‘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.

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 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!

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 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.

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 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’

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 ‘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?

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 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) …

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 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

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 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