As the West has puzzled over the ‘material’ of existence since Democritus and Aristotle, so too Indian history has suggested different candidates for that elusive all-explaining idea: the ‘substance’ of things. Indian thinkers spoke of creation as clay taking many forms, energy evolving through many modes, semantic ‘markers’ dividing the blank field of chaos, or words emerging from a bare potentiality. We find philosophical dialogues in Vedānta or epic debates in the Mahābhārata arguing over whether it is atoms, time, eternal substance, the field of consciousness, or some basic ‘stuff’ or ‘ground’ (satya, dravya, vastu, pradhāna, prakṛti, aśraya, avasthā, or intrinsic svabhāva), that accounts for the world. Others wondered whether substance and identity are merely illusions created by the human desire to see continuity where there is only diversity and change. These debates sought to sift what is existent from what is illusory, contingent from contingent, agentive from accessory, transcendental from uncertain… and the results were also central to whether anything can be determined as fundamentally ‘divine’.

This conference will bring together scholars exploring India’s many theories of Being in a sophisticated but accessible way. Speakers will lead discussion on key philosophies and the insights they suggest, presenting both Indian ideas and perspectives from Western traditions. All are welcome, from Philosophy to Oriental Studies, Theology and Religious Studies, History, and other disciplines.