India and Its Intellectual Traditions: Of Love, Advaita, Power, and Other Things, the third volume to emerge from the enterprise known as The Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics, attempts to further the collective's ambition to put into question the certitudes of conventional social science discourse, decolonize the dominant knowledge frameworks, and understand how the intellectual and cultural resources of Indian civilization may be deployed to think both about some problems in contemporary politics and culture and to introduce greater plurality into the world of modern knowledge systems. Some of the collective's members remain deeply committed as well to reinitiating metaphysics into politics, and similarly the collective's enduring interest in Narayana Guru is reflected in at least three chapters. Though engagement with Gandhi and Ambedkar is a familiar part of the Indian intellectual landscape, other chapters on offer pivot around histories of power, performative traditions, and modes of worship. Unlike the scholarship that is now the norm, organized around a distinct theme, this volume exhibits a more daring approach to India's intellectual traditions, traversing the world of Kannada intellectuals, the Kashmir Shaiva tradition, a Marathi Bhakti poet, and a contemporary Indian philosopher as much as conceptual ideas drawn from a wide array of Indian texts and experiences.
The Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics grew out of a meeting in December 2010 of a handful of people in Colombo shortly after the protracted and brutal war in which Sri Lanka had been engulfed for decades had drawn to an end. The circumstances under which we met, our intellectual preoccupations, and the considerations that led us to create a Collective are described in the first volume, India and the Unthinkable, which emerged from the proceedings and associated activities of the Collective. The interested reader will similarly find in this volume, and the second companion volume, India and Civilizational Futures, some reflections on how the core members agreed upon the name 'Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics, and cues on the various and diverse questions that have animated members of the Collective in the preceding decade.
The Backwaters Collective met almost annually, beginning in 2011, in Kochi during the rainy season, but the emergence and swift transmission of COVID-19 in early 2020 put a halt to our annual retreat held over four days. By common consensus, our retreat, a period of intense deliberation until late in the evening every day followed by several hours of convivial conversation and good food, often to the accompaniment of live music, created an intellectual and social environment that is seldom if ever encountered in the Indian academic world and just as rarely in the aca-demic settings of universities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe. We have not convened as a Collective since the summer of 2019, but we are quite certain that this volume, the third and most ambitious one to emerge from this initiative, will keep the flame burning and kindle the interest of new readers and scholars.
The Sree Narayana Mandira Samiti, Mumbai, an organization established to perpetuate the teachings of the philosopher, poet, scholar, and social reformer Narayana Guru has extended its largesse to the Collective from the very outset and has been unstinting in its support, at once financial, institutional, and intellectual, of the Collective's initiatives. What is all the more remarkable about the Samiti's support of the Collective is that it has come without any demands as such and without the remotest attempt to influence the proceedings. As I pointed out in the previous volume, the very themes that have been para-mount for so many of us-conceptions of ecumenism, interculturality, hospitality are exemplified in the Samiti's interactions with the Collective. It is with their deepest appreciation that members of the Collective join me in acknowledging the Samiti as one of our principal supporters, and we would in particular like to extend our thanks to some of its office-bearers, including Shri M. I. Damodaran, Chairman; Shri N. Mohandas, Vice Chairman; Shri N. Sashidharan, President; and Shri N. S. Salim Kumar, General Secretary.
It is a matter of great sorrow to members of the Backwaters Collective that Shri R. K. Krishna Kumar, Trustee, both of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust, did not live to see this volume in print. A veteran of the Tata Group who was associated with it for over 60 years, KK, as he was known to his colleagues in the Tata Group, passed on from cardiac arrest on 1 January 2023. He extended magnanimous support to the Collective in hosting our annual conferences. In this age and day, as I have hinted before, such support as has been extended to us seldom if ever comes without some thought of return on the 'investment, but that was never the case with Shri Kumar. He was keenly supportive of our enterprise since its inception and asked nothing of us in return. This volume is dedicated to his memory, and the Collective's members are hopeful that this volume, and the preceding two, offer some palpable evidence of the judicious use of the funds he placed at our disposal.
Vedas (1209)
Upanishads (505)
Puranas (632)
Ramayana (756)
Mahabharata (366)
Dharmasastras (166)
Goddess (511)
Bhakti (250)
Saints (1534)
Gods (1304)
Shiva (387)
Journal (181)
Fiction (61)
Vedanta (372)
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