A PRINCELY IMPOSTOR?

The Kumar of Bhawal and the

Secret History of
Indian Nationalism

PARTHA CHATIERJEE

AUC"I".lIVE LAW FORUM

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114 CHAPTER SEVEN

years at Bangabasi College in Calcutta and at St. Stephen's College in Delhi. ChapttT Eight
As a student, he had distinguished himself in philosophy and had obtained
a first class M.A. degree in that subject from the University of Calcutta. l9
It is unlikdy that he ever thought that his academic tnining in philosophy THE IDENTITY PUZZLE
would one day have to be mobilized in deciding the most celebrated and,
IS it turned out, final c:ase of his career as a judge.

~ATCOnstitutes the identit)· ofa per-

son? This is the son: ofquestion that philosophers ponder. Indeed, this spe-
cific question has produced a large philosophical literature in the Western
world at lost since the seventeenth century, following the landmark effon
by Rene Descartes to posit a duality herween mind and body and to locate
the self in consciousness., that is, in the faculty of mowing that is indepen-
dent of the knower's bodily organs, including the brain. Western philoso-
phers have since puzzled over numerous inaicacie:s concerning the precise
role of physical and mental properties in the constitution of the identity of
a person. Most of these debates. especially the ones in recent Anglo-Ameri-
can academic philosophy, completely bewilder us ordinary momls. But for
OU1' presmt purposes, it is necessary to get a sense of what the theoretical
issues are in determining the identity of. person. The matter is not merely
academic. During the entire course of the Bhawal sannyasi case through the
lawcouru of Dhaka, Calcutta, and London, referen~ would often be made
by lawyers, judges, and wimesses to philosophers and philosophical trea-
tises that address the question of persO'nal identity. We need not struggle to
keep up with the endless hairsplitting that is the philosopher's normal pro-
fessional pnctia:; we will be concerned with what philosophers might have
to tell us, not with what they say to one another.
The recent locus classicus on the subject is Derek Parlit's R,tUOlfS lind Prr-
J07U. A renewed debate has been carried OUt by Anglo-American academic
philosophers in the last fifteen years over the issues raised by Parlit con-
cerning personal identity. I We will look at some of these recent debates in
order to emphasize what is at stake today in our retelling of the story of the
Bhawal sannyasi. But of course these were not philosophial discussions
that Pannalal Basu, subjudge of the Dacca district court, could have known
about in 1933. He wou!d have mown, from his aademic training, the tra-
dition of British philosophy from John Locke and David Hume to early
twentietii-century philosophers such as J.M.E. McTaggart. We should,
therefore, also uke a look at this tradition.

WHAT Is lor:NTITY?

What are the issues involved in determining the identity of a person? Let

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116 CIIAPTER EIGHT
When twO things are identical, they must obey what is called Leibniz.'s
law. This law says that if x is identical to y, then whatever is true of x must
be: true of y, and vice versa. Referring to our case, if the second kumar and
the Bhawal sannyasi are identical, that is, if they are the same person, then
if the second L.-umar was five feet live inches tall, the Bhawal sannyasi must
also be: five feet five inches tall.
This son of identity is called flumerical identity, where the identity of x
and J means that they are one and the same thing. There can, however, be
another kind of identity, where two things may be: exactly similar without
be:ingone and the same thing. If I pick out two new tennis b:llls from a box,
one hall could have exactly the same properties as the other, but they would
still be different balls. This son of identity is called qyalitarive ideotirr_
where x and J are exactly similar because they belong to the same type but
they are not numerically identical. If the second kumar had :In identical
twin, for instance, who disappeared for a few ~rs and returned as the
Bhawal sannyasi, then despite having exactly the same features, the second
kumar and the Bhawal sannyasi would still not be the same person. In the
mUter of the social and legal identity of a person what we usually look for
is numerical identity and nor mere qualitjlltive identity.
In our tDmples above, we have, however, skined around the crucial ques·
tion ofchange over time. To introduce this dimension into the problem, we
must make the funher distinction between synchronjc identity and dill-
.£.hronic identity. Ifx and 1 are synchronically identical, then theyare numer-
ically identical, that is, they are one and the same thing at a given time t.
Thus, James Hamilton Lindsay and the collector of Inca are synchroni-
cally identical in the yen 1921. If x and y are diachron,ically identical, then
the relation ofnumerical identity must hold between them over time. That
is to say, they would be the same temporally enduring thing observed at dif-
ferent points of rime. Thus, the boy Ramendra who played pranks with his
tocher Whanon and the young man Ramendn who accompanied Lord
Kitchener on his hunt were one and the same person at different sta- of
life. I lo-
We can now see where the difficulties would crop up in deciding on nu-
merical identity over time. In a world where things change with time, how
can we decide that 10 spite ofobservable qualitative changes, a thing is still
~e same? The problem h:ls been posed for Western philosopher.: from the
orne of the Greeks. There is the fanlOUS .example of the ship of Theseus,
whereby ~ifferent parts of a ship-made of wood iii those days-are grad-
ually repaIred and replaced over time until one day every pan has been re-
placed; nevertheless, it still remains the same ship. If we think of the human
body, every cell in it is replaced over time, so that it may be true to say that
no human adult has the same physical body with which he or she was born.
But it doo not follow that 1·as-a-ehild Ind I-as-an-adult are not the same
person. How can we find the proper criteria for detennining the diachronic
f
THE IDENTITY PUZZLE
identity of persons? Clearly, a lot will depend on how we choose to define
the "person-ness" of persons.
Derek Pamt has listed the quescions that haVe to be asked about the nl-
ture of persons and of personal identity over time,2 'f"hsse arc' First, what
is the Danlre of a person? Secon..d..Jrl1ar is..itJhat makes a person auwo..dif-.
f:ili::~n~~~:~;~E'#~~=:~:;,,~:rn~~~
'; moral ~r vaIJ!¢;'~pect~dtr'~n ~ddtng a fourth questl~n: What
is In filet mvolved In the connnu gi.ueng: ora rson.m'cr tiD > e
answer to e mt question would be only part of the answer to the fourth,
since what is nuWllriJy involved in the continued existence of:l person need
nOt ahaust what is in 1m involved in it. Thus being happy, for inst2nce, is
nOt necess2rily invoh·-ed in our SUrviV2l, but it may well be p:art of wh:at is in
fact involved. The introduction of the moral or value dimension also opens
. up the distinctiOQ between the objective aspects ofidentity. ti1ose..tb!! !j)Cr-
son l1UIy possess because of his or her biol~cal and ~alJocation,and the
subjective aspectS. those that he or she may value or identify with. This di-
mension is im rttnt for our discussion since we will be dee: I concerned
\ with the social and le({21 issues of identity..;.
PHYSICAl. CaITUlA OF PEIlSONAL IDENTITY
There Ire twO sortS ofcriteria that are talked ofin deciding questions ,bout
the diachronic identity of persons: physical aiteria and psychological aitem.
The simplest physical criterion is drawn from static objects that continue
to exist over time. Thus. theJaidebpur Rajbari is the same house where the
second kumar once lived, even though today it accommod.ates • nriety of
government offices of the Gu.ipur district of Bangladesh. The criterion
here is the physical continuity of an object: in spu:e and time. In the case of
"
some objects, there can be physical continuity despite considerable physi-
cal changes. A butterfly, for instance, can be said to have a continued phys-
ial Uistence from an egg to a. caterpillar to a chrysalis to a butterfl.y: in this
case., the distinct physical fonns are seen as stages in the continuous life of
a single organism.
It is important to clarify what is in\'olved in applying Leibniz's law to
physical criteria of diachronic identity. While researching the story of the
Bhawtl'sannyasi, I recently read old issues of the weekly l)htilti prolttiJ pre-
served in the library of the University ofDhab. The journal now emu in
bound annual volumes, the newsprint is yellow, many pages are tom, and
the margins are frayed. I had to tum the pages with great Clution because
the paper almbst crumbled to dust under my fingers. SiI or seven decades
ago, the same issues ofthe joumaI must have had crisp white pages, md they
were not boWld in annual volumes. How can I say that what I was reading
"
 118 CHAPTER EIGHT
WlI$ an issue of [)bilt. prllkii from 19J4? Surely, applying Leibnil.'s law, it
is not correCt to say that everything that was true of the issue of the journal
in 1934 is true of it in 1999. If we think it through, however, we will real·
iz.e that this would be I misapplication of Leibnil.'s law. If x has the prop-
erty orbcing white and crisp at time t I and J is )'ellow and crumbling It time
," thlm it could still be the c:ase matxi! identical toy. This is b«ause Leib-
niz's law only requires that (or :randy to be identical. if x is white and crisp
at '1' theny must 11150 be white and crisp at t" not at II' In other words, the
requirement here is that of synchronic identity. To apply it to diachronic
identity, we must decide whether it is possible for the crisp white pages of
x in 1934 to bttome yellow and crumbling in 1999, that is. at a later stage
in the life of the same x. If I lim satisfied that there is physical continuity of
the copy of Dbilti prlJltai over sp:ace and time from the hands of an avid
reader of the hearings of the Bhawal sannyasi case in 1934 to the almirah
of the old periodicals collection of the University of Dhab library in 1999,
then I aC'a'pt that what I have read in 1999 is diachronically identical to the
journal dut was published in 1934.
Can the same thing be said of the: copy I have of a pamphlet propagating
the sannyasi's Story? The p:amphJet was printed at Gendaria Press in DhaJc:a
in 1921. I first read it in 1995 in a bound volume of "vernacular tnets" in
the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library in London.
The copy now lying in front of me is a print talcen &om a microfilm of the
original p:amphler. I am reasonably certain that the copy that I saw in Lon-
don in 1995 was physically continuous with what was printed in Dhab in
1921. In any case, the copy was in much better shape than the volumes of
l)bilti prJlltAI at the uni.ersity library in DhaJc:a, undoubtedly because the
number of people who have handled such material in London in the past
six or sevm decades is only a small fraction of the number in Dhab. But
the print taken &om the microfilm is clearly not physically continuous with
the origiml pamphlet. No question of nwnerica.J identity can arise here,
even though we might be able to argue for some measure of qualitative
identity.
~n there be diachronic identity if there are gaps in the physical conti-
nwty of an object? I still possess a radio dut works on tubes, DO( transis-
tOl'S. We have had it in the bouse for about fifty yeus. It bas had to be re-
paired a few times, and I distinctly remember having seen it once at the
mechanic's shop completely taken apart; it mu.n have been in that State for
at least a week. Does the radio have a history of continued physical exis-
tence over the last fifty years? Some philosophers would say, no, since it was
not a radio at every point in its sp:atio--temporal p:ath. Others would say, yes,
since even during the week when the radio was taken apart, etch of its sep-
arate pans continued to have uninterrupted physica.J existence. Still othen
would say, it doesn't maner if the radio was taken ap:art and put back to-
THE IDENTITV PUZZLE 119
gether, beca.use even when it was disassembled, it continued to exiSt as a
radio.
Applied to persOns, the physical criterion of iClentity is physical continu-
ity over time of the same body and brain (brain here being taken u a ph)'S-
ical entity). "Same" body ~d brain cannot, of course, mean exact similar-
ity at twO points of time, for that would be to ignore nonnal and natural
processes of change. What is necessary is not the continued exiStence of the
whole body, or even of the whole brain. It is possible to think of a person
continuing to exist even after losing several partS of his or her body. What
is minimally required is the survival of enough of the brain to be the brain
ofa living person. This is what physical survival ntcmnily involves; the con-
tinued mstence of other parts of the body is strictly not necessary. The
'1
physical criterion lays down, then, that x at is the same person as 1 at t1
if and only if enough ofx's brain survives at t l' and has the capacity to sup-
port a full human consciousness, and is now y's brain; and if no other per-
'1
son z e.Dsts at who also hu enough of r's brain to support a full human
consciousness. J
We should emphasize that philosophers ",ho accept the physical crite-
rion of personal identitY actually mean by it the continued existence of the
brain as a physical entity. They do not regard other parts of the human body
as equally significant, because those could change or even ceak to exist
without necessarily disturbing the continued exisre.nce of the person. In the
physical sense., then, the essential attribute of personhood lies in the brain.
It is also necessary for us to note q.,at the way in which the physial cri-
terion hu been defined in the philosophical discussion makes it \.'ery diffi-
cult to thinkofenemal checlcs to verify whether or not the criterion is being
met in a particular case. This is because the entire debate over personal
identity bas taken place around the question of "the self." As we will see
below, the typical fonn of posing the problem has been: "If my brain is
transported or tnnsfonned in such and such a way, then what would be the
implication for me as a person?" This does not, however, give us a praeti-
caJ criterion for deciding a problem such as that of the Bhawal sannyasi.
How could anyone verify if a substantial part of the second kumar's brain
survived in the sannyasi? It is not difficult to see why, when the question of
physlca.J. rc:semblaner between the Icunw- and the sannyasi came up in court,
it was not the physica.J bn.in but various physical features and ma.rb on the
body that were offered as criteria. Each of thc:sc: was hotly debated, because
the question could always be asked u to whether a particular physical fea-
ture might not change over time without destrO)'ing the continued physi-
cal existence of the person. In a fundamental sense, then, the philosophers
are right apart from the sumnl of enough of the brain. the continuity or
otherwise of other pans of the body does not give us a necessary physica.J
criterion of personal identity. Nevenheless, it is not hard to see why the
120 CHAPTER EIGHT
common sense of·ordinary people would seek such resembl:mas in order
[Q decide whether or not the sannyasi was really the second kumar.
PSYCHOLOGICAL C.'TIaIA Of PUSONAL loENTITY
We have observed before that a key question that comes up in the applica-
tion ofLeibnil.'s law to the di:oachronic Klentityofpersons. th:u is, their iden-
tity over time, is what we take to be the essential n:lture ofperwns. 10 other
words, we have to provide some answer to the question, "What constirutes
the person-ness of persons?- A large number of:msw~dut have been sug-
gested by philosophers concerns the menul or psychological properties of
human beings. Oearly, there is :I strong tendency hur: to seek the essence
of the hunun person in his or her rational, moral, and affective &cuJties,
which are seen as being integral parts of his or her mmtal or psychological
attributes.
The cbssic Cannulation of the mental or psychological criterion of per-
sorulldentity in modem Western ptulosopny was DUde by John Locke in
hU e-, Omm-ning H - . ~t{l690). .
fIlo find wherein penonal identiry consi:su, ~ must consider what penon
stands for, which, I think. is 1 thinIrin« inlelligcnt being, Wt has reason and
reflection, and can consider itsdf as iudl, the same thinking thin, in different
times and places; which it docs only by thJl 0XlICi0usness which is inscpln-
ble &om thinIdn" and, IS it seems to me. essential to it. ••. For since con-
sciousness always aa:ompanies thinkins, and it is tb:u which makes eYCf}' one
ttl be what be calls Idf, and thereby distinguishes bimsdf from all other think·
ins things; in this alone consists penooal identity, i.e. the sameJle55 ofa ratio-
nal being; and as far IS this a:msciousness cut be enended backwards w any
past action or thought, 10 far reacbcs the identity of Wt person; it is die same
sdf DOW it was then; and it is by the same self wid! this present one that now
reflects on it, that that action was done.·
Locke's criterion of personaJ identity is. therefore, the possession of an unin·
telTupted flow ofself-conscious awareness, that is to say, memory. But Locke
makes a distinction here between "person." which refers to the bearer of1lI ra-
tional and reflective consciousness., and "man,'" which is a biological entity.
The criterion for detennining the identity of a person is not necessarily the
same as that for detennining the identity of a man. He illustrates this with
one of his most-quoted examples, which is in some ways a precursor to the
"thought experiments" of later philosophers writing on the subject.
(Sjhould the soul of. prince, C'If'I)'ing with it the consciousness of the prince's
past life, enter and infonn the body of. cobbler, IS soon IS deserted by his own
soul, every one sea he would be the same person with me prince, accowuable
\
THE IDENTITY PUZZLE 121
only for the prince's actions; but who would say it W'lS the same man? ... I
Ienow that, in the ordinal)' W'ly of spealcing, the same penon, and the same
man, stand for onc and the same thing.... Bm yet when we will inquire what
makes the same spirit, man, or person, we must fiJ: the ideas of spirit, man, or
person in our minds; and having resolved with ounclvC5 wha~ we mean. ~
them, it will not be hard to dettnnine in either of mem, Of the like, when It IS
the same, and when not.'
It should ~ clarified that in locating the essence of personal identity in
the uninterrupted existence of self-conscious awareness, Locke is nOl en·
dorsing the Cartesian idea that persons arc essentially disembodied souls.
In fact, Locke specifically contnldicts the Cartesian formulation, without
explicidy denying-perhaps to ensure the ~fety ofms own bodily life-:-the
immortaliry- of souls. Using another oft-quoted example, he says that If the
mayor or Queensborough happens to have whu was once the soul or
Socrates, but hu no memory or being Socntes and of having his experi-
ences, then, soul or no soul, the mayor is not the same person as Socrates.
This is because we have no way of attaining any knowledge of the soul; it is
beyond our consciousness and cannot constitute the essence of rational and
thinking persons. Unlike Descartes, theufore, Locke is not claiming that
hwnan consciousness or memory resides in some indesuuctible thinking
substance that nukes up the soul Wherqs Descartes would say dJU mern.
o could on! discover the identi f a n a' stituted the
is sa 'n that co n or memo is con 0 r·
so I cntJ .If there is no memo re is no identi .
e's theory gives us a simple and verifiable criterion to decide ques-
tions of identity. It is easy to show that, in this simple form, it is not a very
reliable criterion. however. What does it mean to say that for x at t I to be
the same person as 1 at ~,J must have the memory of ha~ng the experi-
ences or x at t I? Surely, if I am asked to umember my expen~nceson a ~­
tain date some twenry--five years ago, it is very likely that I WIll not remem·
bu\a single thing. Even in were asked about something more recent, su~
as which time or the day I wrote a particular paragraph iii few pa~ ~rher
in this book, I might still be unable to remember, By Locke's cntenon, I
would have to concede that I am no longer the slime person that I was
twenty-five years ago, or even last week'
\Vhen we say, following Locke, that to be the same person one must have
the memory of one's pa51l::xperiences, we cannot mean all of ~ne's past e.x-
peritnces. That would be to insist that om; cannot for&et iilD~mg. Th dlf· 7
ficulty is to decide how much go be forgotten without losmg one's ,den-
ti . If the Bhawtl sann si daimed that bec:a of the a$$a e of ears he
a orgotten.everything of the experiences of his life as the ~~nd lrumar,
would that be credible? Supposing we were to relax the requirement and
sa)" that he ought to remember at least some of those experiences, how
 I
122 CHAPTER EIGHT
much would be enough to e5ublish identity? If his memory of the particu-
lar eventS thlt he did rememl:M:r wert to be probed by cross.cnmination,
and jf he claimed th:H his memory W:lIS ronfused or unecmin would thu
destroy the case for identity? ' that this was the nonnal col\SCquence of having led a radically different life
The trouble is that Locke's criterion is not supple enough to tackle the
complexity of the psychological processes of memory. Recent philosophers
have attempted to improve on Locke's effon. Partir has proposed a concept
of psychological connectedness thar is morc complex than the simple no-
tion of the memol')~ of past ex~rience. I may be able [0 remember today
some of the expe.riences that I had twenty-five years ago. These would be
dircc:: memory oonnettions m:olt would meet Locke's criterion. But even if
I did not have any such direa: memories, there could still be continuity of
memory over these twenty-five years. This would be the case if there was
an overlapping chain of direct memory connections. Thus, from one day to
the nut, most peopl~ remember some of thdr c.xpcrienct:S on th~ praious
day. Between a time-point'l and, let us say, a time-point '100' a person at
, 100 may forgetevtrything that he aperienced U 'I" But he would hav~ n:-
membered many of those experiences of, I n'1 Oct us say, the foUowing
day); many ofrus expcrienct:S of'l' he would have remembered at tli and
so on to '100' So then: could be an overlapping chain of memories from ,
to '100· Between one time-point and the nut, say one day and the nen:
th~n: could be many direc:t connections or very few. Parlit suggests that if
at least half the number of direct connections thu hold over every day in
the Ji~ of most actual persons are preserved until It I«st the next day,
there lS strong connectedness. He then defines psychological continuity:ll5
the holding of overlapping ~hains of StrOng connectedness. The psycho-
I . I criterion of rsonal identi can then be stated' as farrows: x at' is
e same person as rat ,) if and only i x lS psychologtcal yc:ontinuous wUh-
L and with no other person.:z:; at ,]"
It is interesting to note that in Pamt's scheme, strong connectedness it-
selfcannot be the criterion of identity. The person y today may be strongly
connected to herselfyesterday, when she was Strongly cOnnected to herself
the d2y befor-e, and so on. But this does not mean that she is strongfy con-
nected to herself twenty-five years ago. Does this mean thatytoday is a dif-
ferentp:rson from y twenty-five years ago? To draw that conclusion would
be to repeat the error involved in Locke's simple mtmon. Pamt avoids the
error by maldng psychological continuity rather than connectedness th~
criterion of personal identity.
How is psychological continuity maint:2ined? Taken in the narrow sense,
psychological continuity can only have a nomul cause. 1Pus, if I seem to
remember having an experience only after it was suggested to me that I had
~t experience, then I did not Ictually remember it in the normal way. That
I~ to say, my appan:nt memory is not causally dependent on my past upe_
nenee but rather on the suggestion that I had that uperience. In the nar-
THE IDENTITY PUZZLE 12l
row interpretation, there is no psychological continuity hen:. The same
goes for changes in character. If the Bhawal sann)'2si displays a radically dif-
ferent ch:lraclcr from the second kumar, then it would have to be shown
\ for twelve yean; otherwise, there would be no psychological continuity.
Evcn if someone were to disp1:ly cxtraordinary lapses of memory about
one's past experiences, this could be because of the normal consequences of
a condition such as amnesia. In that case, even the absence of memory may
be regarded as nOI threatening psychological continuity, and hence per-
sonal identity, as mainuincd by nonn:ll causes. As we will see later, amne-
sia was a major point at issue in the Bh:lwal sannyasi case.
J( we accept th~ narrow interpret2tion of ps}'chological continuity, the
psychological criterion coincides in most cases with the physical criterion.
The nonnal causes of psychological continuity essentially imply the con-
tinued physical existence of the brain. Even when a person is suffering from
amnesia, it is a consequence of the malfunctioning, caused by injury or dis-
ease (neurosis) or decay, of his brain. We could say then that a test of psy-
chological continuity might serve justas well as an indicator ofphysical con-
tirluity. Questions of memory and character would figure very prominently
in the hearings and arguments of the Bhawal case.
In the wider interpretations of psychological continuity, not only nonnal
causes but any reliable cause, or indeed any cause, is considered acceptable
for maintaining psychological continuity, and hence for establishing per-
sonal identity. The examples philosopherYusc to pose the choice between
the narrow and the wide interpretations usually involve ..thought experi-
mans· when: drastic confusions arise in matching brains with bodies. We
will look at some of these cases presendy. But the implication of the choice
is that in the wider interpretation, even if psychological continuity bela a
normal cause, any other cause, so long as it can be established as a cause,
would be considered just as good. Thus., if the Bh:lw:al sannyui's loss of
memory of large parts of his alleged life as the second kwnar does not ap-
pear to have a normal cause, then any other cause, such as a shock with un-
known Consequencc:s or the mysterious ~cines given to him by the Naga
sadhus who rcsc:ucd him, would be consi<kred acceptable for establishing
psychological continuity. CI«rly, it would make a lot of difference which
interpretation of the psychological criterion is accepted. The choice, as we
will now sec., hinges on certain ethical or v:due considerations sulTOUnding
the iss\le of personal identity.
DoES W£NTTTY MA.1TtR?
To get a flavor ofhow the moral-philosophical problems ofidentity are posed
and arulyud, Itt w consider a f:a.mow "thought experiment" described by
 "4 CHAPTER EIGHT
Bernard Williams. Suppose two ~rsons A and 8 undergo an experiment
6
in which their entire memories, character traits, and other mentlll ch.anc-
tcristics are recorded and then switched. All of the mental properties ofA's
brain are now realized in B's brain, and vice versa. What was once A's body
now hu a br.ain with D's memories and char:ieteristics; what was once D's
body now has a brain with A's memories and characteristics. Let us Clilll the
first the A-body person and the second the B-body person. The question is:
who should we consider the nme temponJly continuous person with A-
the A-body person or the B-body puson?
To analyu the question, Williams adds a twist to the experiment. Let us
also suppose, he says, that before the operation, A and B are told th.u one
of the postoperation persons would be paid a large sum of money and me
other tortured, and thatA and B could choose which person they wouJd like
to be rewarded and which tortured. It is plausible to 2I"gUe th:n since A and
B know that their minds and bodies will be swapped, A would choose that
the B-body person be rewmted and the A-body person tormred, and B
would choose the opposite. Now suppose.,the uperimenter goes ahead with
the operations and then reWllCds theA-t¥>dy penon and tortures the B.body
person. The B·body person, now tuving the memories of A, will then jus.
tifiably complain that his choice was not respected, while the A-body per.
son, having the memories of B, will thank the experimenter for having acted
according to his wishes. We can then conclude that the B·body person is
the same person as A and the A-body person the same person as B.
N~ ~nsider another thought experiment: I am captured by a mad neu.
rosoentlSt,and told that my body would be subj«ted to torture, but before
that my aund would be erased of all my memories and character traits and
replaced by the memories and traits of another person. How would I feel?
Would I n~t be afraid of being tortured? But why should I, since the per-
son who wIll be tortured would have somebody else's mind? That would
pr?bably actually ~crease my anxiety, because DOt only would I be afraid of
being tortured but would also wony about the strange t;hings that will be
done to my mind. Mostcrucially, during all of these trlIumatic moments be-
fore the operati~n. I would remain convinced that everything that would
tu~ both dunng and after the operation would tuppen to 1m.
This produces an antinomy. The second aperiment is actually only an
alternanve description of the first esperiment, the difference being that in.
stead ofa neutral third-person account, it is natrlted in the first person. But
whereas th~ first experiment convinced us that the preoperation A and the
postoperanon A-body person were different persons, the ~cond experi-
m.ent seems to persuade: us that, opention or no operation, it is still me that
wIll undergo the trauma of torture.
A great dea~ has been written about the dilemma posed by Williams, and
many suggesuons tuve been made to resolve iL? We need not spend time
,
1
TilE IDENTITY PUZZLE
'"
here going into the mind·boggling complexities of.thi~ liten~, which
s«ms to reserve a special place for the mad neurosoenust and hiS endless
attempts to dupliate, split, or otherwise manip~lat~ brains an? swap their
locations in different bodies. For our purposes, It WIll be suffiCient to note,
first, that on the moral implications of the question of personal id<'.'11tity,
there are two broad approaches caUed the reductionist an~ che nonreduc-
tioniSt; and second, that cutting through that debate, there. LS D~rek Parol's
radical suggestion that what really ma.tten is nor personalldennty but psy.
chological continuity with Il7tJ kind of cause. . .
The reductionists basically uphold some version of the physical and/or
psychological criteria we have described before. They maintain, in other
words, that personal identity involves. the con?n~ed p.hysical ~see~ce of
enough of the brain and/or psycholOgical contmUity WIth the fight lcind of
cause. Pamt, as we have already noted, prefers to modify this position by
holding that any cause is sufficienL In contnst, no~eduetionistsdo ~ot ac-
cept that personal identity can be reduced to cerum bets about phYSical.or
psychological continuity. They insist that the ide~tity of a ~rson mUSt ~­
valve a funher net. This could be a sepa~te entity from his or her bram
2nd body, such as a wrteSian spiritual substance, for instance, or 2 separate
physical entity not yet recognized by .science, or at the vel)' least, some-
thing beyond the sum total of elements comprising the body and brain of
the person.
Pamt attempts to show that no matter how.careful.ly w~ de6~e p~ysi~1
and psychological mntinuiry, it is always posSIble to U1~agJne Sl[llltl~ns m
which persoll21 identity will be indeterminate and undeCIdable accordmg to
the reduetionist criteria. He condudes from this that what ma.ttcn is not
persona.! identity but continuity or a person in some fonn, that is, the per-
son's $Orvin!. Thus, if there was some teehnology th2t could TeCOrd the
exact state of all of the cells of my body:rnd brain and reproduce those cells
in an enct duplicate of me, that duplicate would be exacdy ~ m~ both
ph~cally and psychologically, with an exactly similar body and WIth the
~ memories md personality traits. Now, if it was suggested ~o me that
the origiml"I" be destroyed and the duplicate survive, would I mmd? Pame
2fgues that nothing would be lost if due was to tuppen. ~ether or, no~ 1
survive in my original body, my physical and psycholOgIcal continUity
would be maint2inc:d JUSt 2S well in my duplicate.
Though avidly discussed, Pamt's suggestion has not been wid.e1y ap-
proved. To many, it has seemed tOO radical a proposal chat goes agalOst ~e
grain of conventional assumptions. Once again, if we shift the perspe~ve
from a 6rst-person account to a third·person account, th~ m?ra.l chOIces
appear to become very different. Peter Unger asks us to smagtne how he
would feel if it was suggested to him that his wife Susan be replaced by:rn
exact duplicate. Ungu says that like most other people, he would refuse to

126 CHAPTER EIGHT
accept any s,uch pro~1. "Ev:i~endy. I do not.just care about the very many
highly specific qwhnes my wife has.... Quite beyond any of that, I care
about the one particular person who is my wife; I care about Susan and as
well, I care about the continuance: of my puticuJar relationship with he:....'
Unger, therefore, i.s insis~g ~2t .what matten in sUJ"Vival is not just phys-
tell and psychologJcaJ connnwty In some manner ot fonn but the identity
aCme particul:u individUJ1 th:n weV2Jue and identify with. It is not true that
in our actual and ordinary preferences, we are indifferent between h:aving
a relationship with a' particular person and his or her enct duplicate.
We have now rome to a crucial point in our discussion of the moral and
philosophical issues surrounding the BhaWlilI sannyasi case. The dominant
tendency in the legal approach to the question of identity, ~ we h;.ve aJ-
rea~ l1£Ked, is the narrowone th2t insists on physical and psychological
continuity based on normal ause; that an be demonstrllted and verified
by sciiiitific methods. Could there :also be:a Parfit-like view th:at pl:aces less
emph:lSi'SOrt the demonsmtion of identity :and tre:ats more seriously the
question of survival?"Reall th:at the question was :actu:ally posed :lner the
decision of the Calcutt:l High Court, on ilie :appeal in the defamuion suit,
Suren Mukherjee, a prominent l:awyer in'the S:lIUlyasi's amp, h:ad decl:ared
th:at it did not m:attel' if the court decided th:at the smnyasi's story h:ad not
been borne out by sufficient scientific evidence. Most of the Iromar's rela-
tives and all of the prominent people as well as th; peasant!: of Bh:awal b:ad
accepted the smn i as the second kumar, If we ut this in the hiloso h-
I temuno 0 we ha\"e introduced in this cba er, we sa:at the
sannyasJ succeeded to most of the socia D ps 0 e second
~, and that the physical:and psycholQliwcootinwtvofthekumar h:ad
..been ac:oomplished, whateVer the cause.ln other words. the kumar had sur-
!.Md m the sannyasi.
"!bere COUld) of course, also be:an Unger-type objection to this claim, an
obj~on ~t would come quite close to:l. nonreduetionist argument. With
:a slight twISt of the philosophical imagin:ation, we could think ofBibhflbati,
the second rani.:as putting forward exactly this objectior:L What did it mat-
h:r to her if all of .Bhaw:al thought th:lt the second hmw- had survived in
the sann~? She ~y VJ1ued the particular relationship that she had ac-
cepted ~th th.e partlcuJ~ perso~ who wu her huslwld. An eDIct duplicate,
to conunue WIth our philosophlal usage, was simply not good enough.
'What about the ~~emm~t? This question dem:ands a more compH-
~t~d answer. The B.nush offiCIals, both in the administntion :and in the ju-
dICIary, would ~rtalDly .have insisted on a clear demonsmtion of physiC:l1
and psycholDglcal conbJlUlty under nonnal causes lverined by scientific
n:'ethods. They woul~ have been app:alled by the suggestion that the sur-
VIval of the person by any" allSe wu sufficient. That, to them would have
meant granting a token of approval to the rutive fondness for ~racles. But
I
THE IDENTITY PUZZLE 127
an important change W:lS t:lking place in the very composition of the ad·
ministration and the judiciary beause of the rapid induction of Indian of-
ficers and judges in the 19205 and 19305. Thde were men who :we« DOL
only well trained in British :administrative and lepl doctrines :and ~racticc:s
bUt alSO d«l)1v imbued with the ideas of Western modernity that ~ had
encountered in their school and universitY education. But th~ ha also
grown up with the:
Wf):at .th~iOOld re
itf;1de of nationalism. Would tha ave aqy:.efFeet on
thuigln.criteria and the accept:lble evtdence of
idenuty. Let us make a no~ of this question' will answer it later.
---neforewe move on, we should also note thu in the Anglo-Amerian
philo.sophicalli~ratureon personal identity, Par6t is regarded as a radical.
This is beause by undennining thc importance given to the issue of iden·
tity, he l:aunches into a trenchant critique of the utilitari:an assumptions of
individu:al seif-inteust on which most of English-language moral philoso-
phy rests. To the.. charge that his claim is counterintuitive :and conmry to
conventional usage, Pamt would reply that that is bec:l.use conventional
usage is based on false :and imtional beliefs. "The truth is very different
from what we:are inclined to believe," he declues. 9 The attempt to :assert
a nonreductionist position against Pamt, such :as that by Unger, thus be·
comes an avowedly conse;rvative project, namely, to describe and defend the
actual values and beliefs ofordin:ary people regarding identity :and survival.
These "actual" values and beliefs of "ordinary" people are, of count,
deeply bound to p:articular O1ltural conditions, This is something that is en-
tirely unrcoogniud in the Angio-Arnerian philosophica1literawre. tied u
it is to:a universalist style of :argum~tltion.even when it seeks to do a phe-
nomenology of everyday life. When it is asserted that ordina intuition
places an irreducible nlue on - I b on "cube relation-
ps W1 'cular m the OYttWhelmin nwnber of
amp gJven are those of relations within the immediate nuclear &mil it
I$e:lSlY thatinothercu1 rommonsensemi twell
alU'l te ve different values to n rei .
a t P:arnt's radic:alJy :antiutilitarian ideas are expJicidy inOu-
eaced by Buddhist docttines of selfhood, from which, however, he draws
entirely universalist conclusions.
I believe"that my claims apply to all people, at all times. It would be disturb-
ing to discover that they are merely part of one line of thought, in the culture
of,Modem Europe and America.
Fortunately, this is not true. I claim that, when we ask what persons are, and
how they continue to exist, the fundamenal question is a choice between twO
views. On one view, we are scpantely aiRing entities, diJtinet from our brtin
and bodies 1M our experiences, Ind entities whose existence mU5t be all-or--
nothing. The other view is the Reductionist View. And I claim that, of thek,
 I
128 CHAPTER F.IGH"r
the serond view is mit:•... Buddha 1lJf1U1J hllN agTrtJ. The ReducrioniSI View
is nOl merely i»rt of onc culturallNdition. It m:ay be, as I have daimed, the
[ruc view about all people at all times. IO
It is de2( th:u even radicals within the Anglo-Americ:an tndilion of philos-
ophy would ste<ldf2StJy resist the idea of a culrunl hislOry of rruth.
"UATIVE loENTfTY: SAMENESS AND SELf HOOD
The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, who comes from the Europe:m phe-
nomenologial and henneneutic tn:dition, MS rea:ndy attempted to tnm-
.scend the impasse posed by the reductionist and nonccductionist ap-
pro:llchc:s to the question ofidenti[)' by introducing me concept ofnarr.lti\'c
identity. II RicoaIr focuses on N'O very different Roses of the: term iden-
tity. The first is identity as s:ameness, which tS derive'd from the Latin idrm.
Both numerical and qWllit20ve identity refer to this sense of me: tenn. in
iu
fact, me: entire ~ductionistappro:llch in all variantS may ~ s«;n as a WlIy
to dc:tenninc: personal identity in the senSe of sa~ess. But thue is an-
oth~.sense in which the word identity is used in the European languages.
nus IS the sense ofse!£hood, deriving from the Latin ipg. The puuJes and
paradoxes posed in the Anglo-American analytical literature: from the time
?f J...o:e*e ~d Hume are, says Rice:xur, the result ofconfbting one ~ of
Idenbty With the other. When nonreduetionists tlIk of identity that cannot
be reduced to the body and brain, they mean sellhood in a sense: that is nOt
JUSt sameness. The two senses must be distinguished if one wishes to avoid
the confusing antinomies that come up so frequently in the literature:. Yet,
~Itbough sameness and selfhood must be distinguisbed, they clearly occur
m tan~em, closely conn~ to each other. How -are we to distinguisb them
and Shll hold on to the Idea that they are two senses of the notion of per.
sonal identity?
Ri~ur.suggests thu sameness and selfhood come together in narrative.
The cotena of sameness over time have to be flexible enougb, as we have
seen, to a~mmod.ate.changes that do not destroy the essential physical or
psychol~g1cal conbnwty of a person. This means that there is opel'llting
here an. Idea of structure, something that endures over time, while changes
are. registered and.explained in tenos n(events. This is precisely what nar-
I'lItlVes do-dl!SCTlbe the continuity of structures through a sequence of
~ents. In the case of personal identity, the rel~vant narrative forms are life
history and liction, in both of which the two senses ofidentity-sameness
and selfhood--c:ome together in the idea of chal'lleter. Character consists
of"th
. ..e seta fd··· ISbnCbve mar~ •.. which permit the reidentification ofa human
Indwldual as being the same."12 As is clear from narratiye stnuegies, this
TilE IDENTITY PUZZLE 129
reidentification depends nOt only on numerical and qualitative identity but
also on an understanding of uninterrupted continuity and permanence in
time. \¥hen a chil'llCler is established, "the satneness of the person is des-
ignated emblematically." That is to say, it "design:ues the set of lasting dis·
positions by which a person is recognized. In this way character is able to
constitute the limit point where the problematic of IPJt becomes indis-
cernible from that of iJmr, and where one is inclined not to distinguish them
from one another. >tU
The concept of chal'llctcr embedded in narrative gives stability to per-
sonal identity. A chal'llcter inevitably has a history in which it acquires new
traits and dispositions, often brought about through a sequence of events
that induces the chal'llcter to innoV2te. These innovations aCCtlmulate and
lea"'e a ~diment in the character, which thus acquires a pennanence by
which it can be reidentified despite changes brought about by events. It is
here that sameness and sdfhood m·etlap. When one thinks one knows the
set of pennanent traits that belong to a character, one can reidentify it as
the SInPU person and, from the same evidence, also argue that those tr2its
constinlte a further fact, designating the st/f, not rroucible to the body and
brain of the person.
To locate the problem of identity in IUIrrative is a crucial move, because
it shifts the focus from experience and memory to accountS of events. The
issues of physical and psychological continuity would of course remain, but
now the narntive of events in the history of our real or fictional character
would seek to u:pUm changes in chara~ as Clused by the impact of those
events. Not only t,hat, Ricocur also (Ktint:S out that no namtive is morally
neutral. Even as it desaibes the actions of its characters, a story invites the
reader or listener tojrdgr those actions. The functions of description, per-
suasion, and prescription are fused together in narrative.
It is not difficult to see why the move to namtive identity becomes rel-
evant for us in dealing with the material of the Bhawal sannyasi ca~. We
have pointed out the difficulty in applying the physical or psychological cri-
teria of identity to the case ofthe sannyasi. How on earth could anyone ver-
ify if enough of the second Irumac's brain survived in the sannyasi for him
to have remembered over every day between 1909 and 1933 at least half the
number of things that most people normally rememocr over each day? In·
evitably, then, the procedure would end up in comparing physical features,
identifying bodily marks, matching chal'llcttr tr2its, and setting tests of
mem0'lt to serve as indices of physical and psychological continuity. Ap-
pa~nt discrepancies would be explained precisely by describing II narrative
of events that would causally link the chanp in physical or psychological
chal'lltter to those events. Those proclaiming the truth of the sannyasi's
story would narrate the events in such a way as to preserve the integrity of
the character of the second kumar, asserting its continued existence into his
 no CHAPTER EIGIlT
lif~ as :II sannyasi :md th~n as the plaintiff, despite all the changes brought
:lbom by his eventful life Th~ denying the truth of that story would at·
tempt to show that the changes were too drastic to be: accommodated within
the life history ofthe same character, that the proffcr~ explanations stretched
the n2rnuve beyond the limits of the credible.
\\'hat we an expect then are rival narratives. They will differ not because
they will be different descriptions of !.he same events. Rather, by offering
different ausal connections ~tween evenrs and physial or psychological
change, and by asserting different constructions of the selfhood of the ch:ar-
aetcr, th~ rinl narntives would present ,-ery different emplonnents of
events over time. NO[ only that, they could also appeal to different criteria
ofwhat is plausible or credible in:ll narr.ui,oc. None ofthese can be assumed.
Despite Ricoeur's :attempt to bring mgether tht: reduetioniSt and nann.
duetionist claims within a dialectical conception of the narrati...e, the puz.
zJes posed by the philosophical literature on identity are not by any means
removed. Ricoeur is able to attribute a cenain stability to the concept ofthe
character, evolving through time by a eumulation of sedimented change
that qualifies and enriches it without destroying its pennanent structure,
largely because he assumes the stability of the position of the narrator who
"knows· the Story. To :lI certain extent, this results From Ricoeur's concern
~th 6~on:ll1 n:llrntive, both literary fiction :lind science fiction, :liS provid-
rng an tmportllnt corpus of"thought uperiment" :accounts that throw light
on the problenuofdetermining penon:lll identity. But whu about situations
in which the nuntor does not h:ll...e control over his n:llrntive? Thinle of
our sinution with the story of the Bh:llW:ll.I nnnyasi. Who is our ch:llracter?
Do we even have:ll name fOr him? Ever since his rerum to]:lIidebpur in 1921
:lind his subsequent claim to the personhood of the second lcumn we have
h:lld to nurate his story under the sign of a question mark.. This i; because
we Iu....e chosen to respect the conventions of historical n:llrrative and not
arTOg:lIte to oursel...es:ll control over the destiny of our c:haraeters that is not
~ ~ by the eridmce before us. How can we speaIc persuasively ofthe
OOl1DnWty of the lcurrw--sannyui dunctttwhen we,:as hiStorians ofms life
C:llUIOt :lIvoid confronting the undecidability of his identity?
~e can .also ~ thu despite the facility afforded by the namative con-
cepoo.n of t~e~oty, the challenge posed by Pufit's ndical suggestion-per-
~n:lll tdenntr 1$ not wh2t m:lltters-annot be easily :lInswered. E...en :lifter
Ricocur's valiant :lIttempt to integnte a nonreduetionistview ofthe selfwith
~e reduetionist emph:llsis on Sameness, he concedes th2t in some ofthe Iim-
long cases described in litenry :lIccounti, identity does become undecid-
able. Should we not ny then thu Pu6t is right? Ricoeur resists this move.
B~t ~e does :lICttpt that.the monl found:lltion of selfhood in the "owner-
~P ~ a penon over his or her memories, :lIetions, and feelings is flawed.
In a philosophy ofsc:lfhood lilce my own, one must be 2ble to ny that GWn-
THE IDENTITY PUZZLf III
ership is not whu m:lltters. What is suggested by me limiting cases pro·
duced by the n:llmati...e im2gin:lltion is ~ dialttti.c of ownership and dispos-
session, ofcare :lind carefreeness, 2 self-:lIffinnation and self-ef'hcement. Thus
the im:llgined nothingness of the self becomes the existenc:lIl 'crisis' of the
self,·'"
Does this help us in our narr:liU...e predicament? C:lIn we speak :lIbout the
problems of detennining the identity of the sanny:llsi as an existential crisis
of the self? To begin with, direct :lIccounts of the S:lInny:llsi expliating the
inner workings ofms self are miniscule. The o ...erwhelming bulk of the nn·
nyasi's story is in the form of narratives construettd by others-rel:llti...es,
friends, usociues, supponers, witnesses, 2nd I:lIwyers. Gi en whu is ani!-
2ble to us as evidence, we luve to admit that ~ speculati e eIerOse on the
aistenrial oisis of the self of the lrumar-nnnyasi is not the most interest-
ing historical task before us. We must not, however, forget that the ques-
tion of self-reg:llrding:and other-reg:llrding oiteria of identity h:as been :lI1-
. ready introduced into our case. One p!:lInk of the sannY:llsi's Story W:lIS th.e
c1:l1im th:llt he had been recognized and :lICttpted as the second lrumar by hiS
rebti...es, his friends and :lIcquaintances, and by the ten:llnts of his estlltt:. The
second lrumu, 25 he was regarded by others. lad survived in the smnY:llsi.
So· why bother any more :lIbout identity? Of course, it was objected th2t h~s
wife, the second rani, h:lld not recognir..ed him and had refused to :lIccept hiS
story. But this, the smnyui's supporters said, was because of her n2~w
self.interest. She was refusing to accept wh2t everyone else h:lld recognized
because it was in her interest to maiptain the legal statuS quo.
Can we accept this? Is it nir to ny that whereas the S:lInnyasi's story put
forward a pl2usible case for going beyond the limits of individu:lli interest
to recognize the collective wisdom of:ll luger community of people who,
so to S:lIy. constiruted the site for locating the soci:ll\ person:ll of the lrumar,
the rani was bent on obstructing this course because of her nuTOW self-
interest? Did she not constitute:ll aucia1 part of the "others" of the Irum2r?
Should we not recognize Wt it is possible for a collective consensus to be
opptessive and unjust for some? What ue we to do when the collective body
' of "others· is marked by radical conHiet? It is not 2 situation that in~egn­
rive theories such:as Ricoeur's can handle very weU. As for us, prepanng to
unfold the story of the tri:lll :lind its senS:lltion:lll conclusion, we lu.ve to 2e-
cept for the time being the fact that the problems posed by the cue of the
BhaW:li1 S:lInnyasi rem2in deeply puwing.
lotNTlTY ANO RtcOGNITION: INOICENOUS NunONS?
There is one more upect. of this phiJosophial nUltter thu we should co.n-
sider, because it will lave I bearing on some of the legal deb2tes th2t anse
JL.-- _

CHAPT.IC f.IGHT
b.ter in our Story. We have so far spoken only of me modem Western phjlo~
sophia! discussion on identity. This ~'U justified, since that is the ground
on which the prindples and proceduf!..~ of British Indian law were founded.
But is there a different philosophical Indician in India that treats these
questions differe~dy? Could. these ideas have molded, through language
and cultural pracoces, the actions and lc:iomonies of people involved in the
Bhllw:al s:annyasi affair? We should oUr Immediately that unlike many Eu-
ropean 'phil?sophe~ 2nd jurists. Indi:U1 philosophical authority was :almost
neverClted In the mal we are about to Ilcscribe. N~nheless, the question
of cu]tu:ally em~dded assump~ons. Irmsmined through language, rirual,
and SOCIal P:acoces, does remam relcyant. They did become subjects of
controversy 1Il the legal battles moer the; sannyui.
It will be useful to make two general points about Indian philosophical
discussions on id~ntity and r~tion. First, although II great deal of In-
dological scholarship since the nin~leenth century, bom in th~ West and in
Indill, has focussed on the jtnum of the Upanishads as "the Indian notion
of the self," this is by no means the whule story. The Upanishadic.itrnan is
spirit or consciousness for which the world is object. It is universal, disin-
terested; itS knowledge is objective, valid for'cveryone. To say "my amun"
or "you.r atman" in me same WlIy that IIn~ SlIys "my self" or "your self"
would, m fact, be meaningless. This is nUl a notion of selfhood that would
yield, for instance, the narrative identity uf a chancter as described by Ri-
coeur: But .alth~gh ~e ~cept ~f atman as subject is oeruinly t very
pronunent Idea m Indian philosophical thought, it is not true to say that the
co~cept of person as I. ~ncrete, bodily emity that calls itself "I" does not
W~L The person, as dist1nCt from the atlllan, is a lutrtli (agent) and a hWU
(enJOyer), He or sbe relates to objects in the world not as objects ofknowl-
edge bu~ as objects.of affect or desire. Ob;ttts arc attractive or repulsive, to
~ acquired or aVOided. ~e person li,·es in a mundan~ world of interests;
his or her knowledge of this world both determines and is detennined by
th~ life of inte~ Such knowledge produces desire (iab$), which in tum
lea~ to app~opriat~ action (pr~), ",hid1, if successful, gives pleasure,
and ifnot, pam. This mundane, empirical person is what bnnches ofknowl-
edge ~ch as law, medicine, or social ethics hne to deal with.
TIus concept of the person, when it ap~rs as a philosophical idea is as
J: N. M6hantynot~~ "w~ con~pt."1SThat is to say, it does not ~'us,
lik~ the nonreductloDlst Vlew of ldentit)'. an irreducible and unanalysable
~ty m2t.we call,tht person, On the contr.lt)', the person as a lepl or so-
~Ial agent IS reduc~le to the psymoph}'S.ieaI body that:lets and enjoys. This
15 t complex of botilly sens<:s, ego, and intdl«'t that, obviously, is not quite
the same as Partit's physial continuity of the bniJ, (not even in the case of
~e Buddhist philosopbe~) but nevertheless implies a kind of reductionist
Vltw of the person. But the Indian philosopher would :llso S:ly Wt this per-
I
THE IDENTITY PUZZLF 133
son-me legal or social agent-who is nothing other than the psyeho-
physiC:lI body, is nOt self-conscious, for this empirical person could act with-
out knowing it, unselfconsciously. Self-consciousness comes only when the
psychophysical body is united with the objective consciousness called atnl:ln,
Thus. although there is definitely t concept of me concrete person that
actS in the empirical world and is reducible to a physical-~~olDg1cal en·
tity, it occupies an inferior position in the hienrchy of Indan Ide:as of self·
hood, Ideas of the knowing subject with objective :lnd univ~rsal conscious-
ness have much gre:lter philosophical, and on~ might S:ly. e:.:ul~r:tl, '':llue.
Contemponry social historians oflndia might argue that this hler-..rchy of
ideas of selfhood probably reflects the cultural dominance of Bnhminical
values in Indian intellcetuallife,l6
Second, coming to the problem of recognition, it is necess<llry to note that
no school of Indian philosophy recognizes memory (smrri) as :l source of
true cognition (Jrr:tmui1)4).17 There are many reasons given for rbi,S. For in-
stance, it is said that whereas perception makes itS object ImO....'ll wlmout re-
ducing it to other causes. memory can onl)' rC\'e:ll itS object by awakening
tl'2ces (~sJtirtl) of past experience. This always I~\'cs room for doubt
(sltrliltyll). Other philosophers S:ly that memory cannot yield knowledge of
any kind, because the p:ast experience that is its object is no longer there-
it docs not exiSL If we leave aside these extreme views. it remains a fact that
even those schooJs that gnnt some role to memory consider it an imper-
fect and inferior mode of knowledge,
To consider a problem Wt is dirttdy relev:ant for uS, let us look at the
logical treatment by the Nyiya philosophers of fJ"lItyllbbiftii or recognition.
Recognition, they S:ly, is different from m~mory. Memory is a revival of a
past experience a.nd t2kcs the fonn of a representation of ideas and images
in the same form and order in which they were experi~nced in the pasL
Recognition. on the other hand, is a qualified perception that is brought
about by the direct cognition (",uhbITVII) of an object but also involves an
clement of representation in the form of traces of p2St experience ~.
stirll). Recognition, therefore, unli.kt memory itself, could yield some son
of qualibed true cogrution.
Let us first examine memory. The reuon why memory awakens a past
experience is bcca.use latent impressions or traces of that experience are re-
tained in the soul (itmllj. (It is significant that the place where impressions
are retained is the solll, which most schools of philosophy accept as inde-
~Ie; this means that impressions may be transmitted from one bio-
logical life to another, which allows some people to remember some expe-
riences from a past life.) There arc many specific causes that might r~ve
the impression ofan original past cognition (plirNttUhhinJII), such as, for 10-
stance, association, repetition, similarity, 14Jqm,u1 orchancteristic mark. and
so 00. But memory can be vilid (y"thirtbll) as well as invalid (tlJiltbirthil),
 /
n4 CHAPTER EIGUT
Knowledge (hddJII)
Cognition (."ubbiTl/6)
FIG\1U 6. The N)'iyI. dusi6carioo afknowledge
The validity depends on whether the original cognitions were nuc. If so,
the memory is in la:ord with the re31 nature ofthe objectS remembered Ind
so is wlid; if not, it is not in accord with the objectS remembered lind so is
invalid. (The. question here is nOl whether we have. remembered correctly
but wh~thc.r the memory is that of an origin:al true cognition.) Thus, I may
remember having filet someone in my childhood who spoke [0 me in Chi-
nese, but in actual fact she was only spe:lking gibberish, which I tooL:: to be
Chinese. My mcltlfry is inwlid because it did nOt revive a true original cog-
nition. The Nyiya philosophers speak of dreams, for instance, as necess2r·
ily invalid memory. But even wbm a memory is valid and awakens 11 true
past cognition (for instance, my memory ofbeing caned at school), it is DO(
in itselfpr.mu Of" true cognition, since the object of cognition is not present
and the.cognition does not2risc: OUt ofthe object itsd£. (It might be a cause
of relief to me that the headm2m:r is not standing behind me with his ane,
but I would still have to deny myself a true cognition.)
Recognition or pratyabhijiU means knowing a thing as that which was
known before. It is not only knowing thal a thing is such-and-such (as in
perception) but also that it is the same thing that ~e saw before. To repeat
the most &equendy quoted enmple here (which is exactly relevant to our
problem), I meet. man called Devadatu in Benaras. "'1b.is is Devadatta,-
~ say to myself. Seeing him, I remember meeting someone called Devadatt:l
In Ma.thura many years 21goi -this is Devadana: I h2ld .s:aid to myself then.
THE IDENTITY PUZZLE IlS
There is a true cognition now, there was a true cognition in the p:aSl, there
is an aMkening of the tr::Ice ofa past experience. But this is still not pratyab-
hiji'ia or recognition. That happens when I now say to myself: "This is the
same Devadatta that I saw in Mathura."18
What sort of cognition is this? The Buddhist philosophers say it is a com-
bination of perception and memory. It is nOl perception, because it relates
to a past obje<:t with which there cannot be a sense-contllet. I have no per-
ception (pratyaqa) of the Devadatu I saw in Mathura. But it is not pure
memory, which can only refer to the past, whereas J'ecognition refers to a
present object: "This Devad.atta is the same as that Oevadam." It is also not
a fusing of perception and memory, since the former arises OUt of sensation
and the Inter out of imagin.ation and the two could not be fused into 21 sin-
gle product. PratyabhijJli, say the Buddhists, is a dw.1 cognition, including
both perception and memory and referring respectively to the two aspectS
of .an object.as "tI).is" and "thn," th.at is, as present and past.
The Nyiy.a philosophers c1.aim, however, th.at pr.aty.abhijna is a single
psychic act because it refers to one and the same object. There is a unique
cause (i:'arll!U) of the phenomenon of recognition that is constituted by the
senses and by the tr::Ices of past experience. Recognition gives us knowl-
edge of an object as e:risting in the present and as qualified by its rdation
to the put. A thing's relation to past time or • past experience is a chanc-
ter that qualifies its present existence. To know this is to know that we have
perceived it befOre, that is, to recognize iL Thus, there is an dement of rep-
resentation that takes the form of 21 de'finite recollection of some past 6 -
perience of an object and that modifies its present perception. But it is
nonetheless perception, albeit qualified, because: it is brought about by a
sense-object contaet. 19
It is not necessary for us to recount the abstruse, though often quite fas-
cinating, arguments and countenrguments made by Nyiy.a, VaiSePka and
Mimiqtsa philosophers on this point. One important fe2ture of this deb.ate
is the persistent concern with the possibility of doubt (~) about the
knowledge produced by recognition. When I say "This Devadan:a is the
same as r::Iut Dev2datta,- what is the "that-ness- (tiltUl here? 1£ it is said, for
instance, that it is the combination of past: qualities known to me from past
experience, me contempof2ry Nyip philosopher will reply: "Suppose: I
have sem five black. pens in the past of which one is mine, and I see one
black pen before me now. Is this that pen that belongs to me? I am certain
about 'the past qualities, but cannot eliminate doubt about that_ness."20
When I ask, "Is this Devadam that Devadattl?" there can be many reasons
for doubt about whether my perception of "this-ness" (iJ4"tJ) qw.Jified by
the knowledge of"that·ncss" (unal has yielded a true cognition. This De-
vadatu, I see, is fat, whereas that Invadatta wu not; but then,.the "fatness-
m.ay be a consequence of the pass:a~ of time. Then 21gain, that Devsdatta
136 CHAPTFR EIGIIT THE lI)ENTlTY PUZZLE Il7
had long black hair, this Devadaua IS bald; mat tOO may be a change true cognition. Th~ Carvin philosophers say that if a testimony is aceepted
brought about by rime. \V~ are back, once more, to th~ problem of dia- as rrue because it comes from a trustworthy person, it is only an inf~r~nce
chronic identity; the Ny:iya philosophers are ever watchful for the presence (IInllmin4) from his char:lleter to th~ truth of hi~statemenl.Th~r~ is no in-
of doubt. and the possibility of error. in the knowl~dge produced by recog- {Ie~ndent source of knowledge h~re. The Buddhists add th:n if from a tcs-
nition. The qualified percepuon of pratpbhiji'li cannot have the same eer- timony we seek to prove that th~r~ arc actual facts corresponding to th~
uinty as pratyalq;a. statement, w~ reduce it to ~rception (pratylli[II). Here tOO there is no in-
Indeed, it is a general characteristic of the Nyiya theory that for nonin- dependent source of knowledg~. Th~ Nyaya philosophers, however, insist
ferential knowleage. especially of a kind that docs not fall into the class of tha.[ ~3bda is neither inference nor perception, because the validity of the
the familiar, rruth it; never appr~hended from the beginning. There is al- knowledge produced by testimony depends not on the validity of the state-
W3}'S the scope, and indeed the n~ed, for further validation or corr~ction.ll ment or of the facts corresponding to the statement but on the trUStwor·
One might say that whereas the primacy of perception in the yiya phi- thiness of the unerer. Being realists, the Nyaya philosophers were, we can
losophy gives it a realist bent, its questioning of the other modes ofknowl- guess, only att~mptingto theorize the fal."t that w~ accept on trust by fa.r the
edge makes room within it for a large m~asure of scepticism. 21 greater part of what we hold to be true. It is only a question of trusting the
Anomer rele\<"3nt foNre of these debatC$ is that even when knowledge is right authorities. But th~y w~re also emphasizing th~ speci6c mode of
prov~d to be invalid. it is not necessarily wh~lIy false. Thus. walking on the knowledge invoh'~d in deciphering the meanings of words and sent~nttS
beach, I se~ a piece of silver. Picking it up, I realize it is a seashell. My ~r­ required for an und.erstandingofverbaltcstimony. Sabela cannot be reduced
lier perception is prm'ed to be erroneous. put. th~ Nyiya philosopher will to inf~r~nce, they say, because we do nor h;wc to know th~ meanings of
53y, it was not entirely false, because the ~ashell does have some of the qual- words to infer fire from th~ sight of smok~. But we cannOt gain any knowl-
ities of "sikerness.- Of course. although false knowledge. is not always ~dge from a lecture on physics if we do nor understand th~ meaning of th~
wholly false, rrue knowledge must be true in all respeets. lJ words and sentences being spoken by the lecrurer. lJ
Two final points about memory and itS rol~ in recognition. The V.iSqib ~r:lIl of these knorty philosophical issues will crop up in the legal d~­
philosophers argue that when one rem~mbers, the trace or impression bates o~r the trial of the Bhawal sannyasi. Let us go there without further
(Si11(fSiir4) of past experience that is awakened is immediately destroyed, but delay.
a n~w impression is then croted. If I rem~mber someth.ing fr~quently, th~
sarpslcira is also frequendy renew~d. S~cond, th~ passage of time can de-
stroy a satpwra if there is no memory that revives it. Som~ diseases, such
as those of the mind, can destroy salpslcira. Death destroys saTflsJclra; even
the most learned man will nOt remember his learning in his nen life. But
neither time nor disease nor death will dotroy all S2TJlslcira. Sadly, it is im-
possibl~ to tell which impressions disappear and which surviv~; "only the
Supreme Lord knows that,- th~ philosoph~rs will say.2i
One more fonn oflmowledgt: is relevant to the next part of our story of
the Bhawal salUlyasi, and that is testimony or i4bJJz. Troe verbal testimony
is accepted by the Ny:jya philosophers as rrue cognition (prll11Ui"Jll). In fact,
it is pointed out that a very great part of the knowledge. we ha~ (tb~
hilosophers obviously mean learned peopl~ like·th~mselves) is nOt from
ur own perception of objects but from Qur perception of the words and
ntences we hor from our t~lchers or read in boob. Tro~ cognition pro-
!iced by labda consists of our undeT'Standiog of the statem~nts of trust-
'orthy persons. Sabda Of" verbal tetimony is of twO lcinds: the v.idib or
edic is divine testimony and therefore infallible; the lIIukiill or human tes-
'mony is true only when it com~ from a trustworthy person.
Not all philosophers accept that v~rbal testimony is a distinct source of