In the Mok¿opaya (also known as the Yogavasi¿¿ha), an eleventh-century Sanskrit poetic text, the great Vedic philosopher Vasi¿¿ha counsels his young protégé Lord Rama about the ways of the world through sixty-four stories designed to bring Rama from ignorance to wisdom. Much beloved, this work reflects the philosophy of Kashmir Saivism. Precisely because all worldly pursuits are dreamlike and fiction-like, the human soul must first come to an experience of non-dualistic, mind-only metaphysics, and after attaining this wisdom, promote moral activism. Engaged Emancipation is a wide-ranging consideration of this work and the philosophical and spiritual questions it addresses by philosophers, Sanskritists, and scholars of religion, literature, and science. Contributors allow readers to walk with Rama as his melancholy and angst transform into connectivity, peace, and spiritual equipoise.

Introduction Abbreviations I. Flimsy Fixity: Reality Shifts 1. Radical Transformation in the Yogavasi¿¿ha: A Phenomenological Interpretation Matthew MacKenzie 2. Akasa and Jiva in the Story of Lila Bruno Lo Turco 3. The Concept of Abhasa in the Yogavasi¿¿ha Sthaneshwar Timalsina 4. Is This a Dream? A Critique of Mok¿¿opaya's Take on Experience, Objecthood, and the "External" World Arindam Chakrabarti 5. The Existence of an Endless Number of Worlds: Jagadanantya in Mok¿¿opaya and the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Garth Bregman 6. Vasi¿¿ha and Borges: In Quest of Postmodern Enlightenment Sthaneshwar Timalsina II. Human Agency and World Creation 7. Attitude of the Yogavasi¿¿ha toward Human Endeavor Pranati Ghosal 8. A Fabulous Rationality: Poetry, Reason, and Action in the Yogavasi¿¿ha Roddam Narasimha 9. Ethics and Psychology of the Yogavasi¿¿ha in the Upasama Prakaräa Christopher Key Chapple 10. Dreams, Fictions, and the Quest for Morality in the Yogavasi¿¿ha Menaha Ganesathasan 11. A Horrid Treehouse or a Charming City? Yogavasi¿¿ha (Mok¿¿opaya) on Spiritual Culture of the Body Arindam Chakrabarti III. Engaged Emancipation 12. Embodied Liberation (Jivanmukti) in the Yogavasi¿¿ha Andrew Fort 13. Liberation into Nature: Vasi¿¿ha's Embrace of the Great Elements Christopher Key Chapple Bibliography Contributors Index