The Transcendental Hermeneutics of Meykandar
By transcendental hermeneutics we mean a vigorous inquiry that is concerned with fundamental ontology, known traditionally in the West as metaphysics. The central question is : what is (or are) Real or absolutely there and what are not real or only transitory, ephemeral and so forth.
The Civanjaana Bootham of Meykandar (13th century A.D.) is a brief text characterized by an astuteness and brilliance that has not been met with ever since. This book marks an important mile stone in the cultural history of the Tamils providing to this day the philosophical foundations for the Saivite way of life. But since this is an accomplishment in fundamental ontology, its appeal is universal.
It is the presupposition of all philosophical inquiries, depth psychologies and religious cults.
He departs from the literary hermeneutics by taking as his TEXT not this or that literary or nonliterary productions of the mind but rather the world-as-a-whole and the fact that we are in it inextricably, unavoidably.
We are thrown into Being-in-the-world, as Heidegger would put it and which Meykandar notes under the ubiquitous deiticity (Tamil :cudduNarvu) of all human and creature understanding.
By deiticity we mean here the fundamental need to have recourse to spatiotemporal referential frames for the understanding of anything at all. This is because understanding is finite, there is an inherent finitude that throws understanding to referentially and temporality. Understanding is spatially directional and temporally historical.
It is characterized by cuddu'- the need to confront a thing as an object, as that which stands there as an object in itself posting the self as the subject that apprehends it.
Dr Loganathan Krishnan @ Ullaganar
No comments:
Post a Comment