Thank you so much for this very generous introduction, and thank you also for this great opportunity and privilege.
I'm delighted to be back in Oxford. Though even if what was so virtually after 26 years.
And I'm delighted to speak to the South Asia Intellectual History Seminar.
What I'm going to do today is to discuss the text for a reason.
And the reason is that these days there is much talk in South Asia,
as well as across the world, about illiberal democracies, about the loss of certain freedoms.
And yet in the Indian context, before the 19th century, the question of freedom was broadly understood in two ways.
One was the idea of moksha, the ultimate freedom from the cycles of life and death kind of get from state
to state that transcends life and death that constitutes the divisible world.
And the second was given the government was someone who possesses the knowledge that liberates a person while he's still alive.
And if one doesn't consider the banalities of Neo in the late 19th century, these were highly.
Complex terms which the interpretations of which differed from philosophical persuasion.
The philosophical persuasion that was not one uniform view on either of these comes from the 19th century of clause.
The question of freedom gets gets entangled in the the discourse of nationalism.
And then from that time onwards, there is this endless discussion about freedom from and freedom to so.
But even the most sustained consideration on the question of freedom from and
freedom to namely to the really badly the Nazis monumental work on out of them.
He devotes an entire chapter to the question of freedom from and to.
My, my, my agenda.
This, uh, uh, this afternoon for you and night for me is whether we can broaden and deepen our understanding of the question of freedom.
And I'll be I'll make an attempt to do just that by reading a relatively obscure text.
The text is called The Ocean of. I see out of nowhere, as with Indian texts, early mediaeval mediaeval texts.
The date of composition of ancient and mediaeval Indian texts is subject to intense speculation and conjecture.
These are texts which are collated and interpolated for a long period of time, so it's safe to place it between the 13th and the 17th centuries.
That is internal evidence of parts of it belonging to an earlier period, other parts belonging to another period.
There is also evidence from other texts which mention this text that it was performed in such and such Kings Court in such and such time.
So overall, it's safe to say that the text as we know it today was collated and put together between the 14th and the 17th centuries,
and it's currently available where it is attributed to one of these.
There is little guarantee that he was the single author of the text.
This would have been subject to innumerable interpolations.
The interesting bit here is the question of its title itself.
Cassandra now has it is often translated clumsily as laughter, but that is more to us than laughter.
It's closer to mirth than. Than it is to laughter.
So it has it has it has an overall connotation. Which which broadens its meaning.
The ocean of mud. What is this text about?
It's a text that has chaos at its heart.
It embraces, acknowledges this order. Its pages are full of an unabashed celebration of the sublime.
Behind all the satirical pronouncements, there is a there's a form unconcealed wish to leave things in their messy and untended state.
There are hints about what gifts restoration of order might offer, bounties that other might offer when effectively enforced.
What are the things it might predictably bring? But these gifts of order, sometimes real, sometimes imagined.
We shall discover, carry with them the real possibility of violence, cruelty, deaths, and above all, a curtailment, even a smattering of freedom.
Now amongst all the known political satires in many languages in India.
It's the only one that I know.
Which does not. Seek a return to the golden age or the rule of an iconic ideal.
King. So most political satires begin with.
There being an ideal, a slide forward, and a departure from the ideal.
And then there is always a restoration.
If that is always the announcement of a wise sage or a learner, Brahman or an incarnation coming and reinstating order.
This text is unusual in that it does not announce the arrival of Abizaid or RAM and reinstate the ideal order.
There is no promise of a saviour or an incarnation either.
It begins and ends without a final resolution of any kind except celebrating chaos and disorder.
Now, before I go on to the text, the short introduction to the cast of characters in order of appearance that is the principal male actor,
the narrator there's the principal female actor and narrator.
Then there is the king. He is called King and they are simple, which translates as king portion of this order.
So even the king has this order as part of his name.
That is somebody called Committee Rama, who is his main minister, whose name translates as protector of family.
There's a very central character which, alas, because of the nature of the presentation today, I'm not going to discuss her role too much.
She is the most fascinating character in the the whole satire, A Courtesan and a procurers called Bandura, whose name translates as in plain vulva.
That is her daughter Brigham, calling hot streak of the young woman's casa.
So that's what her name translates as. That is ritual.
And the counsellor chaplain with a cane whose name translates as world buffoon Callahan Guerra,
the counsellor chaplain's assistant whose name means humour of strife that is God.
He is Hindu, a doctor whose name translates as ocean of diseases.
That is that is the doctor's father, ATLANTA, Ga.
Whom name translates as the deaths of the afflicted.
They? There is a barber called Lone Joy in Black.
That is matano was name means ocean of deceit.
Runner, Jim Buka. The commander in chief is jackal of war.
That is, they got a priest, an astrologer predictor of the great beyond.
That is mother Ananda Mishra of another priest whose name means blind with passion.
There is a person whose is assistant mother and administrative assistant whose name translates as Wild Cock.
And there is a in the car. The priest as critic or the maid is sensitive.
Now the team in the teams and the political satire.
Before I go on to one section of the satire on order disorder, chaos cost sexuality.
And if you do a cursory first reading, everything goes downhill.
There is little attempt to contain the state of degeneration and decadence.
But I said I'd concentrate on one dimension, which is the figure of the king, along with the questions of order, disorder and freedom.
Now the king. Embodies kills.
All disorder. Incompetence.
Weakness. Decadence. Sin. Impropriety.
Indifference. And distortion of reality emanates from the king.
That sounds so contemporary. But this is what the king was even then.
These elements in head in almost all the other characters, too.
They're all an extension of the king.
They defied the sacred canon cast and dietary taboos, rituals, religious service and even the aim to reach heaven.
They're not even bothered about moksha. In the prologue, the narrator warns about the things that I.
Which is seen as a bad omen. He is coming to city in the well-fed as well as the misfortunes of the state and his subjects.
But even before he arrives, we are told that number one law has been driven out of the kingdom to a faraway place.
And so have righteous men and women. Number two, cheat, fraud.
And crafty people that work relentlessly to defraud people.
Number three, all men force themselves on the wives of other men gratify their lust.
As the narrative progresses, the portrait of the king would have done increasingly unflattering.
So the courtesan procurers calls him the universal monarch.
Amongst the roles. The protector of folly.
The minister calls him the greatest sinner in the world.
People speak of him openly and of his meanness and his pitiable condition.
The King, we will discover, is not excessively wild or cruel.
Despite the scare created in the prologue about his impending arrival,
he remains a pathetic, indifferent and dissolute figure, open to repeated insults.
Initially when the Soviet spy tells them of the state of the kingdom, he promises to institute punishments for those behaving badly.
But that's the last we hear of it. Subsequently, even though cases are brought before him, he rarely intervenes.
All he wants to do is to embrace a prostitute and make love to the.
His life is a chronicle of misfortune, stupidity, deaths, sin, ailments, fears and enemies.
So the king arrives. And from the prologue, we know that the law.
And the righteous have fled. We have a sense of the state of the kingdom.
After he arrives, he asks the servant spy to ascertain the state of the kingdom.
He calls the servant spy. The founder of false perceptions.
So the king already knows that the servant spy is the founder of false perceptions.
The sovereign spy returns. After attending the state of the kingdom.
He speaks with great concern about all the social classes and costs actually adhering to their designated roles.
Attests school morals and ethics being in place.
Give us even the example of women following customary codes of ethics.
Down to the correct way of wearing jewellery.
The expounded of false perceptions calls the state of affairs confusing and nonsensical.
He tells the King that his kingdom and his subjects exhibit extreme transgression of whose?
Now, this exchange between the king and the servants by the Queen is a very complex equation.
Even before the Serbian spy presences a report.
The King knows that he was prone to presenting false perceptions.
On hearing his account. The King. In ordinary circumstances, or you have realised that the opposite of what he was conveying is true.
But due to his reputation, the servants might present a distorted, untruthful picture of reality.
The King believes this untrue and distorted picture could be true.
The King, then, is a believer in false perceptions.
Or. There lies a question.
Is it an instance of a kind of order?
That disorder can present. Let us take another example.
A barber called Joy in Blood Galore enters the makeshift court at the House of the Courtesan, presents him a mirror presents the king amid her.
The King refuses even to hold the mere. And promptly gives it to the courtesan, to the procurers.
She suffers from cataract and has no use of it. She in turn, gives it to the world.
In other words, the king has no interest in reality.
He knows that the Mirror will reflect himself in his many roles and guises.
He will see an image that extends to everything and permeates everything.
Again. Recall that when the Serbian spy presents his version of reality, the king does not see it as a distortion.
The normative ideal is presented to him as a collapse of order and of legal procedure.
He refuses to acknowledge the ideal, affirms that elements of the ideals presented to him were indeed transgressions and promises punishment.
Well here. One needs to digress a little.
What is the what is what is the intake?
Ideal king. What is the in the conception of the normative order?
From the Brit classical and classical period society was hierarchically organised around social costs and classes.
Within that, the ideal is presented as the relationship between the real warrior and the priest.
In reality, there was often a constant quest for bond and pre-eminence between the two.
It is a scene of collaboration, fear, loathing, distrust and serving mutual interests.
The same tradition also speaks in hyperbolic terms of the king's supremacy, autonomy and power.
At the same time, the king lacked the space to manoeuvre and act as he may wish.
The King was checked, theoretically, at least by the hierarchical superiority of the platinum beast.
In fact, all of the social classes that go by. By the instructions of the Brahmins.
The Brahmins proclaimed the law and permanent sacred law and all other forms of law, and the king had to govern accordingly.
In the ideal order. One important element was the ability of the king to subdue his senses.
But there was distrust about the Kings ability to do so on his own.
So the need for a Brahman counsellor, chaplain to keep him in check.
And though the. Gang Counsellor.
Chaplain relationship is subject to textual contradictions and historical periodisation.
They are unambiguously aligned in the quest of one single element, and that's crucial for us.
And that single element is the desired and pursuit of order.
What did order comprised of what they were?
What constituted an order? Order was constituted by the integrity of the force, social policies and costs.
The four stages of life celibate student householder forest dweller and enunciate.
That all the classes ought to adhere to their prescribed sacred law and their mandated duties.
That all security and protection must be sought and given within the ambit of the four classes.
Any violation must be accorded the correct form of punishment.
So the Kings function was seen as.
A sacred duty that anyone. It's a way of behaving, a right way in which to behave and the way in which one should behave.
In the evolution of the notion of the ideal king.
All royal functions and duties was subsumed under the category called Rajah or the duties of the.
This was an omnibus motion. It circumscribe all the duties of the king.
Apprehensive that the world would be a fearful chaos if the king and his functions were to be there.
That is excessive emphasis on the question of order and Raja than in ensuring this order.
One prerogative granted the king within the idea of duties of the king, rather than was the idea of punishment or done.
The word also means a rod or a mace or a sector.
It is an institution created to look after the king's interests to enable them to establish order and enforce norms.
Some of the most striking lines in the chapter titled The Law for the King in Manner of the Mistrust of Money.
Popularly known as bloody. I deserved for describing the.
Bundy is the son of the Lord. I go?
It is fear of him that makes all beads.
Both the mobile and the immobile accede to being used and not deviate from the law proper to them.
Punishment is the king. He is the male.
He is the leader. He is the ruler. And tradition tells us.
He stands as the surety for the law. With respect.
The full orders of life. Punishment disciplines all the subjects.
Punishment alone protects them. And punishment watches over them as they sleep.
Punishment is the law, the wise declared and court.
The King, then, is the one who administers punishment.
Of course, punishment that must be meted out judiciously, carefully, correctly.
Failure to do so rebounds on the king by creating havoc, despite these disclaimers regarding the unwise use of punishment.
The obsessive quest to establish the sacred law as duty and prevent deviations.
These texts forge an extraordinary relationship between the ideal king and punishment.
The King is awesome for bandit horror. Meaning the carrier of the sceptre and the upholder of punishment.
There are texts that often use the word king and punishment synonymously and interchangeably.
That is then a sense of violence inherent in following the royal duties and the exercise of dispensing punishment.
Another authoritative text extends the argument and they go, the road punishes all subjects, the road protects them.
When everything is asleep, the road is awake. The learners say that the Lord is paramount.
Awful lot of men that Lord protect will help them.
And. The dog protects common.
In this world that has come about, everything is based on the road to ensure that there was no confusion amongst mortals
to protect riches and to establish boundaries in this world than there was thought of.
When done that strides around dark and red light that is exultation and subjects are not confused and caught.
If you see the first few verses of this quote, the operative words of fear and fight.
Soon be substituted effortlessly with arguments that support, endorse and justify killing.
Guards kill. Time kills.
That skills. Certain gods are worshipped because they have killed.
Everyone alive in this world acts violently.
The stronger live of the weaker. Only the stupid control of their anger and delight and their diet to the forest.
If done, that did not exist. The world would be destroyed.
The Lord controls the four social categories costs, preserves boundaries, legitimises property,
maintains the difference between the virtuous and the wicked, and ensures the observance of the four stages of life.
Righteous violence represented by thunder sustains Hama, which in turn sustains the world.
Moreover, the Hama Arthur Hama exists under the rod and its protection, and as does everything else in the world.
So sacred law that Ramadan cannot exist and prosper in disorder.
In the words of the author of one of the authoritative law books, Disorder leaves everything topsy turvy.
If disorder is seen as an imbalance amongst social classes.
With limits being breached and insecurity growing amongst subjects.
Punishment has to step in and restore order. In other words, in a world falling apart.
Restoring order is possible only by violence integral to the duties of the king.
And punishment or what I call the Roger Ban beneath the nexus.
It's a vicious cycle. The King desires order.
And in ensuring that he. Ensuring that this.
Then he. Doesn't exceed the proper limits of sacred law Dharma.
A has to contain disorder through violence.
And my killing. This leaves the weak contaminated with evil.
Vulnerable. Confused. Flawed. Unbalanced. Frustrated.
Nothing could be more cruel than the corona. Law.
Beauty, duty, order, nexus. As a model commentator correctly says articulated beautifully.
Punishment stands at the intersection of the political and legal,
the normalisation in a literal sense of domination, where coercive violence becomes just punishment.
Now let's come back to Ocean of months after this slightly longer digression.
The question that we need to ask is, is disinterest on the part of.
King Aeneas and King Ocean of Disorder.
In the compelling myth of the iconic king.
And in the sacred law as duty and punishment.
His disinterest in these. Is that really such a fatal flaw?
So it's no surprise the king in the political satire I have presented is called Ocean of Disorder.
Neither is it amusing that almost all of the characters in the play are an extension of the disorder that the King so vividly personifies.
This is disorder at its best. Here.
Hierarchies weaken or collapse. Insecurity thrives.
The power. That the powerful have the user to torment the weak.
The weak retaliate when given a chance. Boundaries disappear.
Wealth gets freed from the sacred laws framework.
And so does erotic love. Well-worn pieties dissolve.
Derisive laughter resounds.
Mediocrity triumphs, but also creativity finds the least.
Fidelity to customs and traditions dissipates.
The ritual has become meaningless judgements.
Flounder. It is this breach in the sacred laws.
My fortress. That constitutes an instance of freedom.
Recall again that the dark and dreaded punishment protects well-being and erotic love, art and karma.
Freedom, then, is affluence and love freed from the stranglehold of sacred law.
The commonly used word for wealth, opulence, money, utility and advantage is after.
But it also means aim. Purpose.
Goals, motive. Reason, sense.
Comedy is not erotic love. And pleasure alone.
But also desires. Longing, love, affection.
Dishearten enables us to command to run berserk.
Freedom then in the small. Perhaps even short lived.
Instance. Is.
The space that is created between order and chaos.
Thank.