Lecture tag: Veda

The Meaningfulness of the ‘Meaninglessness of Ritual’: Vedic Ritual (yajña) as Renunciation (tyāga) (HT15)

Though debatable in textual interpretation, Staal’s provocative idea of the ‘meaninglessness of ritual’ points to intrinsic self-justifying dimensions of Vedic ritual.  Perhaps the most important of these dimensions is the ritual’s intrinsic component of renunciation (tyāga) that co-exists, in a complex form, with other external goals. Renunciation forms the structural basis for the continuity between yajña and pūjā and for the organic link that binds together the karmakāṇḍa and the jñānakāṇḍa of the Vedas.

Prof. Dilip Loundo is Coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Religions and Philosophies of India (NERFI). NERFI is an integral part of the Postgraduate Program of Religious Studies (PPCIR) of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Minas Gerais, Brazil. Prof. Loundo is a Ph.D. in Indian Philosophy from Mumbai University, an M.A. and M.Phil. in Philosophy from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Sanskrit from Mumbai University. His recent publications include: Comments on Nāgārjuna’s Two Truth Doctrine (São Paulo, 2014); Buddhavacana e Śabda Pramāṇa in Mahāyāna Buddhism and Advaita Vedānta (Campinas, 2014); Ritual in Vedic Tradition: Openness, Plurality and Teleology (João Pessoa, 2012); What´s Philosophy After All? The Intertwined Destinies of Greek Philosophy and Indian Upaniṣadic Thinking (Barcelona, 2011); The Seashore of Endless Worlds: Rabindranath Tagore’s Encounters with Latin America (Belo Horizonte, 2011); The Apophatic Mystagogy of the Upaniṣads in Satchidanandendra Saraswati’s Advaita Vedānta (Juiz de Fora, 2011); Poetry and Soteriology in India: The Devotional Lyricism of Jayadeva’s Gītā-Govinda (Campinas: 2011); Bhartṛhari’s Nondual Linguistic Ontology and the Semantics of ātmanepada (Bangalore, 2010); An Anthology of Hindi Poetry (Rio de Janeiro, 2010); Tropical Dialogues: Brazil and India (Rio de Janeiro:2009). He is presently engaged in preparing the first direct translation into Portuguese of the main Sanskrit Upaniṣads.

Haribhaktivilāsa as the meeting of Vedic, Tantric and Puranic ritualism (TT17)

The Haribhaktivilāsa (HBV) is an extensive Sanskrit ritual compendium written around 1534 by Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmin, a grand-disciple of the celebrated Bengali mystic and reformer Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1486–1533), the founder of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava saṃpradāya. Though being one of the oldest of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava texts, the HBV has received little academic study so far. No doubt this has been partly because scholars of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism have largely focused on the saṃpradāya’s theology, especially in relation to the concept of rasa, but also because so little of this text is original. More than 90% of its verses are cited from other texts.

In this talk, based on my present text-critical work with this book, I will try to shed light on some of its vexing questions, such as its authorship, primary and secondary sources, purpose, Tantric influences and neglect or downplaying of practices thought typical for Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism. Further, by looking at its manuscript history, I will offer some tentative thoughts on the spread of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava texts in the early 17th century.

Dr. Måns Broo is a university researcher in comparative religion at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. His main research interests include yoga – both its history and contemporary forms – and the intersections between Vaiṣṇavism and Tantrism in pre-modern Bengal. He is at present engaged in compiling a critical edition and translation of the mediaeval Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava ritual compilation Haribhaktivilāsa. 

The philosophy and world-view of the women of the Ṛg-veda I (MT19

From an in-depth study of the hymns attributed to the women seers of the Ṛg-veda, one may accumulate some notions about their world-view, and what life exactly meant for them. It is evident from the literature of the Ṛg-veda that by no means women had been socially handicapped as they became in India during the middle ages. The fundamental expectations of Ṛg-vedic women were to get married, and to have a household of their own with a strong yet a loyal husband and a number of offspring. The intellectual women of the Ṛg-veda, perhaps, knew a life above the mere temporal necessities. This spiritual bend of mind, of a few women at least, is best reflected in the hymn of Āmbhṛṇī Vāc (ṚV 10.125). The seer, who experiences herself as free as the eternally blowing wind, hardly cares for a life-partner. On the contrary, she claims that whomsoever she desires, she herself makes him the priest, him alone the mighty and him the seer.

Prof. Mau Das Gupta is Professor in Sanskrit at Calcutta University. She was awarded the prestigious Eashan Scholarship and the University gold medal along with many other prizes for her outstanding results in graduate and post-graduate examinations of the University of Calcutta. She did her PhD at Jadavpur University. She is an Associate Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Calcutta and was head, Department of Sanskrit till January 2016. A Vedic scholar, Das Gupta has interests in various other fields of literature. A poetess herself, she is also known for writing on various issues concerning Sanskrit and Bengali literature. She is a Sahitya Akademi Awardee (2015) for her translation of Hazari Prasad Dwivedi’s Anamdas ka Potha (2012) into Bengali.

How did unmarried women live in the Ṛg-vedic age? (MT19)

The unmarried women of the Ṛg-vedic age longed primarily for conjugal love and the security provided by a heroic husband and a number of male offspring. This talk will focus on the literature of Apālā and Ghoṣā to understand the position of unmarried women in the Ṛg-vedic age. Both these women were afflicted with skin disease and remained unmarried in their father’s home. Apālā, the seer of ṚV 8.91, according to traditional sources, was infected with a cutaneous disease, which made it difficult for her to find a suitor. She was delighted when Indra drank soma-juice from her mouth.

Prof. Mau Das Gupta is Professor in Sanskrit at Calcutta University. She was awarded the prestigious Eashan Scholarship and the University gold medal along with many other prizes for her outstanding results in graduate and post-graduate examinations of the University of Calcutta. She did her PhD at Jadavpur University. She is an Associate Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Calcutta and was head, Department of Sanskrit till January 2016. A Vedic scholar, Das Gupta has interests in various other fields of literature. A poetess herself, she is also known for writing on various issues concerning Sanskrit and Bengali literature. She is a Sahitya Akademi Awardee (2015) for her translation of Hazari Prasad Dwivedi’s Anamdas ka Potha (2012) into Bengali.