A Humble Offering

An Indian Reading of Iris Murdoch’s Novels

Presentation by
Ms. Ponapalli Prasanti Prabha
Research Scholar
Department of English
(Reg. No.: 18020902)
Under supervision of
Dr. Bhargavi Dibba
Department of English
Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Anantapur Campus
Contents
• Introduction to Iris Murdoch
• Iris Murdoch and the Eastern Religions
• Iris Murdoch and Indian Influence
• Iris Murdoch and the Bhagavad Gita
• Literature Review (Hinduism & Buddhism)
• Glimpses from the Iris Murdoch Archives (London)
• Karma yoga (path of action) as a means to self-realisation
• Bruno Greensleeves
• Cato Forbes
• Jnana yoga (path of knowledge) as a means to self-realisation
• Peter Mir
• Charles Arrowby
• Sanyasa yoga (path of renunciation) as the ultimate means to realisation
• Tallis Browne
Contents

Introduction to Iris Iris Murdoch and the Iris Murdoch and Indian Iris Murdoch and the
Murdoch Eastern Religions Influence Bhagavad Gita

Karma yoga (path of Jnana yoga (path of

Glimpses from the Iris action) as a means to self- knowledge) as a means to
Literature Review realisation self-realisation
Murdoch Archives
(Hinduism & Buddhism)
(London) • Bruno Greensleeves • Peter Mir
• Cato Forbes • Charles Arrowby

Sanyasa yoga (path of

renunciation) as the
ultimate means to
realisation
• Tallis Browne
Contents
Introduction to Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch and the Eastern Religions

Iris Murdoch and Indian Influence

Iris Murdoch and the Bhagavad Gita

Literature Review (Hinduism & Buddhism)

Glimpses from the Iris Murdoch Archives (London)

Karma yoga (path of action) as a means to self-realisation

• Bruno Greensleeves
• Cato Forbes

Jnana yoga (path of knowledge) as a means to self-realisation

• Peter Mir
• Charles Arrowby

Sanyasa yoga (path of renunciation) as the ultimate means to realisation

• Tallis Browne
 Introduction to the Author
 Birth: July 15th 1919 (Dublin, Ireland)

 Education:
• Badminton school (Indira Gandhi)
• Somerville College (Oxford)

 Influences: Plato, Simone Weil, Immanuel Kant, Jean

Paul Sartre and Wittgenstein

 Influenced: Elizabeth Anscombe and Phillipa foot, Ian

McEwan and Zadie smith

 Works: 26 novels and 5 philosophical works

 Death: 8th February 1999 (due to Alzheimer's disease)

Iris Murdoch and the Eastern Religions
• Negates the belief in a personal God
• Asserts the presence of a religious consciousness
• Admires both Buddhism and Hinduism
• Appreciates Hindu philosophical mysticism
• Believes in God as pure transcendent goodness (affirmed in Hinduism & Buddhism)
• Accepts Schopenhauer's perception of the whole cosmos as bound together and worthy of
respect in all its parts (vasudhaiva kutumbakam according to the Hindu philosophy)
• “Perhaps the deep nature of religion is (after all, and as it may seem now) better understood in
the east” (MGM 248).
 Iris Murdoch & Hinduism

“Religion can exist without this western concept of a

“The omnipresence of the spiritual, and the union of all personal God, and does so in Buddhism and Hinduism”
things in their hope of salvation, is, after all, an idea that (Murdoch, MGM 422).
Christianity shares with Buddhism and Hinduism”
(Murdoch, MGM 164). “Buddhism and Hinduism, even more ‘picturesque’ than
Christianity, have always provided a variety of paths
“Christianity (really) agrees with Buddhism and Hinduism whereby their ‘gods’ can be seen as images of a higher
that our guilt or sin is our existence itself” (250). reality” (441).
Murdoch’s love and
admiration for Hinduism
& India
Visited India in the year 1967 & 87
“Buddhism and Hinduism are great religions, and people Stated her immense love and affection for the country,
observe them, and this is something that struck me very people, religion and its philosophy
much in India, seeing how much religious observance “I feel it is a place that I am at home in” (Meyers 84).
there is” (Meyers 42). “I've visited India twice, and I have always felt a particular
bond with your country” (Meyers 92).
Iris Murdoch & India
• Anne Leech, another close friend of • “I’ve just been visiting
Murdoch, was an admirer of Indira (second visit) a chap
Gandhi. “She preserved the cuttings called Krishnamurti,
and pictures of IG and closely followed who used to be very
the political career of Indira Gandhi” famous (and beautiful –
(Conradi 267). he’s still beautiful age
ninety-one) some time
ago. He is an Indian
Jiddu sage” (Rowe & Horner
Indira Gandhi
Krishnamurti 673).

Mother Grant Ved Mehta

• was the co-Acharya of ecumenical ‘Christ Indian writer who interviewed
Prem Seva Ashram’, together with many British and American
Anglicans and Hindus novelists: Ved Mehta
• Became expert on the texts of Sankaracarya optimistically believed she
and was known as ‘Mataji.’ had ‘no enemies.’
Iris Murdoch & India
Suguna Ramanathan

• An Indian academician who interreacted and critiqued Murdoch’s works

• Murdoch talked on matters relating to Indian religion, philosophy and culture with Suguna Ramanathan

Tapan Kumar Mukherjee

• A student in the conference that Murdoch attended

• In a Letter to Tapan : “I love India and greatly enjoyed being in the Delhi conference . . . I have some
acquaintance with Hindu philosophy and religion” (Rowe & Horner 692)

Kanti Shah

• Murdoch’s Indian friend at Cambridge

• “She admired the grace and the beauty of Kanti Shah from South India” (Rowe & Horner 542).
 Iris Murdoch and the Bhagavad Gita
• “The game of chance, which is perhaps nothing but life and
death: nature, which never lies, but is always straightforward

Metaphysics as a and open, speaks quite differently upon this theme, speaks like
Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita. What it says is: The death or life
of the individual is of no significance. It expresses this by the
Guide to Morals fact that it exposes the life of every beast, and even of man, to
the most insignificant accidents without coming to the rescue”
(Murdoch, MGM 78).

• “There are moments for war and there are moments for peace.
You are no doubt familiar, on this topic, with the discussion
between Krishna and Arjuna. Why did Krishna tell Arjuna to

The Green Knight fight . . . Arjuna, sunk in egoism, could not have made the
decision not to fight with a pure mind his motives would have
been self-righteous, his action valueless. Thus far any novice
might stumble” (Murdoch, TGK 286).

Buddhism:
“Buddhism in The Green Knight”
- Tammy Grimshaw
“Religious Elements in Iris Murdoch’s
‘The Sea, the Sea’”
- Sayyed Hassan Alamdar Moghaddam
Buddhism:
Released from Bands: Iris Murdoch's
Two Prosperos in The Sea, The Sea
- Lindsey Tucker
“Murdoch on Good and Evil”
- Zheng Chang
Literature Review
Buddhism:
Buddhism:
“Images of Reality: Iris Murdoch’s Five
“Iris Murdoch's Comedies of Unselfing”
Ways from Art to Religion”
- David J Gordon
- Elizabeth Burns
“No Self? Some Reflections on Buddhist
“As a Buddhist Christian; the
Theories of Personal Identity”
Misappropriation of Iris Murdoch”
- Anthony Rudd
- David Robjant
Indian Context:
Indian Context:
“Iris Murdoch’s Deconstructive
Theology” “An Indian Reading of Iris Murdoch’s
The Nice and the Good”
- Suguna Ramanathan
- Indira Nityanandam
“The Sea, The Sea: A Reading in the
Light of the Bhagavad Gita” “The Concept of Good in Four of Iris
Murdoch’s Later Novels”
- Minnie Mattheew
- Suguna Ramanathan
Material from the Iris Murdoch Archives (London)

Material from the Iris Murdoch Archive (Kingston)

Indian books on topics

such as philosophy,
religion and economy
that Murdoch had
read and highlighted
Idols of Indian Gods gifted by her Indian
academician friend, Prof. Suguna
Ramanathan
Highlighted and Handwritten Notes from the IM Archives
 Minor
characters –
more
individuality
than the central
characters Good characters
IM as a realist:
- always dull
characters are
and same
realized and
(difficult to
made into real
portray
people
goodness in art)
Characters in
Iris Murdoch’s
IM as an Novels Characters in
omniscient IM’s novels –
narrator –firm convey
control over her something
unruly dramatic at the
characters and same time have
at the same time Characters in deep spiritual
lively characters her novels – significance
generally have
certain
peculiarities and
idiosyncrasies
Analysis
Introduction
• Bruno, bellamy, and cato - speak with the authority of a change in their consciousness and
purification of their desires and minds
• Their life – filled with problems & conflicts
• At the end - there is some sought of realization
• Result - resolved with the proper understanding.
• The transformation - result of the knowledge that the characters gain through their ongoing
journey called life
Concept Murdoch’s Philosophical Work
Right Knowledge/ Jnana “Goodness is connected with knowledge: not with impersonal
quasiscientific knowledge of the ordinary world . . . but with
a refined and honest perception of what is really the case . . . a
perfectly familiar kind of moral discipline (Murdoch, SG 43).
Ego/ Ahamkara We look through the veil of Maya, lose our egoistic personal
identity and overcome the divide between subject and object.
This is made possible through good art (67 MGM).
Illusion/Maya The veil of Maya is not a single mysterious screen which can
suddenly be whisked away by magic. We need the Platonic
picture here. We are moving through a continuum within
which we are aware of truth and falsehood, illusion and
reality, good and evil. We are continuously striving and
learning, discovering and discarding images.
Bhagavad Gita
In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says, “In all the
world, nothing purifies like the spiritual knowledge
(Knowing the Self). But it takes searching inquiries
into the nature of the real and not-real, and giving
one’s mind wholly to it” (Hawley 48).
In the Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, “Once you
gain spiritual wisdom, you will never again be
deluded or confused. You will see all of creation in
your True Self, and in Me” (Hawley 47).
“The wise ones understand the difference between the
Real and not-Real. When you fully understand this
profound fact, you will have attained the zenith of all
knowledge” (Hawley 14).
Chapter 1 (Karma Yoga)

Initial deranged
desire for revenge

Enlightened Mir’s misguided

individual idea of justice

Peter Mir
Ambivalent
Mir’s
nature of Peter
transformation
Mir

The re-enactment Seeks the

scene brothers’ death
Chapter 1 (Karma Yoga)
Peter Mir in The Green Knight The Bhagavad Gita

I could haunt you to the end of the world, I could very easily make your “A man having an eye on securing the fruit looks at the work from a
entire life a misery and drive you to suicide”(Murdoch 126). selfish point of view. In his view, the action as well as its fruit are
exclusively his own” (Bhave 32)

"All right, I will state it simply, I have come to like these people, I want “While we should be firmly committed to achieve the goal after a
you to introduce me to them, . . . Clement, utterly astonished, rational assessment of the situation, we should not be so egoistically
instinctively horrified . . . So this favour is to be a substitute for severed involved in the issue as to calculate what, in terms of pleasure or pain,
hands” (Murdoch 127). will be its likely effect on our personal fortunes” (Bhave 38)
A Comparison . . .
Peter Mir
“I had lost my moral consciousness – and have
now regained it. I was filled with hatred and
desire for revenge. Now I have no hatred and no
desire for revenge . . . I now see that vindictive
rages and vengeful intentions are but fantasies,
the superficial frothing of the ego. I am now able
to overcome these selfish and purely phenomenal
manifestations” (Murdoch 286).
The Gita
“There are moments for war and there are
moments for peace . . . Arjuna, sunk in
egoism, could not have made the decision not
to fight with a pure mind, his motives would
have been self-righteous, his action
valueless.” (Murdoch 286)
Charles Arrowby

Possessiveness: the
root cause for his
downfall
"I fostered my
Cause of his reputation for
suffering: egoism ruthlessness, it was
(ahamkara) & extremely useful”
manipulation (Murdoch, TSTS
37).

Charles
Arrowby
Charles Arrowby
Bhagavad Gita:
“The ignorant one,
The Critics: “The
mistakenly
illusions he once
identifying with
thought he
the body,
controlled on stage
erroneously thinks,
now control him”
'I am the doer.' This
(Tucker 386).
is the mark of
egoism” (27).

“You don't respect

people as people,
you don't see them,
you're not really a Charles Arrowby:
teacher, you're a “giant ego and
sort of rapacious small character”
magician”
(Murdoch, TSTS
45).
Bruno Greensleave
Bruno – Retrospection –
Realisation -
Reconciliation
Reconciliation
Bruno’s Dream:
“He ought not to have let Janie
make him hate her. That was
worse than anything”
Retrospection:
Realisation:
cruelty to his wife
“All the effort which he had
hated for his daughter-in-law .
put into making himself
“often quoted remark about seemed vanity now that there
coffee-coloured were no more purposes.”
grandchildren”
The Bhagavad Gita:
“The Self is eternal and
indivisible and the body is Bruno’s Dream:
worthless and transient is not “Death refutes induction”
difficult to comprehend, as it is
the truth (Bhave 36).
Bruno Greensleave
Realisation: Body
is transient

Sovereignty of
Good: “Personal
fantasy . . . dreams Bruno Novel: “Death
refutes
which prevents one
from seeing what is Greensleave induction”
there outside one."

The Gita: “The

Self is eternal and
indivisible, and Knowledge (jnana) to distinguish
the body is between illusion and reality – a
worthless”  
morally better character
Bruno Greensleave
What makes Bruno a wiser person?
Acknowledging and accepting the
Critics
transient nature of the body
Living in the present
Understanding the past through
retrospect
Jiddu Krishnamurti: “Learning
about yourself is always in the
present and knowledge is always
in the past, and as most of us live
in the past and are satisfied with
the past.”
Bhagavad Gita: “Once you gain
spiritual wisdom, you will never
again be deluded or confused. You
will see all of creation in your True
Self, and in Me” (Hawley 47).
Bruno’s Dream
“If only certain things had not
been said. One says things hastily,
without meaning them, without
having thought, without
understanding them even. One
ought to be forgiven for those
hasty things” (Murdoch, BD 16).
Cato Forbes Chapter 2 (Gyana Yoga)

Obsession for Joe: “I must

Two significant flaws: see you, I must talk to you.
Cato:
1. His obsession or You’re the only one I can Leaped into spirituality
“Failed saint”
misplaced love for talk to, you don’t know without realising the path
"Cato is Murdoch’s most Beautiful Joe what a star you are in my he had taken:
searching study of a priest life, you’re the only thing
2. His mistaken notion (Instance from the novel)
who has lost his faith” that’s not bloody rotten and
about spirituality and
(Rowe & Martin 139). awful around here, you’re
religion
the only person I know—’”
Cato Forbes Chapter 2 (Gyana Yoga)

Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals: “The love which

brings the right answer is an exercise of justice and
realism and really looking” (Murdoch MGM 24).
Bhagavad Gita: “Not hoping, not lusting, Bridling
body and mind, He calls nothing his own: He acts,
and earns no evil” (Bhave 52).

Henry and Cato: His initial deranged love for Joe

throws him into a bottomless pit, in which he enjoys
the pleasures of the world.
Cato Forbes Chapter 2 (Gyana Yoga)
His initial deranged love for Joe
throws him into a bottomless pit, in
which he enjoys the pleasures of the
world.
Even though Cato is aware of the
various facets of illusion, his
difficulty lies in his inability to
refrain from returning to the
fantasies of the self.

Leaped into spirituality, of

guiding Beautiful Joe,
without realising the path
he had taken

The Novel:
“I cannot help this boy. Our relationship is a
dangerous muddle and nonsense. I must leave
him absolutely and for good.”
Tallis Browne
Chapter 3 (Sanyasa Yoga)

Has an equipoised Realises the Neither affected by

mind and heart ephemerality of life sorrow nor pleasure

His father says “You

“Yet he knew his own His father says “I'm
let a bloody Jew take
toughness and knew sick of the sight and
her away from you.'
that in all probability the smell of you . . .
'She's free___' "Free"
while he lived the Tallis stood up and
(99)! Tallis remains
muddle would simply gathered his
poised and replies,
go on and on and on” notebooks together
"Well I haven't
(105). and left”
forgotten her” (99).
Tallis Browne Chapter 3 (Sanyasa Yoga)

TheBhagavad
Sovereignty Gita:
of Good :
"Proper
The person ofAdoes
loving FairlynotHonourable
selfless action
seize or useDefeat:
(karma-yogi)
the object
whooffeels
its love in
neither
any way,
desire
“Yet but
nor
whyattends
aversion
should tohethe
andobject
havedoes not
withyearn
expected growing
for one
knowledge
this?”(103). thing
or loathe another isand thecare"
true ‘renunciate.’
“I understand - I won't go around there - if she doesn’t-”

Tallis Browne can love powerlessly. It is a strong way of saying that he can selflessly look at the needs of the other (the one he loves) – Suguna Ramanathan
Conclusion
Iris Murdoch:
• Allows her characters to experience the cataclysmic changes
• Permits her characters to experience the mess and the muddle of reality
• Ensures that the characters witness the suffering around them
• Crafts her characters as moral imperfectionists or flawed characters
• Represents characters progressing towards moral perfections
• Begins her novels with problems & conflicts
• Resolves with proper understanding
• Manages to magnetically pull her characters towards the idea of perfection.
• Promotes transformation on part of the characters (through right action, right knowledge and realisation)
• Right action – Right knowledge – Renunciation

“The possibility that there may be nothing good at the bottom of things, that a heap of decaying bones and feathers is all there
may be in the cupboard, is one that she intellectually refuses” (Ramanathan 36).
Conclusion
Character's
pilgrimages
(life)

Filled with
the mess,
Attain self-
muddle of
realisation
reality &
suffering
Iris Murdoch’s
Novels

Through Right
Transcend
knowledge &
Illusion
Right action