This chapter focusses on sexuality in South Asia. The first section traces representations from the prehistoric to early historic as depicted in material remains, in Vedic Brahmanical thought systems, and in the Dharmasastras and the Epic-Pura?a traditions. These emphasize reproduction and heteronormative sex between married couples as a sacral, ritual act. They also reveal a preoccupation with the body and the need to control desires. Sexual abstinence was encouraged in ascetic and monastic sects in Brahmanical, Buddhist, Jain, and other sects. The second section focusses on the kama (sensual pleasure) tradition by exploring the texts outlining the rules for the erotic. Sensual love was also the primary aesthetic experience of Sanskrit literature, particularly kavyas, and was oriented towards masculinist desire in an urban landscape. Prakrit and Tamil love poetry, discussed here, vocalize feminine sensuality in a rural setting. The evolution of devotional spirituality (bhakti) transformed the erotic tradition. Tantric systems have been viewed as a parallel trend, concerned with materiality and giving center space to ritualized intercourse. Visual art continued to depict sexual themes derived from literature. The chapter ends with an overview of attitudes towards sexuality in the Mughal court and the colonial period.

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.

This chapter explores key concepts of justice in war in the main strands of Hindu literature on politics: the dharma literature, the Arthashastra (or statecraft) and the animal fables known as the Pancatantra. The chapter ends with a section about the uses of classical Hindu concepts of justice and war in the struggle for independence from British colonial power.

The origin of the modern liberal conception of human rights has been traced to the concept of natural rights that has its source in natural law thought, leading some to draw a connection between Thomistic natural law and human rights. However, the Thomistic understanding of natural law is embedded in a religious framework, raising the relevance and possible relation of religious traditions to the contemporary concept of human rights. This chapter explores this relation in the context of Hinduism, which espouses a version of natural law in the idea of Dharma, and gives primacy to duty rather than rights. Can the fundamental tenets, principles and concepts of Hinduism help to develop conceptual groundwork for human rights without subscribing to the Western liberal conception of rights? Exploring this question, the chapter argues for human moral obligations as the link between natural law and human rights. It concludes that human moral obligations serve the same purpose as human rights without being embroiled in controversies that vitiate the Western liberal conception of human rights.

Ancient and medieval India (prior to ca. 1600) produced a vast literature dealing with the nature of the human being, the proper ordering of society, and ethical and legal norms. Sanskrit sources tend to emphasize special dignities belonging to particular statuses according to a divinely ordained class hierarchy (varṇa-dharma). But in some contexts we hear of universally shared aspects of the human condition. Ascetic and devotional movements call into question special dignities tied to ascriptive rank. Sanskrit texts on good governance formulate general standards of justice and equity that could cut across or bypass rank. Thus, Hindu sources illustrate how ethical and legal orders find ways to compartmentalize: to recognize that all people can share basic capacities does not automatically sweep the field clear of status dignity. This essay draws on Jeremy Waldron’s concept of human dignity as a status claim that “levels up” by attributing to all people a dignity once reserved for a privileged few. We note Hindu examples of a similar approach, as well as examples of “leveling down” by pointing out the hypocrisy of elites while extolling the virtues of which the lowly are capable.

Collective beliefs and the corresponding political organization influenced features of interstate relations such as the nature of warfare, alliance structure, and the absence of a hegemonic power. Except for Siam, the European colonial powers controlled every polity in Southeast Asia by the late nineteenth century. Siam adjusted to Western principles of political organization but did so against the backdrop of its existing belief system. Positivist international law nevertheless continued to exclude it from the Law of Nations, in a case similar to how the West treated the Islamic and East Asian polities.

This chapter discusses the various ways in which the relationship between kingship, violence and non-violence was conceptualised in ancient India during the period c. 500 BCE to 500 CE, both in general terms as well as in special relation to punishment and war. Examining a variety of textual, epigraphic and visual sources, it identifies a strong and enduring tension in ancient Indian political thought between the ethical principle of non-violence and the pragmatic need for the king to use force while discharging his duties. While non-violence was considered a laudable virtue, there was an acknowledgement, even in Buddhist and Jaina thought, that it was incompatible with political power. At the same time, a distinction was made between necessary force and force that was unnecessary, disproportionate, random or excessive. The former was accepted, the latter condemned. Moral and pragmatic arguments for the measured use of force were accompanied by a constant emphasis on self-control as a desirable royal virtue. By the middle of the first millennium a ‘classical’ model of kingship had emerged, wherein the king’s violence was legitimised and aestheticised. Nevertheless, a window for critiquing the potential and actual violence of the king remained.

The conclusions of the last two chapters are placed here in the context of South Asian history more generally. In particular, this chapter concludes that the tradition of statecraft existed for centuries without any major influence from orthodox Brāhmaṇical theology, but that sometime in the early centuries of the Common Era this changed. The Arthaśāstra vividly captures this shift. The transformation of South Asian political thought is then mapped briefly in other areas and placed in context of the "Brāhmaṇical revival" of the second-fourth centuries CE and the onset of the "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" in the third century CE. The chapter concludes by arguing that changes in the statecraft tradition at the same time strongly suggest major cultural shifts in the period that brought Brāhmaṇical orthodoxy into the halls of power and centers of culture in the period.

In this chapter, the political theology of varṇāśramadharma is reintroduced. It is demonstrated that nearly all references to varṇāśramadharma and all references to dharma as a power standing above the king were introduced during the redaction of the text in the third century BCE. The various aspects of varṇāśramadharma that are found in the extant Arthaśāstra are explored in detail. Nearly all are linked to the work of the redactor. The addition of varṇāśramadharma creates a disonnance in the extant text, and the curiously hybrid character of its resulting political theory is explored.