is most effectively justified and motivated by considerations of sentience. The definition of sentience has been refined since its traditional Benthamite formulation as the capacity to experience hedonic pleasure and pain as sensate creatures, with Mill’s more elaborated version and his distinction between lower and higher pleasures and more recently with Singer’s reformulation which adds the notion of interests. Nonetheless, the utilitarian account still misses crucial aspects of sentience. Buddhist ethics, unlike Western ethics, is from the beginning not focused solely on humans but encompasses all sentient beings. This inclusivity, in addition to the refined interrogations of the varieties of suffering, means that Buddhist philosophy is able to furnish a more nuanced understanding of sentience. Furthermore, from phenomenology, which has a number of significant commonalities with Buddhist philosophy, we learn that sentience tacitly includes the capacities for self-awareness and, I will argue, a plural self-awareness; not only does the ‘I’ belong to a ‘we’, but the ‘we’ is constitutive of the ‘I’. This ‘primordial we’ I propose provides the basis for rethinking the moral relations between human animals and non-human animals. While I appreciatively acknowledge the impact that Singer’s work has made in this domain, the utilitarian approach cannot philosophically achieve all that Singer sets out to achieve without an ontological account. Tellingly in more recent years Singer has advanced the notion of interests which goes beyond the strictly utilitarian brief in that ‘interests’ perforce belong to a subject and subjectivity perforce entails ontological considerations. My aims are thus threefold: firstly, to argue for not only a more extended understanding of suffering in the account of sentience but an account that also includes self-awareness – any sentient being is the subject of a life; secondly, I propose that self-awareness includes a tacit awareness of the primordial ‘we’, the fundamental kinship we have with all subjects including non-human animals. I contend finally that we thus have an ontological basis in ‘interanimality’ to explain why we most often do and should care about all sentient beings.