Category: Academic
Postgraduate Symposium on Religion in South Asia held for two days—30th September and 1st October
Postgraduate Symposium in South Asian Religions
Registration for the Postgraduate Symposium in South Asian Religions, to be held tomorrow for two days—30th September and 1st October—is open. This symposium will showcase a range of postgraduate research on religions in South Asia from the manifold disciplinary vantage points of anthropology, theology, philosophy and history.
Day 1 will be delivered entirely online, bringing together speakers from universities across India, the USA, Australia, and the UK. Day 2 will take place in-person at the Cambridge Faculty of Divinity, where reception will open from 9:20AM. Due to the rail closures and planned strikes, an option is now also available for those who wish to join Day 2 virtually.The final conference schedule can be accessed here.Any questions about the symposium can be directed to imran.visram@theology.ox.ac.uk.
Lecture List Michaelmas Term 2022
Lecture List
Michaelmas Term 2022
Sunday 9 October 2022 — Saturday 3 December 2022
Hinduism 1
Weeks 1-8, Friday 4.00-5.00 PM
Dr Rembert Lutjeharms
These lectures offer a thematic and historical introduction to the sources and development of Hindu traditions from their early formation to the medieval period. We will explore the formation of Hindu traditions through textual sources, such as the Vedas, Upaniṣads and Bhagavad Gītā, along with the practices and social institutions that formed classical Hindu traditions. The lectures will include an introduction to Hindu philosophy.
Sanskrit and Pali Prelims
Week 1-8, Wednesday 4.30-5.30, Friday 10.00-12.00
OCHS Library
Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen
The course provides an introduction to Sanskrit for the preliminary paper of the Theology and Religion Faculty in Elementary Sanskrit. Students of Pali will join the Sanskrit course in Michaelmas Term and for the first four weeks of Hilary Term. From week 5 of Hilary Term, Sanskrit and Pali will be taught as two separate courses, i.e. Sanskrit Prelims and Pali for Sanskritists.
Sanskrit Prelims: A range of relevant Hindu and Buddhist texts will be chosen for translation and philological comment in the Sanskrit course. The class is designed to introduce students of Theology and Religion to the essentials of Sanskrit grammar, syntax, and vocabulary and its importance for the exegesis of Sanskrit texts. Students will learn to appreciate the interpretative nature of translation as a central discipline for the study of religions. By the end of the course students will have gained a basic competency in translating classical Sanskrit and reading relevant passages from texts such as the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, the Bhagavadgītā, the Haṭhayogapradīpikā and the Buddhist Heart Sūtra. The course book will be Walter Maurer’s The Sanskrit Language. Sanskrit Prelims continues throughout Michaelmas and Hilary Terms and for the first four weeks of Trinity.
Pali Prelims: The Pali course is designed to provide an easy philological introduction to Pali Buddhist texts via Sanskrit and introduce students of Theology and Religion to the essentials of Pali grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. A range of relevant Pali Buddhist texts will be chosen for translation and philological comment. We will read classical Theravāda Buddhist discourses from the Pāli Canon such as the Fire Sermon (Ādittapariyāya-sutta) and Dependent Origination (Paṭiccasamuppāda) as well as passages from the Dhammapadaand the Jātaka tales. Students will learn to appreciate the interpretative nature of translation as a central discipline for the study of religions. The course book will be Dines Andersen, A Pāli Reader and Pali Glossary, 2 vols. (1901) supplemented by Rune E. A. Johansson, Pali Buddhist Texts: An Introductory Reader and Grammar (1981).
Pali students will attend the same ‘Sanskrit and Pali’ classes as Sanskrit students in Michaelmas Term and weeks 1-4 of Hilary Term. From week 5 of Hilary Term, Pali and Sanskrit students will study in separate classes.
Readings in Vedānta
Week 1-8, Thursday 10.00-11.00
OCHS Library
Dr Rembert Lutjeharms (rembert@ochs.org.uk)
Vedānta—theology grounded in the systematic exegesis of the Upaniṣads—has for centuries been the primary discourse for Vaiṣṇava thought. These reading sessions are intended for students who have at least an introductory knowledge of Sanskrit and are interested in Vedānta texts. This term we will be reading Madhva’s Anuvyākhyāna, his principal commentary on the Brahma-sūtras.
Readings in Phenomenology
(Mondays weeks 1-8, 11.00)
OCHS Library
Professor Gavin Flood FBA
Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century, and it has also had a deep impact on other theoretical fields more widely conceived. This term we will read Jean-Yves Lacoste, Experience and the Absolute (Fordham University Press, 2004).
Lectures: A Phenomenology of Holiness:
Thursdays weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 2.00-3.00,
OCHS Library
Professor Gavin Flood FBA
These lectures will inquire into what we mean by ‘holiness’ by focussing on discussion in Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. This is not a theological inquiry but an anthropological and philosophical inquiry that seeks to argue for the necessity of understanding human life in terms of holiness and for understanding holiness in terms of human life.
Lecture 1: Holiness and Scholastic Philosophy
To begin our inquiry and to begin to develop a phenomenology of holiness, we need some sense of context and the history of what is at stake, who has been concerned about the question and why. In this opening lecture I wish to focus on history through a question that will emerge as central to a phenomenology of holiness, namely what is the intellectual object of a phenomenology of holiness and the related question as to the being of holiness, whether it can be understood analogically or univocally? These issues go back a long way into medieval Scholasticism. The question has been traditionally couched in terms of natural and supernatural knowledge, concerning whether God is an object of the intellect, and whether the intellect can know God either naturally through Philosophy or supernaturally through Theology. This is not an entirely arcane debate as the category of the holy mutates out of this discussion into a philosophical discourse and thence into a methodological discussion in the science of religion about its object. We will pay particular attention to Duns Scotus.
Lecture 2: Is Holiness Outside of Language?
Two issues are important, for whom is holiness and appearance and of what? In this lecture we will focus on the for whom. The existential experience of holiness necessitates an approach that simultaneously describes it and explains it at one level. In locating holiness in feeling, Rudolf Otto implicitly placed the experience of holiness outside of language. Yet if language is constitutive of human reality and not only descriptive of it, then what does it mean to claim that an experience of holiness could be pre-linguistic and prior to language? To address this question, we need to go back to some basic claims of phenomenology and try to build a new understanding sensitive to the constitutive view that has had such profound impact on the Humanities while at the same time recognising pre-linguistic, somatic experience as the ground upon which the linguistically constitutive view can be formulated. We need to consider Husserl’s intentionality, Heidegger’s Dasein, as well as Romano’s pre-linguistic experience.
Lecture 3: The Politics of Holiness
A different theoretical trajectory understands holiness in political terms and reduces holiness to a purely transactional notion constructed within a power dynamic that has played out through the history of civilization, to its cost. On this view, we must understand holiness primarily as a legal category. In this lecture we will examine a philosophical anthropology of the political human that begins, as Esposito argues glossing Schmitt, with a negation, with a lack: the lack being that which is sought after, perhaps possessed by the other, in a process starting from enmity. This negation that is the beginning of politics is articulated in legal systems at the root of the Western tradition in Roman law where, as Esposito observes, a free human being was defined negatively as someone who is not a slave, being under one’s own legal authority. Agamben goes further to bring holiness purely within the political realm and claims that holiness as sacrality, ‘the sacred man’ (homo sacer) is defined negatively as the category of the man who can be killed but not sacrificed: namely the state of exception. But is this to ignore holiness as verticality and openness?
Lecture 4: The Metaphysics of Holiness
We have so far mostly addressed the questions for whom holiness is an appearance and partly addressed the question of what holiness is an appearance. Raising the first question has taken us into an argument that holiness is integral to human being-in-the-world, revealed in terms of a comportment towards verticality and in terms of comportment towards others. This also entails a phenomenology of culture and the ways in which verticality is accessed through symbolic forms or cultural nodal points that provide locations of elevation. We now need to address the question of what holiness is an appearance through an account of ways of being holy and developing an ontology of holiness that is metaphysically realist but can only be accessed indirectly. If the languages of holiness are languages of holiness, what metaphysical commitments does this entail?
Lectures of the Shivdasani Visiting Fellow
Visualization in Some Bengali Hindu Contemplative Traditions: Vaishnava bhakti, Shakta Tantra, Baul songs and Raja Yoga
Week 4, Thursday 3rd November, 2.00-3.00
OCHS Library
Join via zoom from here.
Dr June McDaniel
Visualization is an important practice in many Bengali religious traditions. For Gaudiya Vaishnavas, we can explore two styles of visualization: creating one’s own spiritual body in the form of a young girl or manjari and creating one’s inner body in the form of a young devotee of the saint Caitanya Mahaprabhu, as the gaur deha. The devotee must transmute the substance of instinct or kama into a more condensed form of divine love or prema. For Shaktas, we have tantric visualization of the cakras and bodily channels of energy, which allows cleansing of the elements (bhutasuddhi), and the ritual placement of deities into parts of the body (nyasa), leading towards union with the deities. For Bauls, the inner body is visualized as a place: a garden, a house, a birdcage, a whole landscape with rivers, ponds and mountains. For Sahajiyas or Vaishnava Bauls, the inner body is seen as both the emanation of a deity (Radha for women, Krishna for men) and a network of centers of power. In raja yoga, the siddhis or supernatural powers are developed through samyama, in which visualization acts within the practices of dharana, dhyana and samadhi (shifting one’s focus from external to internal, subtle objects). In all of these cases, visualization brings a special form of altered perception (siddha-darshana) and acts as a technique for inner exploration.
The Modern Loss of Ecstasy in Religion and Theology
Week 6, Thursday 17th November, 2.00-3.00
OCHS Library
Dr June McDaniel
The study of mystical and ecstatic experience is out of fashion these days in the field of Religious Studies in the USA. Analysis of religious consciousness has been obscured by the interest in politics, history and sociology. The themes for meetings of the American Academy of Religion over the last few years have focused on Racism, Social Justice, Climate Change and Covid-19. There is little interest in what we might call the ‘inner dimension’ of religious experience. The modern study of ecstatic religious consciousness over the last thirty to forty years has largely been a study of objections to its subject matter.
We see this in Theology as well as Religious Studies. The general Religious Studies response to mystical experience has been that it should be left to the theologians. But the theologians don’t want it either- they are attempting to show that they are historians, linguists, and ethicists, as well as voices for social change. The study of mystical and ascetical theology has been largely de-emphasized in modern seminaries. Like the religionists, theologians have shifted their interests to the social and political world, often substituting classes in practical skills like small-business organization, finance, leadership and preaching skills. Ecstasy is the “hot potato” that no field wants. As the Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast has recently noted, “Every religion seems to begin in mysticism and end in politics.” He compares mystical states to the hot lava of a volcano, and organized religion to the dry crust and ash that forms as it cools, settles and loses energy. In a similar way, he notes that the volcanic passions of mystical states turn into the organized religious institutions that show the symptoms of “rigor mortis.”
This paper will describe what is gained, and lost, by this limiting of religious inquiry. It will also discuss how ecstasy has been relocated into a variety of secular areas- violence, sexuality, music, sports. Ecstasy has lost its link with religion, and here we will explore how and why this has happened.
Dr June McDaniel is Professor Emerita in the field of History of Religions, in the Dept. of Religious Studies at the College of Charleston, in the USA. She is the author of three books on India, a co-edited volume on mysticism, a co-edited volume on Hindu religious experience, a book on current views of ecstasy in the field of Religious Studies, and many articles. Her MTS was in Theological Studies from Emory University, and her PhD was in History of Religions from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She spent two years in India, on grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies and as a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar. She also did research in Indonesia on a Collaborative International Research Grant from the American Academy of Religion, as well as on shorter research trips.
Lectures of the J.P. And Beena Khaitan Visiting Fellow
The luminous ātman within: Beliefs about afterlife and voluntary death of sages in the Sanskrit epics
Week 3, Thursday, 27th October, 11.00-12.00.
OCHS Library
Valters Negribs
This lecture will explore a body of non-systematic beliefs about the death and afterlife of virtuous persons in the Sanskrit epics. Many epic passages depict a Brahmin or warrior sage who exists after death in a luminous form in heaven, as a star, having entered the sun, or flying around in a luminous vimāna (flying palace-chariot). In the Sanskrit epics this usually happens to highly virtuous characters who have purified themselves through such practices as tapas or the observance of dharmic conduct. The lecture will sketch a possible historical development, noting that in the majority of epic passages the luminous afterlife of sages is not associated with yoga, whereas in some passages that are likely to be later the means of extracting a luminous self (ātman) from the body are portrayed as yogic techniques.
The relationship between āsana (posture), sukha (bliss), and meditation in early yoga
Week 5, Thursday, 10th November, 11.00-12.00.
OCHS Library
Valters Negribs
This lecture will explore the ascetic background of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra passage that deals with āsana (2.46-2.48) and offer a new interpretation of that passage. It will argue that Patañjali participates in an earlier discourse on overcoming the hardships of prolonged meditation and ascetic life in the wilderness by using meditative techniques to suffuse one’s body with a pleasant feeling or bliss (sukha) that cancels out the pain (duḥkha) which might otherwise be felt. Such a discourse linking āsana, sukha, and meditation is found primarily in the early Buddhist literature.
Valters Negribs studied social anthropology, study of religions, and traditions of yoga and meditation at SOAS (University of London) before coming to Oxford to work on a doctoral thesis “Ascetic teachings for householder kings in the Mahābhārata”. Valters joins the OCHS as a visiting fellow while waiting for his viva. After a successful defence of the doctoral thesis he will begin a Leverhulme postdoctoral fellowship with Groupe de Recherches en Etudes Indiennes (Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3/ EPHE), working on “Ascetic literature in early Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina traditions”.
Other Lectures
Śākta Traditions Lecture Series
The Body of the Goddess
Week 8, Tuesday 29th November, 2.00-3.00
OCHS Library
Professor Diwakar Acharya
This talk will explore a Vedic myth of the birth of Śrī — the goddess of excellence, her immediate exploitation by the gods, and subsequent restitution of her bodily possessions through Vedic rituals. It will compare this myth with the Devīmāhātmya myth of creation of the body of the goddess through the contribution of various gods of their powers, and then reflect on the motives and ideas embedded in these two myths. It will also explore the concepts of mantric, geophysical, and micro- and macro-cosmic bodies of the goddess, together with the shades of her beauty from devotional contexts.
Diwakar Acharya is Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at All Souls College, University of Oxford. His research concerns religious and philosophical traditions of South Asia. He studies ancient and medieval texts, inscriptions, and other historical documents significant for the cultural history of the Indian sub-continent. He is also interested in the critical examination of rites, rituals, and customs of the Indian religions and a keen reader of various genres of Sanskrit literature, starting from the Vedas.
Pali reading Group
Week 1-8, Wednesdays, 3.00-4.00 (GMT)
OCHS Library
Valters Negribs, Shree Nahata
The informal weekly Pāli reading group aims to bring together scholars and students alike to read and discuss Pāli texts. Attendees will have the opportunity to take turns reading the selected text and engage in lively discussion.
This term we will be reading verses from the Dhammapada along with the Aṭṭhakathā commentary. The commentary provides a narrative frame which explains the circumstances under which the Dhammapada verse was spoken by the Buddha. We will focus on those stories where the Dhammapada verses are said to have been spoken for the benefit of laymen. The Dhammapada has been recognised to contain much general wisdom that is not particularly Buddhist or does not directly pertain to the Buddhist path to awakening. This wisdom literature provides a key link between early Buddhism and texts from other traditions such as the Mahābhārata.
The text of the Dhammapada Aṭṭhakathā can be accessed here.
To join via Zoom, please contact the organisers.
Contact: valters.negribs@wolfson.ox.ac.uk or shree.nahata@balliol.ox.ac.uk
Pre-Requisites:
- Prior knowledge of either Pāli or Sanskrit. Students of Sanskrit should consult Geiger’s A Pāli Grammar [https://archive.org/details/apaligrammarwilhelmgeiger_202003_741_P] to learn the chief differences between Sanskrit and Pāli. Given their similar grammar and vocabulary, the transition from Sanskrit to Pāli, with a little effort, should not be too difficult.
- Curiosity to learn more about Buddhism and Pāli!
Valters Negribs is a visiting fellow at the OCHS. He works on ascetic literature in Ancient India, with a focus on the Mahābhārata. Shree Nahata is a DPhil student working on Indian philosophy.
Read about the projects our bursaries supported this year
What did OCHS bursaries support?
OCHS bursaries and scholarships are generous donations from individuals and foundations that we award to our students. This year we awarded 17 scholarships and bursaries amounting to almost £15,000.
Sri Swami Haridas Giri Scholarship
Nainika’s Bursary for Kashmiri Shaivism & Kashmiri Hindu Studies
Parvathi Foundation Scholarship
Hanuman Bursary
Narasimhacharya Bursary
Jiva Goswami Scholarship
Prof. Makhan Lal Roy Chowdhury Book Prize
Hansraj and Kanchanben Popat Bursary
Ramalah Alagappan Bursary
Amit Mishra Bursary
Dr Sivaswami & Renuka Nagraj Bursary
Gopal and Elizabeth Krishna Bursary
Tristan Elby Bursary
Wernicke Olesen’s Bursary for Pali and Sanskrit Studies
Giving a scholarship is an excellent opportunity to support young talented minds in their academic endeavours and to raise academic interest in Hinduism on a global scale.
Below is an overview of some of the projects (more will follow later) we supported this year:
Sri Swami Haridas Giri Scholarship
Mohini Gupta 
DPhil candidate, Mansfield College, University of Oxford
I aim to conduct research in the field of South Asian language politics and translation, specifically the language politics between English and Indian languages, and the relationship of the urban youth with the languages they speak. I have been investigating this topic as a student of literature and culture studies, independent researcher, literary translator, writer, and higher education professional over the last decade.
My research at Oxford will push my project further to apply the lenses of postcolonialism, sociolinguistics, as well as anthropology to understand the reasons behind the attitudes of the urban youth towards its mother tongue, within the frameworks of ‘postcolonial shame’ and language-based humiliation. The faculty at Oxford will enable me to broaden the scope of my research through their expertise in these disciplines.
Sri Swami Haridas Giri Scholarship
Poorva Palekar
MPhil student, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
I am keen to study more about the ‘Kalpa’ vedāṅga and explore the samskāra gṛhya rituals in my MPhil thesis. I plan to especially focus on the evolution of the vivāha ritual from the Vedic ‘śṛtis’, to ‘smṛtis’ and the modern methods and ‘paddhatis’ referred to today. I plan to study the marriage rituals in Maharashtra where the vivāha samskāra is still an important cultural and religious life event. The study of the influences of folk traditions and the emergence of local religious sects on the vivāha samskāra will also be an important aspect of my thesis. My research will help better understand the development of the ritual over time and the exchange between orthodox and folk traditions during important events like marriage.
Prof. Makhan Lal Roy Chowdhury Book prize and Wernicke Olesen’s Bursary for Pali and Sanskrit Studies
Visvapriya Desai
BA student, Worcester College, University of Oxford
In my first year I had the invaluable opportunity of studying Sanskrit at the OCHS. This made me appreciate how important a grasp of language and translation theory is for sensitive engagement with religious thinking and its interpretation in context – especially considering the roots of academic study of Hinduism in scriptural translation. I applied this across a broad range of subject matter, from the Cāndogya Upaniṣad to the Buddhist Heart Sutra. What does it mean to claim “tat tvam asi”? What is really the nature of śūnyatā in Mahāyāna Buddhism? These were all questions one could only unravel by engaging with the text in its original language. At a conceptual level this supported me even in other papers such as Biblical Studies – aware now of how much can turn theologically on the translation, and thus interpretation, of one word or phrase.
I am grateful to have the OCHS’s support in continuing to deepen my learning of Sanskrit and Hinduism. One of my papers next year, Hinduism: Sources and Formations, highlights the Vedas, Upaniṣads and Bhagavad Gītā in the development of classical Hinduism. Another, Modern Hinduism, covers many themes, such as Vedānta and Tantra, articulated in Sanskrit text. I will also be writing a thesis for the Further Studies in Hinduism paper in my third year and anticipate engaging with Sanskrit scripture. My Sanskrit studies will sharpen my ability to handle this content in a nuanced way that addresses Hinduism and the study of it in its historical and interreligious context.
The OCHS has been a caring community that nurtures a real, holistic dedication to learning, and I am deeply grateful for the support they so generously provide.
Hansraj and Kanchanben Popat Bursary
Ranjamittrika Bhowmik
DPhil candidate, Hertford College, University of Oxford
My doctoral thesis studies and compiles a preliminary historiography of the Tukkhā songs of North Bengal composed by the Rājbaṃśī community in the Rājbaṃśī lect, a living tradition largely unexplored by the academic community in India and beyond. My paper analyses language and practice, combining literary criticism with ethnographic research. These songs were influenced by devotional traditions such as the Buddhist Sahajayāna, Śaivism, Śāktism and Vaiṣṇavism. I have conducted extensive fieldwork in India (2017-2020) and documented and archived a number of songs (close to one hundred), interviews and audio-visual performances. My work focuses on the oral tradition (songs) and performative art and on the direct connections between the Rājbaṃśī living traditions and the rituals and cosmology depicted in Tantric medieval literature in Bengal. The rich corpus of songs contains various allegorical and esoteric themes and metaphors on the soul, body, training the mind as well as social commentaries. The thesis positions the songs as cognate with a number of Hindu and Buddhist Tantric schools that developed and flourished in the region of northeastern India and North Bengal, in particular, in the course of the last millennium.
Hanuman Bursary
Imran Visram
DPhil candidate, St Anthony’s College, University of Oxford
My research is on a body of religious songs, known as the ginans, which were composed at the height of Bhakti Vaishnavism in North and West India. Many ginans draw on mythological narratives from the Hindu tradition for the purpose of religious instruction, recounting, for example, the teachings of Krishna to Arjuna, the story of Raja Harishchandra, and the chronicles of each of the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu. Using the ginans as a leeway into the broader religious soundscapes of South Asia, my project is interested in assessing how we think and write about the pasts of oral literary traditions from the region more generally. The conclusions of my research will, therefore, also shed light on related lyrical traditions such as the bhajan, kirtan, Sufiana kalam, and qawwali.
Hanuman Bursary and the Gopal and Elizabeth Krishna Bursary
Barbora Sojkova
DPhil candidate, Balliol College, University of Oxford
I am currently writing up my DPhil thesis Animals in Vedic Literature. My research focuses on the ways in which Vedic people, semi-pastoralist tribes who lived in the north-east of the Indian subcontinent in the first millennium BCE, described the natural world around them, and particularly animals. Through a survey of the Vedic corpus, I am hoping to establish what knowledge Vedic people had about animals, and how much we, contemporary researchers, can tease out from the extant literature. Whilst the corpus is large and complicated, it is narrow in its understanding, viewing the world solely through the lens of the ritual which makes my project complicated and exciting in the same time
Dr Sivaswami & Renuka Nagraj Bursary
Utsa Bose
Mphil student, St. Cross College, University of Oxford
Goddesses, as imagination and lived reality, form the disquiet heart of popular imagination in the Indian subcontinent. Living through a devastating worldwide pandemic which had a particularly terrible impact on India, I chose to write my current MPhil thesis on the social space of plague in late colonial Calcutta. With an aim to further explore this topic, I plan to compare and analyse the birth, growth and development of “plague goddesses” in Southern India, particularly in the city of Bangalore. The deification of a disease as a goddess is by no means a new phenomenon. The subcontinent has seen the enduring cult of Śītalā, the goddess of smallpox, whose temples are spread out over different parts of the country even today. The onset of the bubonic plague epidemic in 1896 led to varying degrees of paranoia and panic in the subcontinent, and the disease soon spread to the different cities. While the plague was most virulent in Bombay, the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were among the worst hit. These states saw the establishment of “plague temples” meant to propitiate “Plague Amma” (The Plague Mother/Goddess). Bangalore had the highest number of such temples. Clustered and scattered around the city, these temples often functioned independently of one another and installed images of the plague goddess in their premises. What is of startling interest is the fact that worship in these temples continues today. However, the many lives, histories and traditions of these temples are still left comparatively understudied and constitute an important research desideratum.
Who are these plague goddesses? Is each goddess different from the other? What is their relationship with other disease goddesses, and indeed with each other? Do they claim descent from other gods or imply a new genealogy? What is the social life of these goddesses? How, if at all, has worship patterns changed over the years? These are some of the questions I hope to explore.
Narasimhacharya Bursary
Valters Negribs
DPhil candidate, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
I am in the final stages of my DPhil Oriental Studies course, writing up the last chapters of my thesis “Ascetic Teachings for Householder Kings in the Mahābhārata”, which is supervised by Professor Christopher Minkowski. The thesis will contribute to the scholarly understanding of early ascetic teachings in Ancient India, the relationship between ascetic teachings in the Mahābhārata and early Buddhist and Jaina literatures, and, in particular, it will examine how such ascetic teachings came to be presented as relevant for householder kings.
Ramalah Alagappan Bursary
Smridhi Chadh
MPhil student, St. Cross College, University of Oxford
I have a special interest in Śaivism and the Śakta cults and I wish to do a combinational study of these two very closely related traditions, especially focusing on Kashmiri and northern branches while tracing a sacred map of the hitherto lesser-known sites.
As I work on this project, I understand that I also wish to include more visuals than has since been attempted. I am a student of Sanskrit, and while I do plan to use the literature, I also plan to make critical use of the material evidence to ascertain claims and facts. Locating a sacred geography would transcend large, bordered spaces and also focus on the material content of these spaces, especially focusing on the perception of the goddess and projecting modern anthropological frameworks in a historical time to better understand the milieu in which this culture operated.
If you are interested in establishing a scholarship please contact:
Tanja Louise Jakobsen
tanja@ochs.org.uk or +44 (0)7306 197780
Tantrāloka readings with Professor Alexis Sanderson
Readings in the Tantrāloka
Trinity Term 2022
This term we welcome back Professor Alexis Sanderson as an OCHS Visiting Fellow. Professor Sanderson will be giving four readings on the Tantrāloka.
The lectures will take place in the OCHS Library on the following Wednesdays 4 May, 18 May, 1 June, and 15 June, from 4.00 to 5.30.
Join us in the OCHS library tomorrow at 4pm for the first talk of the term.
Watch or rewatch last term’s talks on the Tantrāloka here: https://ochs.org.uk/tantraloka-readings/
Summer Course in Kathmandu
Study in Kathmandu this Summer
This year we are launching an extraordinary new summer university programme. A two-week course that takes place in Kathmandu, Nepal, where students will be engaging in cultural fieldwork, local excursions, yoga classes, paired with academic lectures and workshops.
This is a great opportunity for students to connect their formal educational knowledge to real-world experiences. The summer program will include attendance at a myriad of rituals and cultural practices, group excursions throughout the city’s many cultural sites, and other enriching local activities.
The programme will also offer ECTS accreditation for undergraduate students in attendance.
If students have any questions, they can contact
Gitte Poulsen,
Manager and Tutor
gitte@ochs.org.uk
Laura Anderson,
Manager
laura@ochs.org.uk
Śākta Traditions Online Lecture Series | Professor June McDaniel
Śāktism and Ethnography: Some Major Styles of Worship and Belief among Practitioners
Śākta Traditions Online Lecture Series: Contributions to a growing field of Śākta Studies
This week in the Śākta Traditions Online Lecture Series we welcomed Professor June McDaniel. Professor Emerita in History of Religions in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of Charleston she did her PhD from University of Chicago and her MTS from Emory University. Her research areas include Mysticism, Religions of India, Psychology of Religion, Women and Religion, and Ritual Studies. She did several years of field research in West Bengal, funded by Fulbright and the American Institute of Indian Studies. In her lecture this week, she talked about the study of Shaktism being a relatively new field with the development of new methodologies to befit the perceptions of practitioners and devotees. The regional focus was on West Bengal, India. There was additionally a brief note on how traditional Shakta ideas have been incorporated into nationalism by politicians, and into hedonism by modern entrepreneurs.
Please enjoy the lecture below.
Readings by Prof. Alexis Sanderson
Readings in the Tantrāloka
Yesterday we had the pleasure of welcoming our J.P. and Beena Khaitan Visiting Fellow Professor Alexis Sanderson for his first reading on the Tantrāloka. The next talk will be on 10 February at 2.00 pm.
Forthcoming talks
Week 4, 6, 8, Thursday, 2.00-3.30
In these lectures Professor Sanderson will introduce the opening verses of the Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta (fl. c. 975–1025), that author’s monumental exposition of the Śaiva Tantras from the standpoint of the Śākta Śaiva tradition known as the Trika and the philosophical non-dualism of the Pratyabhijñā texts.
Alexis Sanderson began his Indological career as a student of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1969, studying the Kashmirian Śaiva literature in Kashmir with the Śaiva Guru Swami Lakshman Joo from 1971 to 1977. He was Associate Professor (University Lecturer) of Sanskrit at Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College from 1977 to 1992 and then the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College from 1992 to 2015. Since then, he has been preparing a critical edition of the Tantrāloka with a translation and commentary. His field is early medieval religion in India and Southeast Asia, focusing on the history of Śaivism, its relations with the state, and its influence on Buddhism and Vaishnavism.
Watch the first talk here: