Donald R. Davis, Jr. will deliver a lecture on ‘Dharmaśāstra and the Conservative Tradition in India’. Ananya Vajpeyi will respond to the lecture. It will be chaired by Rajeev Bhargava.
This lecture will examine the Sanskrit Dharmaśāstra tradition as a form of conservatism. After describing core elements of conservative thought, the speaker will suggest that conservatism should be developed as an analytic category to describe intellectual traditions historically and cross-culturally. The Dharmaśāstra tradition of Hindu law fits well within the conservative category. In order to demonstrate that fit, it reviews the idea of pratiloma and the fear of inversions and disruptions to social class in the dharma tradition. Pratiloma paranoia in Dharmaśāstra reveals a basic conservative commitment to social hierarchy and to an ethics grounded in social ‘station’.
Donald R. Davis, Jr. is Professor and Chair in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He has published widely on the history of law and religion in India, particularly classical Hindu law, including The Dharma of Business (2017) and The Spirit of Hindu Law (2010).
Ananya Vajpeyi is Associate Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.
Rajeev Bhargava is the Director of Parekh Institute of Indian Thought, CSDS, Delhi.
Wednesday, 24 January 2024, 4 pm, Seminar Room and Zoom https://bit.ly/48PW2Rg
