Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c11.s18.6

c11.s18.6

Mishra’s Concept of Reality “as an incommensurable vibration” assumes a new significance in the context of modern scientific perspectives and the primordial vibration or *spanda* comes to be viewed in the context of complementariness and interconnectivity in the universe, and the vertical and horizontal hierarchies in social order. He suggests a new perspective to the whole concept of *varṇa-dharma* by visualizing the connections between four castes and four types of consciousness — *manas* (mind), *buddhi* (intellect), *citta* (conscience) and *ahaṁkāra* (ego). The interactions with Rafael enable him to review his concepts in contrast to the Western idea of the individual and to project the non-anthropocentric view of Indian culture. It is due to the insight of Mishra that Rafael has also been able to rediscover some of the basic notions from the Western world-view and reinvest them with a new perspective. This intensive exchange of ideas between two creative minds has also resulted in the expansion of definitions of a number of established categories like knowledge, time, space and Reality. The Concept of Reality and the time–space framework have been viewed in all their multiple nature, and new dimensions have been added therein with the reference to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika which views the *avayava* (part) different from the *avayavī* (the whole). In the discussion on various notions of time — objective, spiral, experiential, psychological, etc. — Mishra spells out the subtle difference between the experiential time and the psychological time, taking into consideration the aesthetic frame that the former involves in. Rafael explains the anarchies of sleeping time and the legislations of time in memory.