The Body as a Sensory Cognitive Continuum in the Mahābhārata

Scholarship on the Hindu body has theorized bodily regulation through ritual purity, devotion, and medicine. While these frameworks focus on social and soteriological dimensions, they do not fully account for the cognitive elements of embodiment. I turn to the Mahābhārata, a Hindu epic, to argue that the text theorizes the body as an epistemic apparatus. I analyze three narratives— Arjuna's emotional breakdown at the eve of war, Nahuṣa’s curse to turn into a snake, and Pāṇḍu’s curse to die— in which the characters lose their capacity to judge due to sensory contact. I argue that the prescriptions about what the bodily senses contact—whether food, fragrant garlands, liquor, or sexual touch—share a concern about protecting the capacity to judge and act well. My analysis reveals an attitude toward the body where the senses are not primarily openings to pollution, but the instruments through which knowledge is accessed or blocked.