Search

Uwagi wstępne Proponowane ujęcie jest próbą zastosowania aparatu krytycznego zaczerpniętego z teorii tropów Paula de Mana do interpretacji współczesnej sztuki amerykańskiej. Omówione zostaną formy nostalgii za naturalną formą obecności przedmiotu w dziele w kontekście rozumienia sztuki jako kodu poddanego prawom retoryki. Przeciwstawię rolę przedmiotu w sztuce amerykańskiej Jaspera Johnsa i Roberta Rauschenberga koncepcji przedmiotu naturalnego sformułowanej w tekście de Mana zatytułowanym St...

Estetyka staje się więc paraestetyką, komentarz parologią, dzieło zaś – parapoetyką. J.-F. Lyotard, Filozofia i malarstwo w dobie eksperymentu Jacques Derrida, powołując się na badania Jonathana Cullera, wskazuje na pojawienie się w latach 70. w Stanach Zjednoczonych nowego i specyficznie amerykańskiego użycia terminu „teoria”. Celowo wyodrębniony znakiem cudzysłowu, tak rozumiany dyskurs teoretyczny jest – jak twierdzi filozof – „czysto północno-amerykańskim wynalazkiem, który należy odczyty...

Joseph Kosuth jako artysta i filozof Diagnozowana przez Jacques’a Derridę a mocno dziś podkreślana rola językowości znalazła swoje potwierdzenie także w sztukach wizualnych, w szczególny zaś sposób odcisnęła swoje piętno na dziełach Josepha Kosutha, artysty urodzonego w 1945 roku w Stanach Zjednoczonych (w Toledo, w stanie Ohio), a zatem piętnaście lat młodszego od Jacques’a Derridy. Sugerowane (a nie jawne) pokrewieństwo działań amerykańskiego artysty i francuskiego filozofa uczynię przedmio...

„Jestem za sztuką, która dojrzewa, sama o tym nie wiedząc, za sztuką, której dana była szansa startowania od zera” – twierdzi Claes Oldenburg w swoim manifeście komentującym projekt sklepu na 107 East 2nd Street w Nowym Jorku, który został wykonany, wraz ze sprzedawanymi tam towarami, z malowanego gipsu. W bardzo interesującym kontekście, jako przejaw neodadaistycznego i surrealistycznego z ducha powrotu do Kantowskiej idei „rzeczy samych w sobie”, interpretuje to przedsięwzięcie Jolanta Dąbk...

Wprowadzenie Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, w polskim wydaniu Postmodernizm, czyli logika kulturowa późnego kapitalizmu – obszerna, ponad czterystustronnicowa monografia, której poświęcony jest ten rozdział, została opublikowana w Stanach Zjednoczonych w roku 1991. Autor książki, Fredric Jameson, jest teoretykiem kultury związanym między innymi z ośrodkiem badawczym w Irvine –Critical Theory Institute, uc. W filozofii Jamesona można odnaleźć wiele założeń łączących ...

Poprzez inteligentny i błyskotliwy opis Szkoły z Irvine książka Ewy Bobrowskiej poszerza w sposób istotny wiedzę na temat poststrukturalistycznego myślenia krytycznego, władającego zachodnią humanistyką w ostatnim ćwierćwieczu. O ile dokonania Derridy, Lyotarda, Isera, a także Jamesona, Josepha Hillisa Millera, Greenblatta i Dominicka LaCapry są nieźle znane w polskim obszarze językowym, o tyle samo interdyscyplinarne przedsięwzięcie, zwane Szkoła z Irvine, nie doczekało się dotąd systematycznego i kompetentnego opisu. (...) Niezwykłe dyspozycje autorki, która jest anglistką, filozofem, historykiem sztuki i czynną artystką pozwalają udźwignąć wszystkie wymiary analizy, zawierającej elementy dyskursu krytycznego, rozprawy filozoficznej, intelektualnego odbioru dzieła sztuki. Książkę Ewy Bobrowskiej można czytać na kilka sposobów: jako wymagający współuczestniczenia przewodnik po współczesnej sztuce (głównie amerykańskiej), a także jako wizualizujący niektóre, nawet bardzo abstrakcyjne konstatacje - przewodnik po współczesnej filozofii (głównie postmodernistycznej). Spotykają się w tej pracy dwie hermetyczne i trudne dziedziny, spotykają się i wzajemnie oświetlają, dając czytelnikowi niezwykłą możliwość rozumienia współczesnego świata obrazów i idei. Szczególnie godna podkreślenia jest ta część pracy, która odwołuje się do wątków etycznych: pokazuje słabo rozpoznany element współczesnej filozofii a zarazem - nieprzeciętną wrażliwość autorki. (fragm. recenzji prof. Grażyny Borkowskiej) Through an intelligent and sharp description of the Irvine School of Critical Theory, Ewa Bobrowska’s book significantly expands the knowledge about post-structuralist critical thinking that has dominated the Western humanities in the last quarter of a century. While the achievements of Derrida, Lyotard, Iser, as well as Jameson, Joseph Hillis Miller, Greenblatt, and Dominick LaCapra are well known in Polish critical thought, the interdisciplinary project called the Irvine School has not yet been systematically and competently described. . . . The unusual dispositions of the author, who is an English philologist, philosopher, art historian, and an active artist, allow her to carry out all dimensions of the analysis, including critical discourse, philosophical reasoning, and an intellectual examination of a work of art. Ewa Bobrowska’s book can be read in several ways: as a guide to contemporary (mainly American) art that requires participation, and as a guide to contemporary (mainly postmodern) philosophy while visualising some, even very abstract, statements. These two diverse fields of contemporary art discourse and philosophy meet in this work and illuminate each other, giving the reader an extraordinary opportunity to understand the contemporary world of images and ideas. What is particularly worth emphasising is the part of the work that refers to ethical threads: it shows a little-known part of contemporary philosophy and, at the same time, the author’s extraordinary sensitivity. (excerpt from a review by Prof. Grażyna Borkowska)

A oto inny sposób myślenia o tym, co słuszne i niesłuszne: im dłużej żyją ludzie lub kultury, tym więcej, mając szczęście, mogą nabyć φρόνησις większej wrażliwości wobec innych, subtelniejszej typologii do opisu bliźnich i samych siebie. Pomagają kontakty z innymi, pomagają sokratejskie dyskusje; lecz od czasów romantyków najbardziej ze wszystkich pomagają nam poeci, pisarze i ideolodzy. Richard Rorty, Konsekwecje pragmatyzmu „Czy nie byłoby absurdem mówić o kalifornijskim krytycyzmie”, pyta ...

„W szczególności zaś uważam, że to właśnie w estetyce wzniosłości sztuka współczesna (łącznie z literaturą) odnajduje swój rozmach, zaś logika awangard – swoje aksjomaty. […] Pozostają one bowiem niewytłumaczalne bez odwołania do założonej w Kantowskiej filozofii wzniosłości niewspółmierności pomiędzy rzeczywistością i pojęciem” – twierdzi Jean-François Lyotard w swoim eseju Odpowiedź na pytanie: co to jest postmodernizm ? Postmodernizm bowiem, według Lyotarda, to epoka eksperymentu, oparta, ...

Qu’est-ce qui se joue dans la relation gynécologue/patiente quand les femmes attribuent leurs sautes d’humeur « aux hormones », pour mieux refuser la pilule ? Comment la description du bégaiement comme une « déficience de myéline » conduit les orthophonistes à déculpabiliser les parents d’enfants bègues ? Quelles représentations de la dépression s’affrontent au sein d’une clinique spécialisée ? En quoi l’évocation d’une étiologie biologique aux maladies psychiatriques permet aux rédacteurs du...

Attribuer des sautes d’humeur aux hormones pour mieux refuser la pilule ? Faire du bégaiement un problème cérébral pour déculpabiliser les parents d’enfants bègues ? Envisager la dépression comme un manque de sérotonine auprès de patient·es hospitalisé·es en psychiatrie ? Voici autant de situations où, dans la relation soignant·e/soigné·e, les répertoires argumentatifs s’appuient prioritairement sur une référence à la biologie, au détriment d’autres types d’interprétations. Ce sont ces importations d’une grille d’analyse biologisante – désignées ici sous le terme de biologisation – qui sont explorées dans cet ouvrage. En se focalisant sur le domaine de la santé, il s’agit de comprendre dans quelle mesure les différents acteurs et actrices de ce champ (individus usagers, puissance publique, professionnel·les…) font appel à « l’argument biologique » pour défendre leurs pratiques et leurs représentations : quand, comment, avec quels effets et à quelles fins sont priorisées des causalités biologiques relativement à des causalités sociales ? Les études de terrains ethnographiques et les réflexions théoriques rassemblées ici s’adressent aux chercheur·es en sciences humaines et sociales mais pourront intéresser plus largement des professionnel·les de santé ou toute personne intéressée par les rapports de pouvoir traversant les questions de soin. This book deals with the phenomena of “biologisation” in the field of health, i.e. all situations where biological causality prevails in establishing the determinants of human health, to the detriment of other interpretations. It is based on ethnographic field studies carried out with caregivers and patients by researchers in the humanities and social sciences, and on socio-historical discussions to clarify the proposed concept. This collective work extends the existing work on biologisation by considering its “practical” dimension: which actors in the field of health mobilise these biologising arguments? In which contexts? To what ends, and with what effects?

L’accouchement relevant du phénomène physiologique spontané, s’intéresser à sa « biologisation » peut de prime abord interroger. Une longue tradition en sciences sociales a pourtant entrepris de sociologiser et d’historiciser l’acte de donner naissance, entre rite de passage (Van Gennep 2011 [1909]) et technique du corps (Mauss 2002 [1936]), montrant ainsi que l’accouchement était en fait informé par des représentations sociales et que ses configurations variaient selon les époques, les group...

Au xviiie siècle, le cerveau (« système nerveux central ») des bègues a permis à Paul Broca, qui ne « s’intéresse [alors] pas encore au cerveau ni à la parole » (Perino 2020, p. 13), d’identifier grâce au patient bègue Tan Tan l’aire cérébrale de la parole, qui reste aujourd’hui l’objet de nombreuses recherches. Incapables de soigner son mal – il ne prononce que deux sons « Tan Tan », mais « semble comprendre tout ce qu’on lui dit » (ibid., p. 12) –, les médecins ont cherché à sa mort en 1861...

Comment se voient construits aujourd’hui les sujets interlocuteurs de l’hôpital ? Le terme de sujet est ici choisi à dessein pour son ambiguïté même, en ce que, comme le remarque Michel Foucault, il suggère à la fois une figure souveraine et autonome, et une figure assujettie. Un certain nombre de travaux depuis les années 2000 ont relancé à nouveaux frais les interrogations classiques d’un Durkheim, d’un Mauss, d’un Elias, d’un Foucault sur les processus de constitution des agents sociaux en...

Pourquoi certaines personnes expliquent-elles leur dépression par une maltraitance des parents pendant l’enfance, tandis que d’autres déplorent une « panne de cerveau » ou un défaut de sérotonine ? Qu’est-ce qui influence la façon dont un individu raconte et retrace les raisons de cette faillite de l’autocontrôle (Elias 2003) ? Ces questions sont au cœur de mon enquête de doctorat, portant sur l’hospitalisation psychiatrique d’individus en proie à des « troubles de l’humeur » (dépressifs, bip...

La tuberculose est une maladie provoquée par une bactérie, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Sa définition en termes biologiques semble ainsi aller de soi. Pourtant, la tuberculose est une maladie des conditions de vie, l’archétype de la « maladie sociale ». Dans la culture populaire, dans les discours politiques ou syndicaux, elle est souvent présentée comme maladie du surtravail, des inégalités économiques, voire comme maladie du capitalisme. S’interroger sur la façon dont la tuberculose a été la...

La consultation de gynécologie médicale, contrairement à la consultation d’obstétrique – qui assure la prise en charge de la grossesse avant et après l’accouchement – ou à la consultation de chirurgie gynécologique – qui assure la prise en charge des corps avant, pendant et après une chirurgie en lien avec le domaine gynécologique – est centrée sur le suivi de l’appareil reproductif des femmes quand celui-ci ne reproduit pas. Il consiste le plus souvent à accompagner les modifications induite...

Lorsque la « biologisation du social » est devenue en 2010 un objet d’étude à la Maison des sciences de l’homme Paris Nord (MSH PN), l’expression avait une signification assez large, issue de discussions avec la responsable de l’axe de recherche accueillant ce nouveau thème à la MSH PN, Dominique Memmi. Dans les prémices du projet, « biologiser le social » renvoyait aux « extrapolations plus ou moins contrôlées » des résultats des sciences biologiques « à la compréhension de phénomènes extéri...

La constitution d’un regard critique sur la biologisation – si on entend par ce terme le fait d’expliquer un phénomène social par des facteurs biologiques – constitue sûrement un des actes fondateurs des sciences sociales, notamment depuis qu’elles ont cherché à s’émanciper de l’anthropologie physique racialiste du xixe siècle. Ainsi, Émile Durkheim, promouvant une explication du social par le social, débuta son opus sur le suicide en écartant les explications biologico-raciales de celui-ci, ...

La tradition littéraire présente la statue équestre de Sylla sur le Forum comme une transgression par rapport au mos maiorum. Nous tentons de nous interroger sur le sens de cette innovation, si c’en est une réellement. Ressortit-elle à la nature même de la statue, au lieu où elle est érigée, ou encore aux symboles politiques attachés à cette forme de représentation ? Ne faut-il pas voir là aussi le parti pris d’auteurs anciens hostiles à la figure du dictateur Sylla ? In the literary tradition the equestrian statue of Sulla in the Forum is presented as a transgression with regard to the ancestral customs (mos maiorum). We will endeavor to discover the meaning of the innovation, and to ponder on to what extent it can truly be qualified as one. Is the transgression related the very nature of the statue, to the place where it was erected, or rather to the political symbols attached to this form of representation? Should we not also see here the bias of authors who were hostile to the figure of Sulla the dictator?

Les 3 et 4 octobre 2013 se sont tenues à Caen les quatrièmes journées d'étude du programme Corps, gestes et vêtements dans les mondes anciens : une lecture historique et anthropologique (ANHiMA et CRBC), animé par Jean-Baptiste Bonnard (maître de conférences en histoire grecque à l’université de Caen, ANHIMA, HISTEMÉ), Florence Gherchanoc (professeure à l’université de Paris VII, ANHIMA) et Valérie Huet (professeure à l’université de Brest, ANHIMA, CRBC). Ce programme s’est fixé pour but d’étudier les valeurs et les symboliques des gestes et attitudes attachés au corps et aux mouvements du corps, les qualifications contextuelles et spatiales de gestes corporels et du corps en mouvement, les gestes et les identités, les normes corporelles et les transgressions. La thématique portait cette fois sur les manifestations du politique : il s’agissait de voir, à partir des textes littéraires et des images, comment s’articulent corps, gestes et vêtements avec un contexte ou une situation politiques donnés. Les auteurs du présent ouvrage se sont attachés à rechercher s’il existe, dans les sociétés antiques (Assyrie, Grèce, Rome) des physionomies, des attitudes corporelles, des postures, des manières de s’habiller ou de porter un vêtement qui signalent un droit ou une prérogative politique, une appartenance ou une orientation politiques.

La visite de l’empereur Caracalla aux cités de la province d’Asie en 213-214 apr. J.-C. constitua un temps fort de sa politique à l’égard des provinciaux. L’événement est bien connu grâce à un important dossier documentaire, composé de sources littéraires (Dion Cassius et Hérodien), épigraphiques et numismatiques. Trop souvent subordonnés aux textes, les monnayages provinciaux méritent d’être replacés à leur juste valeur, en leur qualité de témoignages de première main offrant des images originales et inédites d’une visite officielle. La communication porte sur la représentation et les habits du prince, militaires ou civils, tels qu’ils apparaissent sur les bronzes émis par les autorités pergaméniennes au lendemain de la visite solennelle (adventus) de Caracalla. he travel of Caracalla through the province of Asia and its visit to Pergamon in AD 213-214 were a crucial moment of his policy toward the inhabitants of the Roman Empire. We know some interesting details about this event thanks to a substantial documentary record made of literary (Cassius Dio, Herodian), epigraphic and numismatic sources. Provincial coinages shall not be considered as second class documents compared to texts. Because they are first hand testimonies and because they provide new and original images of an imperial visit (adventus), they deserve to be reconsidered. This paper aims to provide a new study of the bronze reverses that depict the Emperor Caracalla during his visit to Pergamon, with a special emphasis on his military or civilian clothing.

Les travaux récents ont largement mis en exergue le poids des normes sur les apparences et les allures dans le monde antique. L’homme grec, en particulier celui qui avait l’ambition de jouer un rôle notable dans la cité, était tenu de présenter la démarche, les vêtements, les traits physiques à même de signifier la beauté morale qu’il entendait incarner. Pourtant, si les normes pesaient indéniablement sur les Athéniens, il est clair que les standards de comportements, les canons de la beauté n’étaient pas aussi stricts ni aussi figés que l’historiographie tend à le dire. En fait, les sources montrent que les déviances relatives aux apparences et aux allures n’étaient pas complètement rédhibitoires, qu’on pouvait aisément y survivre socialement. D’abord parce que la lecture des corps demeurait fragile et contestable. Ensuite parce que la laideur physique, indice de mauvaises dispositions morales, n’interdisait pas à un citoyen de jouer un rôle de premier plan dans la cité. Recent research has highlighted the importance of norms on appearances and demeanours in the ancient world. Greek men, in particular those who strove to play a prominent role in the city-state, were to walk, dress, and have the physical characteristics which reflected the moral beauty that they intended to embody. However, although norms undeniebly weighed on Athenians, it is clear that standards of behaviour and beauty models were not as rigid as historiography usually shows. The sources actually reveal that deviances regarding appareances and demeanours were not entirely crippling, that they were quite easily overcome in society. The reason was first because the interpretation of body features remained precarious and questionable, and also because ugliness, although seen as a sign of bad moral disposition, did not prevent citizens from playing a major role in the city-state.

Sparte affichait ses idéaux par des moyens qui symbolisaient la singularité dont elle se targuait. Pourfendeurs des logoi verbeux et peu fiables des autres cités, les Spartiates valorisaient plutôt ce qui était susceptible d’être vu. D’où l'emphase qu’ils mettaient sur le corps, ses vêtements et parfois sa nudité. Le corps, soit du citoyen soit de l’hilote, était porteur d’un code vestimentaire qui dépassait par sa complexité celui des Athéniens. Mais comment imaginer que, dans une société qui se targuait aussi de sa capacité de tromper l’autre, ce code ne transmette qu’une vérité simple et sans fard ? La présentation spartiate du corps se révèle non moins tendancieuse que ne l’étaient les logoi honnis des autres. Une analyse de la propagande corporelle des Spartiates est révélatrice de leurs soucis les plus intimes. Notoriously, classical Sparta despised long speech. Less well known is the corollary: that instead Spartans privileged the visual. They relied on what they could see . But just as speech could be an artefact of truth or falsehood, so Spartans created a rhetoric of the body, manipulated to persuade, often mislead, others. Eugenic measures and meticulous feeding were used – for girls and boys – to make the bodies of warriors as tall and slim as possible. Obesity was illegal. Homogeneity in dress, dancing in groups, and marching to music, created the image of a citizen corps harmonious and unbreakable, whether in battle or in the politics of the state.Long hair suggested leonine force as well as superior, citizen, status. Correspondingly, the Greek-speaking serfs of Sparta's homeland, the helots, had to be demoralised by their own movement, posture and clothes. A strong-looking helot was an implicit threat, a target for official assassination. By their short hair, their dogskin caps, and improvised, irregular, clothes of animal skin – as well as by enforced displays of clumsy, drunken, dancing and (probably) a humble posture in public – helots signalled not only to their masters but also to each other that they accepted and deserved their inferior place. Citizens (except for official “cowards”) were required to comport themselves as permanent victors, and helots as permanently vanquished – precisely because, in reality, the huge numbers of the helots were perceived as a potent threat, an enemy within.

L’endettement dans les sociétés colonisées d’Asie du Sud a fait l’objet d’approches contradictoires. La plupart des administrateurs et économistes y ont vu un mal à combattre, tandis qu’un certain nombre d’anthropologues l’ont analysé comme un phénomène d’échange à double sens. L’évolution des systèmes de crédit dans les régions kandyennes de Sri Lanka suggère quelques observations à ce sujet. À l’époque précoloniale prédominait une forme de crédit paysan interne à la société villageoise ; le crédit marchand demeurait marginal. La colonisation a assuré l’avènement du crédit marchand « externe », qui a capturé, sans l’éliminer, les circuits internes du crédit paysan. Dans le milieu fermé des plantations, les banquiers Nattucottai Chettiar d’origine sud-indienne jouèrent un rôle décisif. Mais les effets de la dépression des années 1930 combinés à ceux de l’essor du nationalisme brisèrent leur prépondérance, et l’Etat prit à l’Indépendance leur place de dispensateur du crédit. Entre autres hypothèses, cette évolution semble avoir conduit à un étagement fonctionnel progressivement mis en place des deux formes de crédit, le crédit interne étant alimenté par des sources externes tout en continuant à fonctionner en vertu de sa logique propre. Debt in South Asian colonial societies has been analysed in contradictory terms. Most of the administrators and economists saw in it an evil to be eradicated, while many social anthropologists have interpreted it as a reciprocal exchange system. The case of the Kandyan régions of Sri Lanka may suggest some observations. During the precolonial period, an “inner” peasant crédit system was prévalent ; merchant credit remained marginal. Colonial rule fostered the entrance of “outside” credit which took over, but by no means eliminated, the “inner” peasant credit. Meanwhile in the secluded society of the plantations, the South Indian Chettiar bankers played a key role. But the impact of the 193o’s dépréssion and the rise of the Ceylonese nationalism undermined their position, and after Independance, the State had to substitute itself as the main credit provider. In sum, inner “peasant ’’ credit far from being replaced by merchant credit, came to be alimented by external sources of finance while continuing to operate according to its own logic.

A non-brahmanical, but popular and dravidian origin has often been attributed to the non-vegetarian deities settled in the pēy-kōvil ("shrines of evil-spirits or demons") in South India. My findings contrast sharply with this view. In the village which I studied, every deity of the Hindu pantheon – and every demon as well – is directly or indirectly connected with the main Śiva temple. Each pēy-kōvil is owned by a kinship group (patrilineage) of non-Brahmins or sometimes more widely, by the local members of a subcaste.In this paper I examine the beliefs of the villagers concerning the pēy-kōvil deities. I provide examples of local stories which relate the way in which a relationship called aṭimai ("being at the feet of ") was established between a particular deity and the ancestor of the group which has owned the pēy-kōvil from the time onward. The deity, which is the evil itself before being worshipped, always comes from outside the village. The aṭimai relationship is obtained through a process which I have called ‘sacrifice partaking’.It is primarily to the pēy-kōvil deities that the villagers turn in matters of life and death. These deities are thought of as being an aspect, the terrible one, of Śiva himself. As such, in opposition to the inner space of the village, they are closely related to the outside space, the "forest" world of the classical literature. If the "forest" is associated with renunciation, it is also the place beyond the pure/ impure dichotomy, from where come evils but also prosperity and fertility. The demons are included as an intrinsic part of the Hindu conception of the universe.

The economy of Ceylon was badly hit by the world depression of the 1930’s. The slump in rubber and coconut prices from 1926 onwards coincided with a serious crisis in the local credit system, the keystone of whith was the Nattukottai Chettiars banking business. The consequences for Ceylon included growing urban unemployment, intensified population pressure in the rural areas, and a large outflow of Indian immigrant labour from the plantation sector.In this paper, we emphazise the early date of the depression (well before the Wall Street crash of october 1929), and the large degree of the integration of the different sectors of the economy. For Ceylon at least, we argue that "dualism" is a misguiding concept. We also discuss the connections between the depression and the 1935 malaria epidemic, and between the depression and the agrarian structure, with particular regard to compulsory sales of mortgaged lands.

This study on Premchand’s Godān is an attempt to bring to light the system of values underlying an important novel in the time of Gandhi. A system of values, in other words a perception of the world, which puts forward, with the collective awareness of an era, a remarkable structural homology.If one looks at Godān as a whole, and not as most critics are wont to do, that is by considering the village sequence as being the only worthwhile part of the novel, one realizes that the web of the narrative, at first sight somewhat nebulous, weaves itself around the fundamental conflict between the village and the town. This conflict is the modern transposition of the traditional scheme : village/forest. In Godān, the village is, as it is traditionally, the place of life-in-the-world, sacrifice and dharma – in a nutshell, the place of Brahmanical order (symbolized by the cow, the mediator of the narrative in this part of the novel). The town, like the forest, emerges as the domain of disorder and violence but, at the same time, as the place in which are cultivated the supreme values of renunciation.However, in this case the renunciation is of a new form : it becomes renunciation-in-the-world, an unselfish commitment to the service of others. The town turns into a hermitage, into a village in the forest, a utopia where these contradictions are reconciled : life-in-the-world and renunciation, and where new values are born, of which Sevā is the vector. New values, since -both with Premchand and with Gandhi – Sevā is no longer the dedication of the devotee to the divinity ; she has become the prop of a political movement. We attribute the emergence of this new system of values on the substructure of the traditional ideological set-up to the intermediary of the West. India lends to these terms new senses which end up by having meanings quite the contrary to the originals. This conversion of ancient ideological data emerges as a basic characteristic of Gandhi’s era, when one makes an analysis through a collective subconsciousness which is expressed most freely through the medium of the imaginary world of the novel.

In Peravali village (Andhra Pradesh), four castes (Brahmans, Kappu-reddis, Kammas and Komatis) profited from their possession of social and economic power to make the most of the "green revolution". The main elements of recent agricultural improvement in Peravali are a substantial increase in paddy production accompanied by the use of chemical fertilizers and improved varieties of seeds, the introduction of new high-yielding commercial crops such as oranges and onions, and the extension of irrigation. Wholesale dealers and families with farms of adequate size, having at their disposal wells, agricultural implements and funds for the purchase of fertilizers have been the main beneficiaries of the new techniques. By contrast, small farmers, craftsmen, labourers and small shopkeepers have profited little.

Without denying the necessity of studying the vedic yajña as a symbolic system, we find it interesting to look at it from another point of view: we try to analyse it as a set of gestures, as a tiring work. "Sacrifice indeed is work", as the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa itself says.What kind of work? Walking, digging, piling, cutting, straining, pouring, killing. But mainly: cooking.In post-vedic hinduism, it is safe to have the cooking done by a brahmin: one is sure, doing so, that nobody among the guests would feel polluted. We try to connect that fact with this other dictum of the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa: the duty of the brahmins is to cook the world. Cooking meals is but a part of cooking the world.This task is performed in the sacrifice. Every yajña consists in preparing and offering cooked food. It is true not only of the paśu, the various vegetables, the bricks of the fire altar, but of the milk as well, since milk is already cooked within the udder. Cremation is to be analysed as a sacrifice in which the corpse is cooked and presented to the gods. The only exception may be soma: but the soma sacrifice is not basically an offering of soma; it is rather an offering to King Soma, welcomed as an honoured guest.The offering is not the only cooked item in the yajña: the yajamāna is cooked too, during the dīkṣā.One cannot cook and be cooked at the same time: one does not cook during the dīkṣā. The saṃnyāsin’s life is an everlasting dīkṣā: therefore one does not cook (nor does he sacrifice either!). That is the reason why he cannot be cooked, when dead, on the funeral pyre: he has been cooked and burnt up beforehand during his life.

Narasiṃha, being only one particular manifestation of Viṣṇu, is half way between Viṣṇu as the supreme god, and the minor gods and goddesses who are committed to the protection of villages. His myth makes him quite fit for his function of royal god who protects the dharma over a given territory, since he can kill enemies. At the same time, a "terrible" god is not so suitable for ordinary worship and dispensation of boons. The devotees will fear his anger. Moreover, his connection with bloodshed gives him an impure aspect, which would make the pure castes loath to worship him, though, as a guardian of the dharma, he should be worshipped by the higher castes.In fast, his shrines are all in the hands of Śrīvaiṣṇava priests and pure. The present study shows by which devices the murderous god is turned into an auspicious one, fit for pure worship. Narasiṃha is only a case in point of a general process. Other gods, with the same function, offer similar or different solutions of the same problem: as a matter of fact, it is possible to establish a typology of these royal gods of Hinduism.

This article is based on data which were collected in a locality of Central Nepal and are interpreted against the wider background of the Central Himalaya and, more generally, Northern India. It aims to bring to light new facts and to offer new interpretations in the field of service relationships which are loosely termed jajmānī in the literature.Each such relationship has two poles: at one pole stands the patron who usually acts as the head of his own household but may at times represent a larger group of people: lineage, village, etc.; at the other pole is the specialist, drawn from one or another of the castes whose traditional occupation is to render one or several services to patrons. The various relationships are here enumerated, described and analysed; the author investigates not only the nature of the services and the mode of payment, but also the terms under which the relationships are established, renewed or ended, as well as the relative status of the patron and the specialist.These relationships fall into three distinct classes:1 – Those which have a religious content, either positive or negative, on which the relative status of the patron and of the specialist is founded; the former acts here as a sacrificer, jajmān; he is served, on a personal basis, by .the Brahman priest, on the one hand, who is for him a source of purity and who introduces him in the realm of the sacred; and, on the other hand, by members of the lower castes, in the present case all intouchable, such as the cobblers and the musicians, who help him get rid of impurity; in these relationships, which alone are properly called jajmānī, status is always relevant.2 – Relationships which involve purely artisanal services, without any religious implications, and in which status is not relevant; they are either personal, on the basis of an annual contract with a fixed payment in grains and food, as in the case of the blacksmith or of the tailor whose services are often needed; or impersonal, as in the case of the goldsmith, carpenter, potter, etc. whose services are less frequently required.3 – Finally, relationships founded on beggary, in which compulsion is always present, should be considered as making up a distinct class; they involve, on the one hand, a householder and, on the other hand, respectable ascetics or untouchable begging and wandering musicians. One of the lessons drawn from this analysis is put forward as a contribution to the general debate on the so-called, jajmānī system. It is here argued that only the relationships of the first class, which involve purity and impurity and which imply a hierarchical complementarity between the patrons and the service castes, should properly be termed jajmānī. The two other criteria which have been proposed in the literature: fixed payment in kind, and heredity, are not essential.Certain other conclusions refer specifically to the region under study. In the Central Himalaya (Nepal, Kumaon, Garhwal), the range of services available to patrons, particularly with respect to the first class, is much narrower than in the Plains of Northern India; and specialized castes usually cumulate several roles which fall into the first and the second class. We find thus, among the Indo-Nepalese of the Central Himalaya, a very limited number of specialized castes; but in Central and Eastern Nepal, additional services are provided by Tribals and Newars.Finally three, or rather four, distinct religions are represented in the area under study: Hinduism; Buddhism associated with tribal religion and Islam. The presence of these four competing traditions enables us to define more precisely the many integrated roles of the Hindu priest, the Brahmin, as opposed to those of the Buddhist Lāmā, of the Tribal shaman and of the Muslim Qāẓī and Fakir. Moreover – and this general conclusion has a bearing on the sociology of India the three classes of relationships function harmoniously only when the patron is a Hindu. When he is a Buddhist, an adept of a tribal religion or a Muslim, he does not deal with the Brahmin as a priest and his own priests are by no means comparable to Brahmins; but he behaves with the other specialists of lower status in the same way as his Hindu counterpart. The hierarchy is thus truncated: the highest, the Brahmin disappears, but the unclean and the untouchables remain such in the eyes of the non-Hindus.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of the term ’jajmānī’ which is widely used in anthropological literature to define traditional socio-economical relationships in rural India. Does the term ’jajmānī serve only to express the religious connotations of these relations? Or, may this word be used as a scientific concept which provides the organizing principle of these relationships taken as a system? Throughout the discussions we have kept in mind the pertinent distinctions made by D. F. Pocock in a paper published in 1962 in C. I. S. No VI.A description of the division of rice on the threshing-floor in a present-day Tamilnadu village places jajmānī in the larger setting of the traditional land tenures and the redistribution of the crop at harvest-time among the different parties entitled to a share.The ritual functions of the different non-brahmin service castes of the village are examined. They may be distinguished in two groups which correspond respectively to two different Brahmin roles: that of the brahmin purohit (household priest who acts to preserve the status of the person) and that of the brahmin pujari (temple priest who acts to maintain the order of the universe.) In the first group may be placed, for example, the barber and the laundryman; in the second, the artisans such as the carpenters and blacksmiths and the village watchmen, all of whom are necessary for the yearly agricultural rounds. In each case the hereditary technical know-how of the members of the service castes implies an ability to fulfill their ritual functions.In short, agricultural production was (and remains to a certain degree) organized on the model of a ritual or sacrificial activity both needing a patron-yajamāna together with a body of specialists. Their relationship is asymetrical. The specialist who performs each task is qualified to assume the dangerous, if not debasing, consequences inevitably involved in any act. The brahmin represents an ideal of non-action by contrast with the service castes which are completely involved in action. The members of the dominant castes are the jajmans par excellence. On one hand they collaborate with the brahmins to maintain the universal order which is in practice indistinguishable from the local order and from their own interest. On the other hand they employ the services of the inferior castes for productive purposes. In effect the jajmānī system resumes the traditional divisions of Hindu society.

Princess Ambā was won in a svayaṃvara by Bhīṣma, the patriarch of the Kuru dynasty, then allowed to go to her lover Śālva, only to be sent away by him. Filled with hatred against Bhīṣma, she obtains from Śiva the boon of being reborn as a male (= Śikhaṇḍin) and contributes to the death of Bhīṣma in the great battle of the Mahābhārata.I first summarize the two versions of the myth (I). An analysis of the more significant features (the rejection of Ambā ; her appeal to king Drupada and brahmarṣi Paraśurāma ; her suicide interpreted as a sacrifice to Śiva) leads to the conclusion that the two narratives, in spite of their rather different scenarios, contain similar patterns of mythical thought (II). The story of Ambā may further be compared with those of Śrī and NāỊāyanī (two of the stories told to account for the polyandrous marriage of Draupadī). Draupadī and Amba stand for two parallel but contrasting representations of the Goddess (III).This paper is part of a study of the context, the purpose and the modalities of Śiva’s intervention in the Mahābhārata.

Partant d’une analyse des faits contemporains de la servitude dans une région de l’Inde épargnée par les transitions coloniales, cet article se propose d’étudier la notion de dette dont la présence matérielle s’établit d’abord en termes de subordination et de contraintes réglées par les puissants. Les institutions concernées, le vocabulaire utilisé dénotent moins l’inégalité économique que la dépendance politique, et impliquent plus la hiérarchie des statuts fondée sur la naissance que la stratification des rangs imposée par le pouvoir.Le parcours initial des dettes constitutives et des obligations transactionnelles se retrouve, « dramatisé », dans la célébration d’un culte où les créanciers siègent avec les puissants, du côté des justiciers et des dieux, alors que les débiteurs siègent, eux, du côté des démons et des morts. Répondant ainsi à des propriétés générales de classement qui l’apparentent aux valeurs de l’hindouisme classique, la dette, en véritable opérateur logique, ordonne les relations entre hommes. Elle les situe à mi-chemin d’un au-delà et d’un en-deçà du social et de l’humain. Using contemporary facts of servitude in a region of India spared by colonial transitions as a starting point, the present study will concentrate on the notion of debt. Subordination and constraints by dominant groups are its primary manifestations. Extending through institutions and into a vocabulary which denote less economic inequality than political dependance, it implies hierarchy of status founded on birth rather than stratification of ranks imposed by secular power.The analysis of a cult illustrates the initial statement on constitutive debts and transactional obligations where creditors sit with political leaders on the side of judges and gods, contrasting with debtors, standing on the side of demons and death. As a logical operator, debt orders a set of relations between men and meets general properties of classification related to classical Hindu concepts. A society composed of debtors and creditors is thus situated between an “above” and a “below” where social and human dimensions are themselves indebted to transcendantal values.

This is a study of the settlement of the two dominant castes in a village of Madhya Pradesh (Shivpuri District) where the clearing of the land over the forest and the cultivation started in the XVIth century. Thus having an agrarian history relatively short, it has been possible to trace with some precision the story of that settlement from existing records kept by professional genealogists as well as from memorized records from the informants.The case of the village studied is revealing in a way because it is exceptional: there are two dominant castes, the Kirars and the Brahmans, instead of the usual one dominant caste, the Kirars, found in most of the villages in the region around.The Kirars settled first in the early XVIth century, in succession to Rajputs who did not cultivate and were exterminated in a feud with other Rajputs. At the time of these Rajputs, a little land was cultivated around the village by Kachis (market-gardeners) who were dependents and could not pretend for that reason to become dominant caste by obtaining the rights on the land from the king of Narwar. The Kirars, being already dominant caste in the surrounding region, were granted these rights after their arrival in the village.The Brahmans, migrating southwards from Delhi after giving up their profession of priests, reached the village in 1575 and were granted by the Kirars half of their rights on the land by sharing a bread in two parts during a meal in common the implications of which are discussed in detail.The main conclusion emphasizes the fundamental importance of the granting by the king of the rights on the land. On the other hand, the status preconditions necessary to be granted these rights appear clearly from the case studied.

This communication deals with a particular class of spirits, bāyu, who are the souls of people who suffered an abnormal death and wander in this world. The author deliberately adopted the view-points of the bāyu themselves, quoting their statements as heard from the mouths of the mediums (ḍāgre) through whom they manifest themselves: their careers are thus unfolded from the moment of death till the time they are fixed in a lineage shrine and, possibly, released to join the ancestors in another world. The paper also includes a description of the choice and training of the mediums and analysis of the kinship structure in which the cult of the bāyu is developed.The material on which this paper is based was collected among both Hindus and Muslims in villages of central Nepal. But indoubtedly the cult originated among Hindus for it fits into their beliefs concerning the fate of the soul after death. It has been adopted not only by Muslims, but also by buddhist tribals; thus people belonging to various castes and professing various religions worship the bāyu, and may use the services of the same medium; the fact that this cult oversteps socially recognized barriers raises many problems which are discussed in passing.

À la fin du xviiie siècle, le Pays Limbu est conquis par les rois Gurkha qui fondent alors l’État népalais. Les Limbu conservent toutefois une large autonomie. Il faut attendre la seconde moitié du xxe siècle pour qu’ils perdent leurs « privilèges » et deviennent des citoyens népalais comme les autres. Au cours de ce long processus d’intégration, l’endettement semble avoir joué un rôle important et complexe. L’analyse d’un terroir, appuyée sur d’autres enquêtes, permet peut-être d’éclairer les faits. C’est l’extension progressive du réseau d’endettement qui donne sa forme à la colonisation du territoire limbu. L’hindouisation n’est pas seulement l’acceptation d’un modèle prestigieux. Elle va de pair avec la dépendance économique des tribaux, et mène à leur intégration politique. At the end of the Eighteenth century Limbuland was conquered by the Gurkha kings who founded the State of Nepal. Nevertheless, the Limbus retained a large autonomy. Not until the second half of the Twentieth century did they lose their “privileges” and become Nepalese citizens like the others. In the course of this long process of integration, indebtedness appears to have played an important and complex role. Land analysis suported by other surveys perhaps allows to shed some light on the facts. The progressive extension of the indebtedness network shapes the colonization of the Limbu territory. Hinduisation is not only the acceptance of a prestigious model, it goes hand in hand with the economic dependency of the tribes and leads to their political integration.

The discovery in the India Office Library in 1971 of a manuscrit entitled Mœurs et Coutumes des Indiens with a dedication signed Desvaulx to the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies under Louis XVI raised a doubt as to the originality of the famous work by the Abbé Dubois.Careful comparison shows a remarkable number of similarities between the Desvaulx manuscript and the first version of the Mœurs by the Abbé Dubois; the concordance of titles, numbers and order of chapters is such as to rule out any purely chance resemblance.It has been possible to identify Nicolas Jacques Desvaulx (ou des Vaulx), Baron d’Oinville, né à Chandernagor en 1745 et officier d’artillerie. His signature on letters in the colonial file "Sieur Desvaulx", which has been preserved in the Archives Nationales, appears identical with that on the dedication of the India Office Library manuscript. In addition, chronological references in these letters suggest that the text was prepared in 1776 at which time the Abbé Dubois was still a schoolboy.

The Ahmedabad riots represented a decisive moment in the evolution of relations between Hindus and Muslims in India. It is worthwhile, despite the attention these riots have already received in the literature, to return to the subject because of the exemplary character of the Ahmedabad flare-up.As has typically been the case with communal disturbances in India, a multitude of causative elements were involved. Social and economic factors connected with the industrial character of Ahmedabad and its recent development as a state capital had undoubtedly contributed to the development of a difficult situation. But it was above all a concatenation of political events which served to set off the troubles at a given moment. On the international scene the fire in the El-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was to be followed by an Islamic Conference in Rabat. Within India the heightened competition between political tendancies which led to the split in the Congress was accompanied by the growing importance of the Hindu extremist Jan Sangh party.A brief historical treatment of the background in Ahmedabad and in Gujarat introduces a fairly detailed account of the successive phase of the riots. On the basis of the Report of the official Enquiry Commission and of interviews with leading citizens of Ahmedabad, the author attempts to bring out the degree of responsability of the different individuals and groups. The nature and extent of the various short-term and long-term measures which were proposed for reducing the tensions between Hindus and Muslims are also examined.It is worth noting that the calm has been subsequently maintained except for a minor incident in 1973. Whether because the least-privileged elements of the population were satisfied with the promises made to them or with actual improvements in their position, or because of a determination by the leaders of all groups to avoid the risks of a repetition, the waves of agitation which have traversed Gujarat from 1974 to the present have been completely free from any communalist overtones.

This paper is based on two periods of field work in Poona, in 1970 and in 1975.Poona has experienced a great deal of industrial growth since the 1950’s, and offers an opportunity for a study of the formation of entrepreneurial and working classes in an Indian city.The different firms are classified according to their size-and origin: big firms, – national, international, local or regional; small firms – founded by technicians, traders, or semi-proletarian workers. The history of each type of firm is studied, and the reasons for their location in Poona are examined.The Poona working class has three main components: people of rural origin, mainly employed in unskilled jobs, whose numerical importance seems to be usually overstated; second-generation urban dwellers, often coming from educated service classes; and members of low status castes, found in certain activities, such as construction or bidi making.It seems on the whole that neither lack of entrepreneurial spirit nor difficulties of adjustment to industrial work have served as important limiting factors upon industrial growth. The location of firms in Poona is mainly due to the proximity of Bombay, but the existence of an old city with many educational institutions has also been an important factor.

This is a study of one of Viṣṇu’s classical avatāra’s that has been selected mainly because it allows a comparison between the well-known myth of that incarnation of Viṣṇu and the present-day cult, which is widespread especially in Andhra Pradesh.A structural study of the myth is attempted on two distinct versions, that of Viṣṇu-purāṇa I 17-20 and that of Bhāgavata-purāṇa VII 3-8, which have complementary aspects, in order to clarify the idea of avatāra in its relationship to dharma, or socio-cosmic order, on the one hand, and to bhakti, or the religion of individual salvation, on the other.The king of the asura’s opposed to Narasiṃha is pictured as a follower of Brahmā, who rejects Viṣṇu’s supremacy and uses Brahmā’s boon to upset the dharma, by driving away the gods from Heaven and substituting his own sway for that of Indra. Narasiṃha kills him in order to save his bhakta Prahlāda and, at the same time, restore the dharmic order of the world. He is thus the god of bhakti and yoga and the avatāra. He kills for the good of his disciple and of the whole world. The murder of Hiraṇyakaśipu is equated to a sacrifice: this is the pure doctrine of the Bhagavad-gītā, which reconciles the values of yoga and sannyāsa with those of karman in wordly life. Every act must be made into a disinterested sacrifice.

The functions of the Congress Party are analyzed in terms of three different levels or fields within which it operates. The field of social relations englobes the struggle among the various elements of the society (classes, sub-classes, etc.) for material or symbolic advantages. The political field concerns the competition among a specialized category of persons, principally the political parties, for public office and power. The field of political organization refers to the structure and internal rules of the Congress party.It is argued that the consensus which characterized the Congress rested upon a basic unity of interest among the dominant classes and groups in Indian society. Given the consensus, the Congress served as the main arena within which political tendancies struggled for hegemony. A review of the conflicts inside the Congress Party from 1947 onward emphasizes the importance of two poles, one linked with big business and finance, the other representing primarily the urban and rural middle classes. Opposition parties played primarily a peripheral role, providing support from the outside to those groups within the Congress to which they were ideologically close.The system showed strain in the 1960’s; the crisis of 1969 leading to a split in the party showed that the flexibility of the earlier years had been lost, and paved the way, through the increasingly authoritarian style of direction, to the declaration in 1975 of the Emergency.

There are relatively few studies of marriage among Śūdra peasants and it seems that the greater part of the theorization of Indian marriage in general has been done on material drawn from the higher castes and more specially the Brahmans (Dumont for North India, Khare). It can be all the more misleading that the marriage in these high castes has often aspects which can be considered as exceptional. It is therefore important to substantiate our knowledge of marriage among the Śūdras who represent the majority of the population. The Kirars of Madhya Pradesh are representative for this purpose.Their marriage system, although unexpectedly original in some of its aspects, fits well, at the same time, in some already known concepts of North Indian marriage and might help to explain them (for instance the joking relationship between the sister-in-law and the younger brother of the husband). Including its apparent originality, the Kirar marriage has been found to be very similar to the marriage of other Sudras in the region of the study, as for instance the Gujars, Dhimars, Kachis, Gaukidars, Nais, Dhobis and, with some variants, the Camars.The conclusion of this paper is that the kinship and marriage system of the Kirars, 1) through the conception and the working of the brother-sister extended relationship, 2) through the rules regulating the giving and taking of women between the lineages and the families (a very clear picture of which can be given with the help of modern mathematics), tends to prevent the formation of a marriage "alliance" of the kind described by Louis Dumont in South India. There appears to be, in the case proposed here, a very well defined specificity of the North Indian marriage, in opposition to the views stressing the fundamental unity of Indian marriage by annexing the North to the South.

This article attemps to assess very generally the main factors which influenced the political behaviour of the Indian capitalist class during the interwar period. It starts with a description of the Indian business community, traced back to its historical origins in the middle of the 19th century. The fundamental heterogeneity of the class is underlined by the detailed study of the various groups which compose it, but a growing trend toward unification, apparent throughout the 1920s and 1930s, receives due consideration.Attention is then drawn to the rapid development of the class after the First World War and to the resulting change in the balance between British and Indian interests. The part played in this process by the policy of the colonial state is one of the most original features of the Indian situation as compared with that of other colonial countries. But the British rulers could favour the development of an indigenous bourgeoisie only to a certain point; on the eve of the Second World War, British capital still held a dominant position in the Indian economy.The ensuing frustration no doubt played a part in the support given by many Indian capitalists to the nationalist movement. But we argue that it is impossible to explain the political behaviour of the Indian capitalist class by treating it solely as a consequence of opposition to British economic domination. Social and cultural factors also had their part in bringing together the indigenous business class and the nationalist movement.

L’objet de cet article est d’évaluer, à partir d’une analyse critique des sources disponibles, l’importance de l’endettement paysan au Bihar entre 1850 et 1950, d’en faire apparaître les structures, et d’en dégager les incidences sur le mouvement d’ensemble de l’économie rurale. On s’est particulièrement attaché à critiquer les explications conventionnelles des causes de l’endettement, à montrer comment l’essor de celui-ci est lié à la situation coloniale, et à mettre en évidence son rôle perturbateur dans la difficile transition de l’économie paysanne traditionnelle vers l’économie de marché. Peasant indebtedness in India, though a dominant concern of Government authorities for more than a century, remains an unclear matter, owing to the paucity of reliable data. Starting with a critical analysis of the available evidence, an attempt has been made here to estimate the volume and social distribution of the peasant debt in Bihar between 1850 and 1950, to bring out the main determinants and structural features of the demand and supply of credit in the countryside, and to draw some conclusions as to the relationship between peasant indebtedness and the pattern of rural growth in colonial Bihar. An effort has been made to criticise the most widespread clichés about the causes which lead peasants to borrow, to show how the growth of peasant indebtedness is related to the colonial situation as a whole, and to bring out the part it plays in the lopsided transition from subsistence to market economy.

Après une étude linguistique des termes ṛṇa et kusīcla, nous montrons que la notion de dette, en sanscrit, est autonome, et qu’elle est présente dans les textes les plus anciens. Elle n’est pas une spécialisation de la notion de devoir. Elle n’a pas de généalogie, pas plus que les mots qui la nomment n’ont d’étymologie. Nous examinons en détail la théorie brâhmanique des trois (ou quatre) dettes constitutives de l’homme et nous nous interrogeons sur la manière dont ces dettes multiples s’articulent sur la dette unique à Yama. Enfin, nous donnons quelques exemples des procédés utilisés par les doctrines du mokṣa pour s’accommoder de la définition brâhmanique de l’homme comme dette. After a linguistic study of the terms ṛṇa and kusīda, we try to show that the notion of debt in sanskrit is autonomous and can be found in the earliest texts. It is not a specialisation of the notion of duty. It has no genealogy, just as the words that name it have no etymology. We examine in detail the brahmanic theory of the three (or four) debts that make man what he is and we discuss the way in which these multiple debts are linked to the single debt to Yama. Finally we give some examples of the ways used by the doctrines of mokṣa to adapt themselves to the brahmanic definition of man as debt.