Thinking the body as a basis, provocation and burden of life

Karin Preisendanz

Between Affirmation and Rejection

Attitudes towards the Body in Ancient South Asia from the Ṛgveda to Early Classical Medicine

0 The Sanskritic culture of pre-modern South Asia is characterized by two widely diverging attitudes towards the body, which can be characterized succinctly as positive, i.e., affirmative, appreciative, supportive, and caring, and negative, i. e., rejecting, contemptuous, suppressive, and abusive. In the following essay, I will first sketch these two attitudes – together with their distinctive nuances and manifestations as well as their mutual intersection and tension – historically, with reference to some of the most important literary genres and religious traditions, up to the early classical period, ...