PARALLELS BETWEEN INDIAN AND WESTERN ECOFEMINIST ETHICS IN INDIRA GOSWAMI'S THE MAN FROM CHINNAMASTA

Abstract

The paper offers an ecofeminist reading of Indira Goswami's The Man from Chinnamasta (2006) by applying Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta's conceptual framework of classical Indian philosophy, presented in An Introduction to Indian Philosophy (1939). The paper analyses Goswami's novel through four interrelated classical Indian philosophical concepts: the Samkhya concept of Prakriti, the Shakta Tantric concept of Shakti, the Jaina ideology of Ahimsa, and the Advaita Vedantic identification of the divine as sarvam khalu idam Brahma (all is God). These Indian philosophical ideologies constitute the deep structure of the novel's critique of patriarchal religious authority, colonial ecological extraction, and the systematic subjugation of women in the Assamese socio-religious world that Goswami depicts. The paper demonstrates how the novel's landscape, its goddess-symbolism, female characters, and narrative technique together constitute ecofeminist elements. Throughout the discourse, the paper will attempt to draw a parallel between Western and Eastern ideas of ecofeminism while incorporating Indian philosophical concepts.