Critical and Analytical Essays Open Access Mar 2026

An Analytical Study of Vālājapēṭ Veṅkaṭaramaṇa Bhāgavatar’s Musical Style Using Select Compositions

Gayathri V B

Guru–Śiṣya paramparā is a revered tradition of learning through close mentorship. It is a system rooted in the concept of paramparā, representing an unbroken lineage of knowledge passed from guru to śiṣya through oral tradition. Each disciple becomes a custodian of their guru’s teachings and is entrusted with the responsibility of preserving, practising, and sharing the art form with future generations, ensuring its sustained evolution. This tradition reached its zenith after the enduring impact of the Trinity—Śrī Śyāmā Śāstri, Śrī Tyāgarāja, and Śrī Muttusvāmi Dīkṣitar—a heritage that inspired generations of composers to carry forward their legacy and enrich the field of Karnatic music. In order to acquire subtle knowledge and reach transcendental realms, it is a prerequisite to find a bona fide guru to ensure qualitative transmission of proficiency. At the same time, it is a coveted desire of every guru to look for the right disciple with whom they can share their knowledge and later impart advanced learning to sincere disciples. Vālājapēṭ Veṅkaṭaramaṇa Bhagavatar was one such devoted chief disciple of Saint Tyāgarāja. The current case study deals with the profound compositions of Vālājapēṭ Veṅkaṭaramaṇa Bhagavatar, the foremost disciple of Śrī Tyāgarāja. The article explores the melodic, thematic, and structural features of select compositions by Veṅkaṭaramaṇa Bhagavatar, highlighting his distinctive style and lasting contribution to the Karnatic music tradition.

10.63752/pijcace.0102W04

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Review Articles Open Access Mar 2026

Suffering, Struggle and Soliloquy: A Postmodernist Reading of Krishna Baldev Vaid’s None Other

Srijani Dutta

This paper examines Krishna Baldev Vaid’s None Other (1992) through the lens of postmodern literary theory, focusing on the themes of suffering, alienation, and existential fragmentation. The novella presents the interior soliloquy of a nameless ageing protagonist whose reflections on pain, memory, and meaninglessness unfold without conventional plot or character development. By analysing the text’s fragmented narrative structure, intertextual references, and philosophical meditations, the study situates the work within the broader framework of postmodern literature. The protagonist’s monologue reflects a crisis of identity and purpose characteristic of postmodern consciousness, where certainty, truth, and stable meaning collapse into ambiguity. Drawing parallels with works such as T. S. Eliot’s Gerontion and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, the essay explores how Vaid employs silence, repetition, and self-reflection to dramatize existential despair and the futility of human striving. Ultimately, the novella emerges as a lyrical yet unsettling meditation on loneliness, memory, and the fractured self, embodying the postmodern condition of uncertainty and the relentless search for meaning in an apparently indifferent universe.

10.63752/pijcace.0102W06

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Review Articles Open Access Mar 2026

Nithin Sridhar’s Chatuh Shloki Manusmrti: Tradition, Authority, and the Fourfold Framework

Amritanath Bhattacharya

This review essay examines Chatuh Shloki Manusmriti: An English Commentary by Nithin Sridhar, situating the work within the broader intellectual framework of the Indian śāstric tradition. The study analyses the author’s decision to interpret the philosophical architecture of the Manusaṃhitā through the first four verses of the opening chapter, read in light of the classical hermeneutic structure of anubandha catuṣṭaya. By foregrounding questions of adhikārī (qualified reader), prayojana (purpose), and viṣaya (subject matter), the essay argues that Sridhar’s work attempts to reintroduce contemporary readers—particularly those outside traditional modes of learning—to the conceptual world of Dharmaśāstra. The review further examines the methodological implications of employing the bhāṣya tradition as a modern interpretive tool and reflects on the distinction between śruti and smṛti, authorship, and authority within the Indian knowledge system. While acknowledging the book’s pedagogical strengths and its contribution to renewed discussions on the Manusmṛti, the essay also highlights certain translation and interpretive issues, suggesting that the text is best understood within the framework of śāstra pramāṇa rather than as an independent epistemic authority.

10.63752/pijcace.0102W07

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Critical and Analytical Essays Open Access Mar 2026

Domestic Porosity and the Transcultural Uncanny in Select Japanese and Indian Folk Narratives

Debasmita Sarkar

This essay examines how Japanese folk narratives produce the uncanny not through spectacular supernatural intrusion but through subtle disturbances within domestic life. Drawing on Freud’s concept of the uncanny and Kristeva’s theory of abjection, the study explores how familiar spaces (such as household) become porous environment where boundaries between human, spirit, and object begin to dissolve. Close readings of the Japanese tales of “Yuki-Onna” and “Futakuchi Onna” demonstrate how secrecy, appetite, and bodily transformation destabilize the apparent stability of domestic order. The snow-woman’s silent return as wife reveals how intimacy may conceal alterity, while the hidden mouth of Futakuchi Onna exposes the tensions between bodily need and social expectations of restraint. The analysis extends comparatively to Girish Karnad’s Nāga-Mandala and Abanindranath Tagore’s Khirer Putul, where serpent lovers and edible dolls function as mythic substitutions that articulate otherwise inexpressible domestic anxieties. Japanese traditions of animated dolls (ningyō) further illustrate how objects may serve as vessels of memory and spiritual presence. Across these narratives, the uncanny emerges through symbolic substitutions that transform landscapes, bodies, animals, and objects into alternative forms of life. The article argues that folklore imagines domestic space as fundamentally relational, where human identity remains permeable to nonhuman forces.

10.63752/pijcace.0102W05

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Book and Exhibition Reviews Open Access Jun 2025

Truth, Beauty, and the Aesthetic Quest: Arjun Bharadwaj’s Exploration of Homer through Indian Thought

Amritanath Bhattacharya

This review examines Arjun Bharadwaj's Indian Perspective of Truth and Beauty in Homer's Epics, a comparative literary study that applies Indian aesthetic philosophy to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Bharadwaj employs millennia-old Indian aesthetic theories from scholars like Ānandavardhana and Abhinavagupta to explore universal principles of truth and beauty in Western epic literature. Rather than examining Greek influence on Indian civilization—the dominant scholarly discourse—this work reverses the trajectory by using Indian frameworks such as puruṣārthas (life goals) and rasa (aesthetic emotions) to analyze Greek epics. The author's methodology includes comparative analysis of the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Iliad, and Odyssey, examining their spatial-temporal constructs, character ethics, and divine-human relationships. Bharadwaj also analyzes Homer's use of arthālaṅkāras (figures of sense) through Indian poetic theory. The review suggests that Bharadwaj approaches Homer not merely as a scholar but as a poet seeking to discover the eternal aesthetic essence that transcends civilizational boundaries, creating a dialogue between Vālmīki, Vyāsa, and Homer across millennia.

10.63752/pijcace.vol.1.issue.01S.007

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Critical and Analytical Essays Open Access Jun 2025

Cinema Between the Surgeon and the Observer: Benjamin, Bazin, and Hitchcock’s Psycho

Sayantan Dutta

This paper examines the theoretical divide between Walter Benjamin and André Bazin regarding cinema's relationship to reality, using Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) as a case study to bridge their seemingly contradictory positions. Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility" (1935) conceptualizes cinema through the metaphor of a surgeon penetrating reality with mechanical instruments, emphasizing montage and editing as fundamental to cinematic meaning. Conversely, Bazin's "Ontology of the Photographic Image" (1945) advocates for cinema's capacity to maintain distance from reality, allowing the medium's indexical relationship to the pro-filmic world to emerge naturally without excessive intervention. Through close analysis of the infamous shower sequence in Psycho, this study argues that these two theoretical approaches are not mutually exclusive but complementary. The sequence demonstrates Benjamin's penetrative metaphor through its voyeuristic camera work and violent imagery, while simultaneously exploiting Bazin's notion of photography's ontological connection to reality to achieve its lasting shock value. This analysis suggests that cinema's power lies in its dual capacity to both penetrate and preserve reality, offering a framework for reconciling these foundational film theory perspectives.

10.63752/pijcace.vol.1.issue.01S.003

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