Rhetoric, Gender, and Freedom in the Mahābhārata
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2023
In a well-known scene from the Mahābhārata, the female renunciate Sulabhā engages in a philosophical debate against King Janaka. This chapter will examine Sulabhā’s arguments and methods, while demonstrating that she makes important contributions to philosophical discussions that are going on throughout the text. I will focus on three aspects of her argument: (1) her discussion on good speech; (2) her articulation of the ethics of renunciation; and (3) her characterisation of the highest knowledge as beyond the dualities of gender distinctions. As I will show, Sulabhā makes original contributions to ongoing debates about rhetoric, ethics, and ontology in Indian philosophy. I will also address the thorny question of whether Sulabhā should be understood as a woman philosopher, or as a literary character most likely constructed by male authors. Despite the ultimate unanswerability of this question, Sulabhā articulates an understanding of enlightenment (mokṣa) that is as available for women as for men.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.