FROM STONE TO SELF: ONTOLOGICAL SILENCE, METAPHYSICAL CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF BECOMING IN DR. PHANI MOHANTY'S AHALYĀ- A RE-READING THROUGH INDIAN AND CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

Dr. Phani Mohanty's Ahalyā represents one of the most philosophically sophisticated achievements in modern Odia poetry. Although the poem has generally been interpreted as a feminist reinterpretation of the Ramayana myth or as an exploration of gendered suffering, such readings only partially illuminate its remarkable philosophical architecture. The present study argues that Ahalyā is fundamentally an ontological poem that investigates the evolution of Being through silence, memory, waiting, suffering, nature, and spiritual awakening. Employing an interdisciplinary philosophical framework that synthesizes Martin Heidegger's ontology, Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics, Advaita Vedānta, Buddhist philosophy, and the Upanishadic conception of consciousness, this article demonstrates that Mohanty transforms the ancient myth into an inquiry into the metaphysics of existence itself. Rather than understanding the stone merely as a symbol of punishment, the study interprets it as the primordial condition of Being before self-consciousness. Silence emerges as a metaphysical language that transcends ordinary speech, while waiting becomes the existential structure of human life rather than a narrative device. Furthermore, the article argues that redemption in Ahalyā signifies not miraculous deliverance but ontological awakening, wherein fragmented consciousness gradually recovers its original completeness. Through close textual analysis supported by philosophical interpretation, the study positions Ahalyā within the broader traditions of world philosophical poetry and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary debates in comparative literature, phenomenology, myth criticism, and Indian philosophy. Ultimately, the article contends that Mohanty's poem is neither merely mythological nor exclusively feminist; it is a profound meditation on the continuous becoming of human consciousness.