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³ Mohanty, J.N., Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 9Google Scholar

⁴ See papers in Sosa, Ernest, Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Two kinds of virtue theory mapped on to ‘faculty virtues’ and ‘character virtues’ respectively – ‘virtue reliabilism’ and ‘virtue responsiblism’ – has been distinguished by Axtell, Guy, ‘Recent Work in Virtue Epistemology’ in American Philosophical Quarterly 34(1) (1997): 1–26.Google Scholar

⁶ Zagzebski, Linda, Virtues in the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundation of Knowledge (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Vana Parvan, 197–216. Though the details of the narrative are important, what I present here is not a translation but a short summary of the story. All references to the Mahābhārata are from Ramchandra Shastri Kinjawadekar (ed.) The Mahābhāratam with Bharata Bhawadeepa Commentary of Nilakaņṭha (New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, n.d.).

⁸ Bandyopadhyay, Sibaji, ‘A Critique of Non-Violence’, Seminar 608 (2010)Google Scholar

⁹ Dalmiya, Vrinda and Alcoff, Linda, ‘Are “Old Wives” Tales Justified?’ in Alcoff, Linda and Potter, Elizabeth (eds) Feminist Epsitemologies (New York: Routledge, 1993), 217–244Google Scholar gives an epistemological reading of the episode which is different from the one suggested here.

¹⁰ Verse 6: ācārāniha satyasya yathāvadanupûrvaśah.

¹¹ Williams, Bernard, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 7Google Scholar

¹² Verse 9 lists the thirteen virtues as satyākārāstroydaśa which literally means ‘thirteen forms of truth’.

¹³ Dignaga, Pramāņasamuccaya, 1.1

¹⁴ brahma jānāti iti brāhmaņa.

¹⁵ Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 92–93. This discussion is referenced by Ganeri, Jonardon, The Concealed Art of the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 231CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ This distinction is mentioned by Joseph Dowd as taken from a March 2009 lecture by Robert Goldman. See Dowd, ‘Maximizing Dharma, Krsna's Consequentialism in the Mahabharata’, Praxis 3.1 (Spring 2011), 33–50Google Scholar, fn 11. However, it seems that Dowd used the terminology to make a distinction between many dharmas or particular contextual duties and a single universal Dharma. I am trying to say that the duty of truth-speaking is a ‘little-d dharma’ and is not absolute. This duty has to be subsumed in a wider normative framework that involves many intrinsic values which is Big-D Dharma. There is also no single formula of achieving coherence of the duty of truth with other values – though of course, that it must be so subsumed holds across the board.

¹⁷ Jonardon Ganeri, The Concealed Art of the Soul, 233

¹⁸ Ibid., 54

¹⁹ I have developed this more elsewhere. See for example, ‘Care Ethics and Epistemic Justice: Some insights from the Mahābhārata’ in Mahābhārata Now: Narration, Aesthetics, Ethics (eds) Bandyopadhyay, Sibaji and Chakrabarti, Arindam (New Delhi: Routledge, forthcoming).Google Scholar

²⁰ Driver, Julia, ‘The Virtue of Ignorance’, Journal of Philosophy 86(7) (1989): 373–384CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²² Roberts, Roberts C. and Wood, W. Jay, Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Ibid., 239

²⁴ Lepock, Christopher, ‘Unifying the Intellectual Virtues’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 83(1) (2011): 106–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁵ Richards, Norvin, ‘Is Humility a Virtue?’ American Philosophical Quarterly 25(3) (1988) 253–259Google Scholar

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²⁷ Ibid., 213

²⁸ The notion of ignorance as a positive state is a take on Advaita metaphysics. See Bhattacharya, K.C., ‘Studies in Vedantism’ and ‘Fact and Thought of Fact’ in Studies in Philosophy (ed.) Bhattacharya, Gopinath (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1958)Google Scholar.

²⁹ See also Rae Langton's notion of Kantian Humility. Langton, Rae, Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves (Oxford: Oxford University press, 1998).Google Scholar

³⁰ Code, Lorraine, ‘The Power of Ignorance’, in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (eds) Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 213–229Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid., 215

³² Nuyen, A.T., ‘Just Modesty’, American Philosophical Quarterly 35(1) (1998): 101–109Google Scholar (106)

³³ Alcoff, Linda (2007) ‘Epistemologies of Ignorance: Three Types’, in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (ed.) Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 56Google Scholar

³⁴ Ben-Ze'ev, Aaron, ‘The Virtue of Modesty’, American Philosophical Quarterly 30(3) (1993): 235–246Google Scholar.

³⁵ See Woodcock, Scott, ‘The Social Dimensions of Modesty’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38(1) (2008): 1–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Ibid., 18

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Manion, Jennifer, ‘The Moral Relevance of Shame’, American Philosophical Quarterly 39(1) (2002), 73–79Google Scholar

³⁹ Locke, Jill, ‘Shame and the Future of Feminism’, Hypatia 22(4) (2007), 146–162CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tarnopolsky, Christina, ‘Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Shame’, Political Theory 32(4) (August 2004), 468–494CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁰ Nussbaum, Martha, Hiding From Humanity: Disgust, Shame and the Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Fisher, Berenice, ‘Guilt and Shame in the Women's Movement: The Radical Idea of Action and Its Meaning for Feminist Intellectuals’, Feminist Studies 10(2) (Summer, 1984), 185–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 188

⁴² Probyn, Elspeth, Blush: Faces of Shame (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)Google Scholar, x

⁴³ Vana Parvan 206.5

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ Elspeth Probyn, Blush. 28

⁴⁶ The BhagvadGītā in 16.2 lists ‘divine excellences’ (daivī sampad) which includes hrī. Samkara's commentary glosses hrī as lajjā. The commentarial elucidation of the term explains it as a disposition of self-chastisement that helps us desist from repeating bad actions. An alternative exposition claims it to be a mindfulness of the public eye (lokalajjā) that stops us in our tracks as it were if we happen to have embarked on the path of something unsavory. Shame is thus a self-disciplinary disposition based on internalization of public norms. In both instances, shame is linked to the possibilities and regulation of action.

⁴⁷ Woodward, Kathleen, ‘Traumatic Shame: Toni Morrison, Television Culture, and the Cultural Politics of the Emotions’, Cultural Critique 46 (Autumn, 2000), 210–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁸ Scheman, Naomi, ‘Epistemology Resuscitated: Objectivity as Trustworthiness’ in Tuana, Nancy and Morgen, Sandra (eds) Engendering Rationalities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 23–52Google Scholar (38).

⁴⁹ Thanks to audiences in London, Singapore and Shimla for comments. Also to Arindam Chakrabarti.