by Sudhir Kakar
72 T.K. Tukol, Sallekhana Is Not Suicide, L.D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, 1976, p. 17.
73 See Sanjay V Metzha, ‘Sallekhana vs. Suicide’, Journal of Spiritual and Religious Care, 30 September 2003. http://www.omc.ca/omni/archives/000036htm.
74 For a more profound understanding of bhuts, see S. Kakar, ‘The Indian Psyche’ in Lord of the Spirit World, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1996.
75 See A. Vallely, Guardians of the Transcendent, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2002, p. 129.
76 I have summarized Kirin’s story here, a story told by A. Vallely in her study of a nun’s community in Rajasthan. See Vallely, 2002, p. 132-39.
77 H. Chhapia/M. Choksi, ‘Is santhara against the law?’, Times of India, 20 March 2010, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Is-santhara-against-the-law/articleshow/5704783.cms#ixzz1E6ISmDZb.
78 Laidlaw, 2002, p. 263.
79 Ibid., p. 262ff.
80 Suicide is a crime under Indian law, and attempting suicide is a penal offence under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code; euthanasia is banned in India.
81 They argue that santhara is a fundamental breach of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to life, but not death.
82 A former Rajasthan High Court judge Pana Chand Jain argues that the Constitution secures to all its citizens liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, and that every citizen has the freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion. Article 29 goes further, declaring that every citizen having a distinct culture shall have a right to conserve the same. If any law comes into conflict with the constitutional rights, it will have to yield. See H. Chhapia/M. Choksi, 20 March 2010.
83 He refers here to two affluent ladies of the Jain community—Kela Devi Hiravat and Vimla Devi—both terminally ill, who took the vow of santhara in 2006 and thus triggered the legal debate.
84 Cited from BBC Religions, Normal Fasting, last update 10 September 2009, http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/jainism/customs/fasting_1.shtml.
85 The Hindu tradition also knows a practice of fasting to death called prayopavesa. Here, fasting to death is solely practised by gurus in old age—those whose bodies have served its purpose, those who are terminally ill and have no desires left. A more recent example is the fasting to death of the Californian-born Hindu guru Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami in 2001.
86 There are numbers circling around that 200-600 Jains in India are fasting to death each year—numbers that are reported in Indian newspaper articles, encyclopaedias and the Internet. The actual numbers, however, are very ambiguous. The Hammond Atlas of World Religions by Elizabeth Mechem, Robert Huber, and Stuart A.P. Murray (2008) states, for example, a number of 200; Babulal Jain Ujjwal, editor of the All India Jain Chaturmas Suchi, a veritable source of information, is more precise and claims that the practice of santhara is spiralling and that 550 Jains took the vow in 2009 compared to 465 in 2008 (see H. Chhapia and M. Choksi, ‘More Jains embracing ancient santhara ritual’, Times of India, 18 March 2010, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/More-Jains-embracing-ancient-santhara-ritual/articleshow/5696175.cms#ixzz1E6J3M6qv; in many more online articles, people seem to copy the numbers of other online posts. It is unclear, however, where these numbers are derived from, since most santhara vows go unrecorded.
87 Because of the controversy around the legality of santhara since 2006, the announcement of santhara vows are rarely published in newspapers these days. Earlier, mainstream Gujarati and Hindi papers would carry one-page advertisements to enable people to come and pay their respects to the dying person. Fearing public debate, laypeople often take vows of santhara more quietly, and thus they go unrecorded.
88 H. Chhapia and M. Choksi, ibid., 18 March 2010.
89 By modern ‘Western’ culture I do not refer to the West as a mere geographical region, but include ‘westernized’ communities, mainly modern middle and upper classes of all cultures.
‘Adding Life to the Dying: Palliative Care and Psycho-Oncology’, Pia Heußner and Almuth Sellschopp
1 Sepulveda, C. et al. (2002). ‘Palliative Care: The World Health Organization’s Global Perspective’, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. 24: 91-96.
2 Radbruch, L., F. Nauck, E. Aulbert. (2007). ‘Grundlagen der Palliativmedizin: Definition, Entwicklung und Ziele’. In L. Radbruch, F. Nauck, and E. Aulbert (Eds) Lehrbuch der Palliativmedizin. 2nd edition. Stuttgart: Schattauer. 1-14.
3 Fegg, M., C. Riedner, et al. (2009). ‘Psychoonkologie in der Palliativmedizin’. In P. Heußner et al. Manual Psychoonkologie, 3rd edition. Munich: Zuckschwerdt. Pp. 240-69.
4 European Association for Palliative Care, EAPC. (2010). ‘Definition von Palliative Care’. http://www.eapcnet.eu/Corporate/AbouttheEAPC/Definitionandaims.aspx (last visited 10 October 2012).
5 Lundy, K.S., and S. Janes. (2009). Community Health Nursing: Caring for the Public’s Health. 2nd edition. Mississauga: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, p. 994.
6 Jünger, S. (2009). ‘Berufsbild für Psychologen in Palliative Care’, Z Palliativmed. 10: p. 72.
Symbolizing a Definitive Absence—A Psychoanalytic Reflection on Death and Dying
* I dedicate this essay to the memory of Petra von Keutz-Vogel, co-foundress of the Rheinish Institute of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in Cologne, and our group analyst, who passed away on Friday, 12 August 2011.
More from the ‘Boundaries of Consciousness’ series
On Dreams and Dreaming
Edited by Sudhir Kakar
Mapping the uncharted territory at the edges of psychological knowledge, these fascinating essays explore compelling aspects of dreams and dreaming. They discuss topics as diverse as memorable dreams, lucid dreaming, the role of dreams in the evolution of human consciousness, and the relationship between dreams and the waking state.
In ‘The Dream and Its Embedding’, psychoanalyst Patrick Mahony demonstrates, with absorbing case-studies, how dreams can become effective therapeutic tools, while dream scholar Kelly Bulkely concludes in ‘Big Dreams’ that, ultimately, the function of dreams is to make the brain grow. Luigi Zoja, dream analyst, explores the profusion of nightmares among soldiers, prisoners and other victims of war in ‘Nightmares’. And Madhu Tandan, who lived for seven years at an ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas, explains how dreams can access a level of consciousness beyond the psychological.
This volume is the first in the ‘Boundaries of Consciousness’ series, which, under the leadership of Sudhir Kakar, seeks to bring together psychoanalysts, philosophers, religious-studies scholars and neuroscientists in order to expand the frontiers of current psychological understanding. Subsequent volumes will spring from symposia held at Wasan Island, Canada, on the supernatural, death and dying, and creativity and imagination.
Edited and introduced by Sudhir Kakar, On Dreams and Dreaming will be of interest to scholars and to all who dream and seek to understand why.
Seriously Strange: Thinking Anew about Psychical Experiences
Edited by Sudhir Kakar and Jeffrey J. Kripal
Despite being sullied by frauds and dismissed by sceptics, the paranormal has exerted a strange fascination over humankind for centuries. In Seriously Strange, a group of nine intellectuals come together to shed light on some of the most baffling experiences on record—psychical experiences.
Through these illuminating essays, they tell us how such extraordinary events can be decoded and interpreted to become the object of rigorous scientific study. The range is wide: from essays that reveal how Freud and Jung engaged with the notion of the paranormal to a provocative and humorous memoir of a physicist who spent over a decade running a secret psychic spying programme for
the US government during the Cold War; from heartfelt accounts by practising psychiatrists of the anomalies in their healing practice to a learned call for the renewal of professional parapsychology in the light of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
By telling their own stories and exploring some of the implications of their work, these men and women map the mind-bending geography of the human psyche and the spectrum of experiences—love and death, desire and sex, hurt and healing, myth and magic—that influence it.
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin…
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This collection published 2014
Copyright © Sudhir Kakar 2014
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ISBN: 978-0-670-08464-7
This digital edition published in 2016.
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