HCD and ancient Hindu philosophy in the context of embracing diversity and building coherent working environments.
This is an on-going study which aims to explore the correlation between Human Centred Design (HCD) and Hindu philosophy and how it can be leveraged to create a more inclusive design practice by blending philosophy with contemporary design contexts and methodologies.
It was further developed into a research paper and submitted for the International Design Conference - ServDes (to be held from 2nd to 5th Feb, 2021), where it got selected to presentation. Here's the original version of the paper.
A designer’s work is influenced by a lot of factors, like who they are as a person, their upbringing, values, culture and language. Brought up in a traditional Indian household, I was exposed to ancient Hindu philosophy since a young age, which has influenced my design practice, knowingly or unknowingly. While discussing the principles of HCD, I found that there’s a strong connection between HCD and teachings from ancient Hindu philosophy. I started reading about a culture that I’ve always called my own but in a completely new context of design.
‘Hindu’ philosophy gets its name from ‘Hinduism’ because the religion itself is the philosophy and vice versa. Hinduism emphasizes the need for practical realisation of oneself and the world around, through lived experience and is not a system of dogmas (Vohra & Sarma, 2014). It demands to stay within worldly boundaries to understand what lies within and also what is beyond our purview. It accepts ambiguity by accounting for the known and the unknown. It helps us oscillate subtly between emotional experiences and logical explanations thereby creating a new dimension of working that includes diverse thinking and rich discussions. In short, Hinduism urges us to identify, accept and work in diverse environments to achieve and get comfortable with a constantly evolving state of stability and experience harmony.
Introspection of self
The moral character of Hindu philosophy is introspective in attitude and approach to reality. Philosophers sought answers to questions by undertaking their search within oneself rather than outside. The result was that the understanding of the world became identical with the understanding of the inward nature of man himself. It is this simultaneous projection of thoughts both outwardly and inwardly that resulted in the realisation of the identity of the external world and the internal ‘self’.
The Mahāvākyas (‘The Great Sayings’ of the Upanishads) mention the Sanskrit aphorism Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi, which literally means ‘I am divine’. Swami Vivekananda explained this concept in one of his lectures delivered in London, 29th October, 1896. The universe we see through the limited capacity of our senses is our own view of the Reality. But, man wants to see a world which is at once the world of all possible beings, and find a solution which will explain all phenomena. The early thinkers discovered that the farther they were from the centre, the more marked were the variations and differentiations; and that the nearer they approached the centre, the nearer they were to unity or to the common ground in which all the radii met. The external world is far away from the centre, and so there is no common ground in it where all the planes of existence, like, mental, moral, intellectual, can meet. To take up only one view, and find a solution to the whole is impossible. Therefore, we need to find a centre from which, all the other planes of existence start. This centre lies within us. The ancient Indian sages meditated deeper and deeper until they found that in the innermost core of the human soul, lies the centre of the whole universe and all the planes gravitate towards that one point, which forms the common ground to find a common solution. This thought, for me, forms the ethos of Human Centred Design (HCD).
An individual can look at oneself as an element of the whole universe while having a part of it within and at the same time realise that the same divine element is present in other beings. This thought of the sense of oneness has been summed up in the Sanskrit concept of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (literally, the world is one family). The statement is not just about peace and harmony among the societies in the world but about how we are a part of a fragile ecosystem that we are all dependent on and responsible for. With every disservice to another being, we harm a part of ourselves.
This concept is later also reflected in the Heidegger-influenced school of thought of object-oriented ontology that rejects the privileging of human existence over the existence of non-human objects.
Hindu philosophy challenges the plurality of ‘self’ but contrarily provides the flexibility that reality could be different for different beings and cannot be dismissed just because one fails to see it.
It inspires and respects the diversity of thought rather than superficial differences. It inspires and respects the diversity of thought rather than superficial differences like colour, faith, language.
There’s a common tendency to brand people based on superficial appearances and this might even translate into using stereotypes while segmenting end users. But now the design community is opening up to not just accepting but also including people from all walks of life, even if they are so called non-conforming to standard ideologies.
Design teams with people from diverse cultures, genders and skill sets could be formed at the discovery stage of a challenge rather than waiting to account for diversity at a later stage. This would help bring out individual opinions and represent the end-users more broadly. Participation from representatives of different departments would help bring in a technical viability and business feasibility angle to design early on. Forming complementary teams that fill one another’s gaps rather than insisting on ideal employees would help us progress towards a common goal. This process of working would help understand the problems on a deeper level rather than making mere assumptions from individual perspectives.
Jijñāsā (Curiosity) — The desire to know
The term from Brahma-sūtra (verses on the summary of the Upanishad, 450 to 200 B.C.), ‘Athāto brahma jijñāsā’ literally means ‘now is the time to inquire about the absolute truth’. Jijñāsā or the desire to know forms the very base of knowledge that leads to the understanding of the purpose of ‘existence’ through the removal of obstacles like ignorance, doubts and misconceptions by asking the ‘why’ behind everything. It is the beginning point of deeper knowledge (aparoksha jñāna). It asks to walk the path between self-reflection and analyse the phenomena around. It states that understanding the ultimate goal could be attained by legitimate logic and argument concerning cause and effect. In this quest, Indian philosophers wrote about ways to obtain cognition called ‘Pramanas’.
Designers are expected to define the objective behind every decision they take by asking ‘why’. The ‘five why’ technique developed by Sakichi Toyoda is a scientific approach that helps define the nature of the problem and further encourages the desire to know.
Modern-day thinking endorses mindfulness techniques to succeed as design leaders. One such meditative practice is a ‘dyad’. A dyad is a pair-based meditation practice where one person needs to ask the same question repeatedly for a few minutes and must listen without judgement while the other gives different answers every single time. Intra-team dyads would help explore different dimensions to the same question: defining the ‘what’ and finding different solutions to the ‘how’. Conducting a self-dyad would allow one to have a conversation with oneself as if one were another person, allowing objectivity.
We often think of finding innovative solutions, but this process would help incorporate iterative questioning in practice. A shift from asking ‘why’ to ‘why not’ could help a designer change their vantage point, thus building resilience towards failure, ambiguity and taking calculated risks. This would lead to broadening one’s thinking process by asking contradicting questions to oneself.
Answering the ‘why’ and ‘why not’ behind every decision and encouraging repeated focus on the same question would help design teams find and frame innovative questions first and then come up with effective solutions.
Means of cognition
Primarily, we experience our surroundings through the five senses — sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. These senses are universal and transcend time. Lisbeth Lipari, in her book Listening, Thinking, Being, defines perception as a process of distilling sensations into culturally distinct patterns by giving names and meanings to the zillions of sensations. They are varied and depend on ever-changing factors like languages, beliefs, climatic conditions, economy and society and that’s how different cultures develop.
In order to understand the world, classical Indian philosophy has defined six Pramāṇas which literally mean ‘the instruments in the act of knowing’.
They are:
1. Pratyaksha
2. Anumāna
3. Upamāna
4. Arthāpatti
5. Anupalabdhi
6. Sabda
The Pramanas are interconnected and are used at relevant times to seek knowledge. There is a distinction drawn between things that are Pratyaksha (that come within the sphere of direct perception) or that are Paroksha (fall out of direct perception). Things that come within the sphere of direct perception for one, may fall outside for others. In such cases, the former becomes ‘the authority who passes dependable knowledge from the past’ for the latter and ‘Sabda’ comes into play. Anumāna is a means of arriving at an inference not directly but through a previous knowledge of concomitance (vyapti) between the goal (sadhya) and the means of accomplishing the goal (sadhana). Therefore, unlike perception, Anumāna (inference) yields mediate knowledge. Anumāna is the process of reasoning when, by specifying the invariable relation between two things, a new type of knowledge is deduced. Upamāna is the metaphorical relation between a word and certain class of objects through the intermediary knowledge of similarity, dissimilarity or particular characteristics conveyed by the authoritative statement. The word ‘Arthāpatti’ has various translations like presumption, postulation, supposition, implication and assumption. It is a process of assuming some unknown fact in order to account for a well-known fact which is otherwise inexplicable. When something is otherwise unintelligible, the assumption of what will make it intelligible is ‘Arthāpatti’. ‘Anupalabdhi’ is being aware of the absence of the object by means of non-perception or non-apprehension. It may seem absurd that the non-apprehension of a thing is means to the acceptance of its non-existence (abhava). We know both, the presence and absence of things, by perception or by non-perception.
An attempt to find connections between Pramanas and modern-day design methodologies
Philosophers, the world over have tried to answer what is the nature of cognition? What is the criterion of the truth of cognition? What are the sources of acquiring it? The intent behind Pramanas was to provide a framework for gaining knowledge. They are devoid of the influence of external factors since they are largely self-initiated and dependent on one another for postulation. Formulating a theory of cognition helped a person stay away from personal biases, yet make assumptions, validate them, understand the world through different lenses and thus expand vision.
The role of emotions
Jon Kolko, in his book, Thoughts on Interaction Design (2011) defines it as, “The creation of a dialogue between a person and a product, system or service. This dialogue is both physical and emotional in nature and is manifested in the interplay between form, function, and technology as experienced over time.”
Some social norms believe that cognitions derive their status as thoughts capable of rationality, because they have objects which represent the external world. By contrast, feelings are some of the non-representational and unstable attitudes one can have towards the objects of the representations of our thoughts. They regard emotions as an obstacle to rational thought because of their non-representational nature.
However, a school of Indian philosophy called the Shaivite philosophy talks deeply about putting value in emotions rather diminishing them as unstable. In the aesthetic theories of Indian tradition, the works of Bharathmuni (5th century), have contributed greatly to the understanding of emotional experiences. There is a strong emphasis on the experiential aspect of emotions. Concept of rasa or aesthetic relish is central to this approach to understand affective experiences as explained in Bharathamuni’s treatise on drama and theatre, Natyashastra (11th century). It deals with all three components — physiology/behaviour, cognition and feelings in detail. He describes eight aesthetic moods or rasas corresponding to eight major emotions or bhavas. Major emotions are innate, permanent emotional sentiments (sthayibhava) and are considered as permanent mental traces (samskaras). These when accompanied with the object of emotion, transitory emotions (vyabhicaribhava), and experience (anubhava) can give rise to rasa. Transitory emotions are not innate. They represent the day-to-day normal life and are experienced in changing situations. These theories were based on relishing the work of art by distancing oneself while experiencing or creating it while staying true to the intrinsic permanent emotion or self. It is influenced by the vedantic view — All experiences of pleasure and pain, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are due to the assertion of self. This system of rasas centres around staying in the process of creation and constant improvement by drawing a circle around things rather than getting into specifics to get a cloud of response rather than a singular one.
Accounting for emotions, of both the designers and users is vital because they govern the experience of a product or service. It is especially important for designers to view their ideas objectively in the testing phase to receive unbiased feedback and act on it. Emotional investment in one’s work is natural but one should counter it with a sense of detachment to stay neutral. Several factors could affect morale, so, it’s our responsibility to create safe working conditions for designers to discuss feelings and confront weaknesses.
This idea is further explained through phenomenology — the ability to look at a problem or journey in service design by zooming out and studying more contexts and the experiences of the people involved. This causes an overview effect, enabling one to see something in its entirety, working as a whole, creating a cognitive shift to help build vision for the future.
Designing ‘for’ a stereotypical audience would then shift towards designing ‘with’ a much larger diverse world group through methods like participatory design.
Reflections through the lens of design
The nature of Indian philosophy itself is iterative. The Rigvedas encourage rational and logical discussions from any person who wishes to challenge their authority. As designers, it would be necessary to accept this unstable state of knowing while maintaining the stability of one’s state of mind. This could be achieved by staying within a structure but objectively viewing one’s own understanding of the world around.
All Indian philosophical traditions are deeply engaged with ontology, the study of being — What exists? How should we live? How can we know? Ontology states that emotions dictate who we are and philosophy stresses to look at emotions as they rise and return to the basic form (sthayibhava). But while doing so, it does not undermine the importance of emotions. It underlines that emotional experiences give fulfilment and govern the way one works. As designers, it is our duty to understand that the context of emotions plays an important role in how people react to situations. It then becomes vital to account and design for them, for giving rise to appropriate contextual emotions among people and also feeling them while designing. The designer will have to strike a balance between these transitory emotions while designing and then returning to the innate ones to maintain peace of mind.
Hindu philosophy sets the stage for an enigmatic paradigm by teaching practical life skills to attain the ultimate state of peace and stability. It demands a blend of staying within worldly boundaries to understand what lies beyond our purview. It accepts ambiguity to accommodate variables. A paradoxical arrangement of attached detachment to the ‘self’ could help us integrate diversity of thought yet stay true to who we are as designers. A designer now needs to subtly oscillate between emotional experiences and logical explanations thereby creating a new dimension of working that includes the richness and variety of judgement.
Swami Vivekananda’s speech about Indian philosophy at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, Chicago on 11th September, 1893 sums up the idea of coherence and wholeness. He began with the salutation, “Sisters and brothers of America!”. His words resonated with the audience and he received a spontaneous standing ovation from a crowd of seven thousand, which lasted for two minutes. I believe coherence stems from the inherent quality of oneness, a sense of belonging, as vividly described by ancient Indian philosophy. We all possess it and it transcends superficial differences thus helping us embrace, respect and value diversity to build coherent work places.
References
Researchgatenet. 2019. ResearchGate. [Online]. [29 September 2019]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266622349_What_Is_Human_Centred_Design
Researchgatenet. 2019. ResearchGate. [Online]. [29 September 2019]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266622349_What_Is_Human_Centred_Design
Blogspotcom. 2019. REALISATION — Swami Vivekananda on Advaita philosophy & yoga. Friday, May 11, 2012. Blogspotcom. [Online]. [29 September 2019]. Available from: http://quantum-nature.blogspot.com//2012/05/realisation-swami-vivekananda
Wordpresscom. 2015. Vasudhaika Kutumbakam. [Online]. [29 September 2019]. Available from: https://vasudaikakutumbam.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/vasudhaiva-kutumbakam-वसुधैव-कुटुम्बकं/
Harekrsnade. 2019. Harekrsnade. [Online]. [29 September 2019]. Available from: http://www.harekrsna.de/artikel/athato.htm
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Books
Sharma, G.R (1987). The Idealistic Philosophy of Swami Vivekananda. New Delhi: Atlantic publishers.
Raja, C.K (c1960). Some fundamental problems in Indian philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas.
Lipari, L (2014). Listening, Thinking, Being: Toward an Ethics of Attunement. Penn State: Penn State Press.
Muehlhauser, L (2010). Ancient Indian Philosophy: A Painless Introduction.
Kolko, J (2007). Thoughts on Interaction Design.
Bibliography
Mahāvākyas: The great sayings from the Upanishads, texts for searching answers to the internal spiritual quest
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: The world is one family
Jijñāsā: Curiosity or the desire to know
Brahma-sūtra: Systematic summary of the Upanishads (450 BCE and 200 CE)
Athāto brahma jijñāsā: In order to get out of the bodily conception, one has to increase inquiry about truth
Aparoksha jñāna: Recognizing the non-duality of ‘self’
Pramanas: Means of knowledge
Pratyaksha: Knowledge gained through direct experience
Anumāna: Inference through prior knowledge
Upamāna: Metaphorical explanation
Arthāpatti: The study of cause and effect
Anupalabdhi: Awareness of non-perception
Sabda: Words from the expert
Paroksha: Mysterious or something that falls out of direct perception
Vyapti: Knowledge of concomitance
Sadhya: Goal
Sadhana: Means of achieving the goal
Abhava: The quality of non-existence
Rigveda: Ancient Sanskrit text of hymns on how to lead life, rituals and ways to reach the ultimate
Shaivite philosophy: A dualistic philosophy that considers the grace of one power
Bharathmuni: Ancient Indian theatre and music expert who wrote Natyashastra
Natyashastra: Treatise on drama and theatre by Bharathmuni
Rasas: Moods/emotions influential in defining the nature of Indian art forms
Bhavas: The emotion or mood conveyed by a performer
Sthayibhava: Innate or permanent emotion
Samskaras: Permanent mental traces
Samskaras: Permanent mental traces
Vyabhicaribhava: Transitory emotions that rise and return to the innate ones
Anubhava: Experience
Vedantic: Related to the end of Vedas, ancient texts that reflect a world view to leading an enriched life
Acknowledgements
Special and sincere thanks to Sohpie Gaur for sharing her thoughts and work on the value of balancing emotions and rationale in design with respect to her study of the nine rasas.
My peers encouraged me to read about Indian philosophy in the context of design and it made me aware and awestruck of the vast repository of knowledge that lies within a culture I call my own.
