Why prāṇa is the most outstanding among the life functions, or: the Shapley value in the Upaniṣaden / Prof. Wiese publishes article in the renowned Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

Dogmatic histories of different subjects are sometimes linked in surprising ways. In the post-Vedic texts Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, Chāndogya Upaniṣad, and Aitareya Āraṇyaka (roughly 600 BCE), the eminence of breath over other vital forces (hearing, mind, ...) is pointed out in various ways and in the form of small stories. In some of these rank fables, generalizable methods are used, as later Indian commentators have recognized. The same methods have been used in modern economic-mathematical literature and sociological literature, though without recognizing the connection to the ancient Indian texts. The mathematician and economist Lloyd Shapley (2012 Nobel Prize in Economics) introduced the so-called Shapley solution in 1953. It is the most important solution concept in cooperative game theory. Without knowing the Shapley solution, the sociologist Richard Emerson presented his highly regarded approach on power or dependence in 1962. This approach is also already present in the Upanishads in the form of a rank dispute fable. Harald Wiese from the Faculty of Economics has shown these dogma-historical cross-connections. Through funding from the University of Leipzig, the article, which appeared in the prestigious Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, has been published "open access" (doi:10.1017/S0041977X22000817).