Happiness

Chapter 3 argues that the conception of the self (ātman) that Sanskrit logicians attribute to humans corresponds to how they give emotional meaning to place. First, it examines their argument—that emotions are particular to humans and do not occur in divine beings—in relation to arguments in Bengali Vaishnavism, where emotion is understood to be that which allows one to connect to the divine. Second, it examines a number of temple inscriptions that illustrate how emotions are used by those who participate in Bengali Vaishnavism. Then, it contrasts these inscriptions with colophons from the texts of Sanskrit logicians that exhibit a different emotion connected to logic. The chapter offers a comparative study that showcases competing notions of space in seventeenth-century Bengal.