Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 56 views

    Studying Psychology in India: Some Questions and Suggestions' Lecture Notes

    Uploaded by

    mparikh
    Margie Parikh gave a lecture on studying psychology in India. She questioned whether there is an "Indian psyche" and argued that psychology concepts and research themes are largely Western and exclude ideas from ancient Indian texts. She suggested exploring concepts from Indian philosophers like consciousness as a single center influencing behavior, compared to the Western view of body and mind as dual centers. Parikh also outlined the extensive body of ancient Indian knowledge and how certain themes could influence areas like positive psychology, feminism, and work psychology if studied from the Indian perspective.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Studying Psychology in India: Some Questions and Suggestions' Lecture Notes

    Uploaded by

    mparikh
    56 views12 pages
    Margie Parikh gave a lecture on studying psychology in India. She questioned whether there is an "Indian psyche" and argued that psychology concepts and research themes are largely Western and exclude ideas from ancient Indian texts. She suggested exploring concepts from Indian philosophers like consciousness as a single center influencing behavior, compared to the Western view of body and mind as dual centers. Parikh also outlined the extensive body of ancient Indian knowledge and how certain themes could influence areas like positive psychology, feminism, and work psychology if studied from the Indian perspective.

    Original Description:

    This is a note on the invited session engaged at the National conference at Anand College of Arts.

    Original Title

    Studying Psychology in India

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Margie Parikh gave a lecture on studying psychology in India. She questioned whether there is an "Indian psyche" and argued that psychology concepts and research themes are largely Western and exclude ideas from ancient Indian texts. She suggested exploring concepts from Indian philosophers like consciousness as a single center influencing behavior, compared to the Western view of body and mind as dual centers. Parikh also outlined the extensive body of ancient Indian knowledge and how certain themes could influence areas like positive psychology, feminism, and work psychology if studied from the Indian perspective.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    56 views12 pages

    Studying Psychology in India: Some Questions and Suggestions' Lecture Notes

    Uploaded by

    mparikh
    Margie Parikh gave a lecture on studying psychology in India. She questioned whether there is an "Indian psyche" and argued that psychology concepts and research themes are largely Western and exclude ideas from ancient Indian texts. She suggested exploring concepts from Indian philosophers like consciousness as a single center influencing behavior, compared to the Western view of body and mind as dual centers. Parikh also outlined the extensive body of ancient Indian knowledge and how certain themes could influence areas like positive psychology, feminism, and work psychology if studied from the Indian perspective.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 12

    ‘Studying Psychology in India:

    Some Questions and Suggestions’


    Lecture Notes

    By Margie Parikh
    BK School of Business Management, Gujarat University

    September 28, 2014


    Anand, Gujarat, India
    Salutation and Introduction
     Principal in-charge of the Anand Arts College established by
    the Ramkrishna Seva Mandal, Dr. Professor Neena Sharma,
    Dr. Jitubhai Khania, the coordinator of the National Seminar
    on ‘Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Issues and and
    opportunities’, Faculty colleagues, invited guests, students
    and friends,
     Thank you for inviting me to speak at the opening session of
    the seminar.

    2 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    India
     I would like to engage with you today
    on some thinking, questioning and
    possibly some future exploration, and
    not merely ‘a lecture’.
     As we think about studying
    Psychology in India, my first question
    is, what is India?
     India as we know it today was ‘Bharat
    Khand’ or ‘Aryavart’ in ancient times,
    the boundaries of which reached
    today’s Turkmanistan, Afghanistan,
    Nepal, Pakistan and such
     Characterized by vastness and
    diversity

    3
    These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com
    ‘Psychology’
     Root of the word ‘Psychology’ is in the word ‘Psyche’.
     My first question therefore, is ‘is there anything called Indian
    psyche’? Psychology is a science of behavior, and behavior is
    highly contextual. There may not be universal and context-
    independent laws of behavior across the world!

    4 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    Indian Psyche
     It is good to study Plato, Kant, Russell, and Wittgenstein. But
    why are we not studying Prabhakar, Patanjali and Shankar?
     The key concepts, major categories and research themes we
    study as part of Psychology re all Western.
     I do not mean to denounce them, but why do we exclude the
    seeds for thought from our ‘Darshans’, Shrtui and Smruti?
     Even the scientific Western studies start by ancient philosophers
    discussing body-and-mind divide – Descartes and such. Why do
    we maintain a disconnect between the ideas discussed by Indian
    philosophers?

    5 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    Slow Change
     Some of this divide and exclusion is being addressed slowly.
     Early attempts were discarded as ‘unscientific’, but the
    efforts of Durganand Sinha, Dharani P. Sinha, JBP Sinha have
    been taken up by numerous researchers today.
     Janak Pandey and Girihwar Mishra have edited volumes that
    present the more recent research in Psychology in India

    6 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    The concept of ‘center’
     The Western thinking on Psychology is bi-centric.
     Two major centers influencing behavior are body and mind.
     Indian thinking on behavior has one center: Chetana or
    consciousness/Grand Awareness.
     It is not dependent on genes or brain, though brain mediates it
     Brain, mind (mana, chitta) are the instruments that reflect the
    chetana.

    7 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    Being human: potential for behavior
     At its very base, the Western conception of ‘man’ is a creation
    of God, separate from him (therefore, -in the lighter vein-
    after death, you wait for his judgment and if lucky, you get
    to spend some time in heaven)
     Indian base of “Tat tvamasi” – you are that (ultimate) unifies
    the supreme and the human, understood to be separated by
    various degrees of thickness of ‘dust’ (eg absence of/low
    awake-ness, awareness, consciousness) that clouds the
    exactness ‘mirror image’

    8 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    ‘indigenous’???
     The basic assumption about humans is not a cursed entity
    that fell from heaven, but a microcosm of the Supreme.
     The basic assumption we make about something guides our
    understanding or interpretations about its nature. A refined,
    special understanding itself is science. What is ‘indigenous’
    about it?

    9 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    The Body of knowledge
     Starting from the most ancient, we have
     Four Vedas
     108 Upanishadas
     Six Darshanas (Samkhya, Two Mimamsas, Nyaya, Vaisheshik and
    Yoga): Orthodox school of thought
    … and then we have
     Puranas
     Two epics
     Heterodox Schools of thought: Buddha, Jaina
     Opinions (vada): Dvaita, Advaita
     Four Purusharthas, Four Ashramas (Stages) …

    10 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    Influence on beliefs and behavior
     We may not have studied the body of ancient body of knowledge
    directly, but being raied in the culture reflects the underlying
    beliefs and assumptions in patterns on behavior learned from
    others
     Some themes of interest are:
     Humanistic, transpersonal psychology
     Theories of personality and leadership using Samkhya and Guna
     Feminism
     Positive psychology and happiness and well-being
     Trans-cultural or meta-cultural psychology
    * … and all these affect the understanding of organizational and work
    psychology

    11 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com


    Closing
     I just introduced the themes on which research in psychology
    is at an interesting stage. Many Indians have gone back to the
    roots and we hope for exciting findings.
     The argument about Sanskrit being ‘inaccessible’ is no longer
    valid. Was much of Western literature also not in Greek and
    Latin? English is not our mother tongue, yet did we not learn
    it?
     I wish you all exciting times in exploring and may be we will
    meet again to discuss your find!

    12 These are lecture notes. For discussion and questions, margieparikh@gmail.com

    You might also like