Fourteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Both the similarities and the differences between two imaging devices in focus here have already attracted the interest of researchers, such as Keith and Belvalkar-Ranade. Keith, for example, after producing a summary of Kathā Upaniṣad, comments “the contrast with the Platonic metaphor is as clear as the correspondence”. In contrast, Belvalkar-Ranade states that “the extraordinary similarity of the descriptions down to the smallest details haunts us, and we have to confess that we do not know how to account for them”. Therefore, this preliminary project proposes a new perspective of reading the image of the winged chariot and the parable of the quadriga in order to expand the possibilities of discussion on the topic of the soul and straighten the vedic studies between East and West.