Oedipus in India: A Survey of the Reception of a Freudian Concept among Indologists - Dr. Soham Pain

Topic: Oedipus in India: A Survey of the Reception of a Freudian Concept among Indologists

About the Author: Dr. Soham Pain is presently working as Assistant Professor and Head, Department of English, Chopra Kamala Paul Smriti Mahavidyalaya, Chopra, Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal, India.

Abstract of the Lecture: Sigmund Freud's influential concept of the Oedipus Complex has undergone significant vicissitudes both within its proponent's lifetime and in the hands of subsequent experts. In my essay, I would like to give the distinguished audience a short idea of the engagement of Indologists with this concept. In this, I do not claim any originality. I have divided this essay into three parts. In the first part, I talk briefly about the origin and evolution of the concept in Freud's own oeuvre, from The Interpretation of Dreams to Moses and Monotheism. This is going to be a necessary prelude to the main focus of the essay. I would like to devote the second part to trace the early phase of Freud's encounter with India and Indian thought. While there is very little direct reference to India and Hinduism in his writings, there can be no denying the fact that Freud was well aware of Indian mysticism through his readings, and most importantly, through his interactions with Romain Rolland and Rabindranath Tagore. In the third part, I shall briefly touch upon the history of psychoanalytic studies in India and the contributions of Grindrasekhar Bose as a pioneering Indian voice in the said discipline. Bose was influenced by Freud's ideas, and regularly wrote to him about his own findings in the process of diagnosing Indian patients, and challenged the universality of the Oedipus Complex. The most significant of Bose's contributions was to foreground the primacy of the Oedipal Mother in the Indian psyche. Following Bose, several other noted scholars, both Indian and Western, have engaged with the question of the centrality of the Oedipus Complex in the formation of the Indian/Hindu psyche- A. K. Ramanujan, Gananath Obeysekere, R. P. Goldman and Sudhir Kakar being the most important. I shall briefly refer to their most important arguments and conclude my lecture.
©Dr. Soham Pain

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[poulomibhattacharya]

I was lucky to witness this live, one of the best lectures of the series.

[rupalijain]

Sir plz upload lecture on Ngugi wa Thiong'o by Dr. Amitayu. I really need it. Thank u so much Saikat Sir for making us familiar with a new galaxy of literary Stars.