The Metaphysics of Debt in early modern India

Abstract

This paper examines the philosophical life of debt. Examining the works of Nyāya philosophers such as Gokulanātha Upādhyāya (c. 1690) and Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācārya (c. 1660), the paper reconstructs contesting views of the debtor-creditor relationship in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century—a relationship that also raised questions about morality and the future. Such a relationship, the paper argues, was made possible by a metaphysics of debt. The metaphysics of debt raised further questions for Nyāya philosophers about the ontological status of debt, interest, and indebtedness and how these stood in relation to property, ownership, and credit. This paper is an initial attempt to comes to terms with some of these debates and draw some larger conclusions about the concept of debt in early modern India.