Lecture tag: Vedānta

The Contested Legacy of Swami Vivekananda

This lecture examines Swami Vivekananda in his time and ours. It will look in particular at his contributions to the work of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and the “militant Hinduism” that he preached, which interpreted fairly, differs considerably from contemporary Hindu nationalism.

Joseph Prabhu is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at California State University, Los Angeles and occasional Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. He is active as both a scholar and a peace activist. He has edited The Intercultural Challenge of Raimon Panikkar (Orbis Books, 1996) and co-edited the two-volume Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges (Ashgate Publishing Co, 2007;  Springer and Oxford University Press, India, 2016).He has authored Raimon Panikkar as a Modern Spiritual Master (Orbis Books, 2015). He has been a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University and of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago. He has also been co-editor of ReVision from 1995-2003, and a contributing editor of Zygon. He is the past President of the international Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, 2008-2010, and the Program Chair for the Melbourne Parliament of the World’s Religions, 2009. He served on the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the Council of a Parliament of the World’s Religions from 2005-2011. He has lectured and taught at more than seventy universities either as visiting professor or as guest lecturer in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and the United States.

‘Srīkaṇṭhācāryair eva sa panthā darśitaḥ’: Historiographical remarks on the Śivādvaita Vedānta corpus

In the course of the sixteenth century, the South Indian scholar Appaya Dīkṣita (1520-1593) composed a number of works devoted to the exegesis and promulgation of a Śaiva-leaning school of Vedānta—Śivādvaita Vedānta—whose origins he traces to Śrīkaṇṭha’s Brahmamīmāṃsābhāṣya. One of Appaya’s concerns in his elaborate reconstruction of the school is to situate Śrīkaṇṭha vis-à-vis other Vedānta theologians, and at times to show that Śrīkaṇṭha was the first among them to have proposed certain key ideas. In this lecture, I wish to reflect on this question through contextualizing the Śivādvaita interpretation of the ānandamayādhikaraṇa in the Brahmasūtra. I will discuss Śaṅkara’s and Rāmānuja’s interpretations on the same, and shall present evidence that points to another important participant in this scholarly discussion: the Vīraśaivas. As such, this lecture will also lay the basis for a forthcoming study of the Vīraśaiva Śivādvaita tradition and its hitherto uncharted role in the formation of Śrīkaṇṭha’s school.

Dr Jonathan Duquette is a scholar of South Asian religions whose work concentrates primarily on the history of late medieval and early modern Sanskrit intellectual traditions in India. After completing his Ph.D. in Montreal in 2011, Dr. Duquette was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hamburg, Leiden University, Kyoto University and the University of Oxford, where he currently pursues his research as a Newton International Fellow on the history and literary corpus of Śivādvaita Vedānta. Trained initially as a physicist, Dr. Duquette also nourishes an interest for the interaction between natural sciences and religions as well as for recent developments in philosophy of science and comparative philosophy. He has published articles in Journal of Indian Philosophy, Numen, Zygon and Philosophy East and West, and was also co-editor for a felicitation volume collecting essays on South Asian religions.

Hinduism 2: Hindu Traditions (Paper 21): Lecture 6 (HT 16)

Beginning with the early medieval period, this paper traces the development of Hinduism in devotional (bhakti) and tantric traditions. The paper examines the development of Śaiva, Śākta, and Vaiṣṇava traditions along with ideas about liberation, ritual, asceticism, yoga and devotion. There will be some exploration of Hinduism and Modernity and there may also be reference to major schools of Hindu philosophy such as Vedānta.

Hinduism 2: Hindu Traditions (Paper 21): Lecture 5 (HT 16)

Beginning with the early medieval period, this paper traces the development of Hinduism in devotional (bhakti) and tantric traditions. The paper examines the development of Śaiva, Śākta, and Vaiṣṇava traditions along with ideas about liberation, ritual, asceticism, yoga and devotion. There will be some exploration of Hinduism and Modernity and there may also be reference to major schools of Hindu philosophy such as Vedānta.

Hinduism 2: Hindu Traditions (Paper 21): Lecture 3 (HT 16)

Beginning with the early medieval period, this paper traces the development of Hinduism in devotional (bhakti) and tantric traditions. The paper examines the development of Śaiva, Śākta, and Vaiṣṇava traditions along with ideas about liberation, ritual, asceticism, yoga and devotion. There will be some exploration of Hinduism and Modernity and there may also be reference to major schools of Hindu philosophy such as Vedānta.

Hinduism 2: Hindu Traditions (Paper 21): Lecture 1 (HT 16)

Beginning with the early medieval period, this paper traces the development of Hinduism in devotional (bhakti) and tantric traditions. The paper examines the development of Śaiva, Śākta, and Vaiṣṇava traditions along with ideas about liberation, ritual, asceticism, yoga and devotion. There will be some exploration of Hinduism and Modernity and there may also be reference to major schools of Hindu philosophy such as Vedānta.

Is gnosis enough? The path to liberation-while-living in Vidyāraṇya’s Advaita Vedānta

The Advaita Vedāntic path to liberation is often characterized as being constituted by, and as culminating in, gnosis or advaitic awakening. In his fourteenth century work the Jīvanmuktiviveka, Vidyāraṇya, however, argues for a broader conception of Advaita Vedāntic sādhana, which revolves around the problem of post-gnosis obscurations. In this paper I examine Vidyāraṇya’s understanding of the causes of post-gnosis hindrances and how they inform his articulation of two stages of renunciation and their corresponding disciplinary schemes and liberative results. I also explore the way in which Vidyāraṇya situates the Jīvanmuktiviveka‘s yogic approach in relation to his Śaṃkarite sampradāya.

Dr. James Madaio is a research fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He is also a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Associate Editor of the Journal of Hindu Studies. He received his doctorate degree from the Religions and Theology department at the University of Manchester. He was a postdoctoral fellow at New Europe College in Bucharest, affiliated researcher at the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute in Chennai, and a lecturer at the Honors College at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Guru-śiṣya-saṃbandha: The Structure of Faith in the Śaṅkaran Vedānta Religious Tradition

This lecture focuses on the Śaṅkaran Vedānta religious tradition of Śṛṅgeri in contemporary Indian society. In India, Śaṅkara, whose date is about 700-750, was a famous Indian philosopher who advocated the advaita (non-dual) Vedānta philosophy. At the same time, he has been traditionally believed to be the founder of this religious tradition whose center is located in Śṛṅgeri. In this lecture, I would like to clarify the “relationship of a teacher with his disciples” (guru-śiṣya-saṃbandha) as one of the main characteristics of this religious faith. In this religious tradition, there is such a relationship at the dimension of the saṃnyāsins (world-renouncers) and at that of lay adherents. In particular, I will focus on the relationship between the Jagadguru (a world teacher) and his disciples, whether they are saṃnyāsins or lay people. From the perspectives of religious studies, my lecture aims to explore the nature of the two kinds of faith, i.e., the religious commitments of saṃnyāsins and lay adherents.

Prof. Yoshitsugu Sawai is Professor of the History of Religions and former Dean of the Faculty of Human Studies at Tenri University (Japan), as well as Advisor of the Japan Association of Religion and Ethics. He is the author of The Faith of Ascetics and Lay Smartas: A Study of the Sankaran Tradition of Srngeri (Sammlung De Nobili).