Quest for Truth through Interrogation: A Study of Questioning in Indian Cultural and Narrative Representations

Ignorance and search for truth have been a paradigm in many literary and cultural representations. The characters in such representation often undertake journeys and seek truth in different ways. In this article, an attempt is made to study questioning from multiple perspectives where questioning is seen as a means of accessing truth to free oneself from ignorance. The study expands across different genres from classical texts like the Upanishad, and the Geeta to modern literary writings and films in India. Taking clues from the linguistic structures and the philosophical deliberations upon questioning as a quest for truth, here, questioning is seen as a representation of a journey from ignorance to truth and how they affect the narrativity of the texts. Thus, questioning is postulated here as a linguistic, philosophical, literary, and aesthetic mode of representation.