The Conception of Punishment in Early Indian Literature

Evan Simpson is a philosophy professor and dean of humanities at
McMaster University and the editor of Anti-foundationalism and Practical
Reasoning: Conversations Between Hermeneutics and Analysis.

This is a book for scholars, although the subject is a matter of universal concern. A general reader will likely be impressed by the similarities between western ideas of punishment and those which arise elsewhere when human beings are deliberately harmed. The contest between the sovereignty of God and the autonomy of Karma, for example, has its counterpart in our tradition in the question whether the divine will is prior to the moral law. The problem of reconciling God’s goodness with the fact of suffering also finds clear expression in both traditions.

Dr. Day’s principal thesis, however, is that the concept of punishment is not formally defined in Indian literature and must therefore be given by “the totality of correction principles, powers, agents, processes, and operations through which acts contrary to the Universal Order are counteracted and compensated.” This makes it easy to infer that the Indian idea goes beyond “modern Western penological discussions.” It extends, in fact, to curses, ordeals, asceticism, and penances, as well as to long lists of grisly penalties for particular crimes.

Readers interested in this panorama will have to put up with a liberal sprinkling of Sanskrit and with the use of English words not in standard dictionaries — for example, “immanentize,” “impervience,” “equivalential,” “dischoate.” There are a number of apparent tautologies, such as, “In the ritualistic brahmanic literature, the word karma carries a ritualistic connotation.” The typewritten format further complicates reading.