Rāma’s Last Act 1.8

किं त्वनुष्ठाननित्यत्वं स्वातन्त्र्यमपकर्षति ।संकटा ह्याहिताग्नीनां प्रत्यवायैर्गृहस्थता ॥ But it’s the constant pull of obligationsthat carries off their freedom.For those who keep the sacred fireeven domestic life is fraughtwith the danger of failing in one’s duty. From the beginning of Bhavabhūti’s Rāma’s Last Act (Uttararāmacaritam), echoing an observation made in the course of the deontic logic…

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Dharmakīrti’s Poetry

Martin Straube’s excellent article (“Dharmakīrti als Dichter,” pp. 471–511 in Pāsādikadānaṃ: Festschrift für Bhikkhu Pāsādika, ed. Mitsuyo Demoto, Martin Straube, Michael Hahn, Jayandra Soni, and Roland Steiner) gathers the available evidence for Dharmakīrti’s literary, as opposed to strictly philosophical, output. It begins with a passage in Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyālōka which, quite unusually for Sanskrit literary criticism,…

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