Archives: Lectures

The Social Impact of Hindu Temples in East Bengal under the Mughals

Session 5 of the 2007 Shivdasani Conference.

Paradoxically, in Bengal, most of the standing Hindu temples postdate the arrival of the Mughals, at the end of the 16th century. What significance did these Hindu landmarks have in the social and historical context? Where they simply commemorative, vindictive or did they compromise with the “hostile” rulers? How did these Hindu temples integrate landscapes with outstanding Muslim monuments?

The archaeology of the imposing Kantanagar temple in north Bengal, and many other shrines from different parts of Bengal provide a rich matter of thought. They are particularly interesting as they incorporate the traditional skills of local terracotta artisans and brick builders into a variety of iconographical and architectural creations deeply rooted in a specific social background.

 

The Ambika Temple at Jagat: A Biographical Sketch

Session 5 of the 2007 Shivdasani Conference.

The Ambika temple in Jagat village, about 50 km southeast of Udaipur in the western Indian State of Rajasthan, dates back to 961 AD. The temple has a simple but well-spelt iconological scheme. Its numerous fine sculptures are in an excellent state of preservation. Ambika temple is a Devi (goddess) temple, with images of Durga, Saptamatrikas and other female divinities sculpted on the walls and doorframes of the main temple and the adjunct halls. As the red flag on the sikhara and the congregation of devotees indicate, the temple is still being used for worship. The principal image of Devi presently placed in the garbha-griha (sanctum-sanctorum) though is not of the same date as the temple’s construction and consecration but is a more recent image installed on the earlier pedestal and placed in front of the original parikara (image-frame). Since when do we have evidence of the association of this site at Jagat with Devi worship? What does archaeological evidence and the iconography of the temple sculptures reveal about the nature of goddess worship at this site? What are the textual injunctions regarding worship in a temple when the main image of the deity in the sanctum is lost, stolen or damaged? What could have been the motivating forces for the local population to continue worship to the goddess in this temple? The present paper attempts a biographical sketch of this monument to relate the received evidence to textual injunctions and the iconological programme of the temple in addressing such concerns.

 

Temple Sponsorship and Money Use in Early Medieval Deccan

Session 3 of the 2007 Shivdasani Conference.

The early medieval period (c. 600 – 1200 AD) witnessed a tremendous boom in temple construction all over the Deccan. Imperial and feudatory houses such as the Rashtrakutas, the Chalukyas, the Kalachuris, the Shilaharas and the Yadavas patronised varied religious sects and endowed shrines, temples and monasteries. The main source of information are the copper plate charters, which contain a host of information about various modalities of the endowments, a prominent component of which concerns money.

This paper will address select instances of patronage with specific reference to the use of money involved in it, on circulatory and socio-economic trajectories. Emphasis will be placed on references dealing with the instrumentality of money in the enterprise of temple-building – how was money generated, disseminated and deposited to facilitate the construction and management of the temple. It will discuss what sort of coins were in use, how they circulated and what were the dynamics involving the different ‘moneyed classes’ in terms of using their wealth for temple-building activities.

As a broader historical end-note, the paper will shed light on the prevalent notion of ‘paucity of coinage’ during the early medieval period.

 

The Ritual Culture Of Temples And Icons in Jainism

Session 15 of the 2007 Shivdasani Conference.

As part of his mendicant vows, a Jain monk is committed to total non-possession.* He owns nothing. He is dependent upon the laity for even his robes , bowls, staff, and other ritual insignia and paraphernalia. These are, so to speak, “loaned” to him by the laity. In theory he should not ask even for these, and if the laity choose not to provide them, he should do without.

Jain temples are the sites of great wealth and display. Wealthy patrons vie with each other to see who can spend the most money building and renovating the most temples, and in other ways be seen as prominent supporters of Jainism. Jain temples are grand architectural creations, filled with hundreds of carved stone and cast bronze icons. In the Åmbara case, many of these icons are ornamented with expensive gold and jewelry. In both Åmbara and Digambara temples one sees extensive and expensive ornamentation of the temple itself, as it is understood to be the divine palace of the true king of kings, the true lord of lords.

One might expect, therefore, that mendicancy and temples are two discrete realms of Jain practice, with little to connect the two. Surely the ritual, visual, material, and devotional culture of temples and icons is a lay creation, grafted onto an original mendicant, renunciatory core of Jainism.

This is not the case, however. Mendicancy and temples are integrally intertwined, and the resistance to those few instances in Jain history when critics have attempted to uncouple the two indicates just how strong are the ties that bind the two together for the majority of Jains.

In this paper I explore four facets of the mendicant promotion of temples and icons.

1. Some of our earliest evidence of icons in Jainism–and in South Asia in general–comes from Mathura. Most of the many Jina icons from Mathura are inscribed, telling us information about the donor. While in all cases the donor is a layperson–and in this the Mathura Jain evidence differs from the Mathura Buddhist evidence–in almost all cases we also find that a mendicant played an integral in the dedication and installation of the icon.

2. Common to both the Åmbara and Digambara traditions is an ancient conception of mendicant practice as structured around six required daily ritual activities. While five of these–equanimity , veneration of the mendicant superior (vandana), confession (pratikramana), vowed asceticism , and meditative renunciation of the body –are clearly of a more renunciatory, non-material nature, the sixth–veneration of the icons/temples (caitya-vandana) shows that icons and temples are essential to mendicant practice.

3. Ritual manuals for the consecration and installation of icons date only from the medieval period. But they show that mendicants play an essential, in many ways even irreplaceable, role in consecration.

4. Both medieval and contemporary evidence shows that mendicants have frequently promoted the ritual culture of temples and icons to their devotees. Monks preach that building temples and donating icons earns a great store of merit. Monks encourage their lay devotees to restore old and dilapidated temples. Monks organize consecration festivals, and distribute new consecrated icons to many temples as a way of spreading their institutional charisma.

Most accounts of Jainism pay attention largely to Jain asceticism and renunciation. Temples and icons appear largely in the illustrations to the accounts, not in the text. But an accurate portrayal of Jainism needs to keep both mendicants and temples firmly in the centre of focus. Further, that accurate portrayal needs to see how mendicants have been central to the culture of temples and icons, and vice versa.

* While there have always been large numbers of Jain nuns, for the most part they have not played the same role in the ritual culture of temples and icons as monks, and so I intentionally use the male pronoun here.

 

Twentieth-century Sanskrit commentaries on the Vaisesikasutras

This lecture highlights five Sanskrit commentaries on the Vaisesikasutras that have been written and published in the last century. The commentaries are: (i) Vaidikavritih, by Pt. Hariprasada, Nirnayasagar, 1951; (ii) Rasayana, by Sri Uttamur Viraraghavacharya, Madras, 1958; (iii) Brahmamunibhasyam, by Swami Brahmamuni, Baroda, 1962; (iv) Vedabhaskarabhasyam, by Pt. Kashinath Sharma, Himachal, 1972; (v) Sugama, by Desika Tirumalai Tatacharya, Allahabad, 1979. Dr Shashiprabha Kumar is Professor in Sanskrit Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and specialises in Nyaya-Vaisesika. She has published widely in this field over the past thirty years and has particular interest in the idea of consciousness in Nyaya, as well as the early history of the school.

 

The concept of Hindu philosophy

This seminar will discuss the concept of philosophy in the Hindu context and will examine foundational concepts as well as explore their psychological and spiritual import. Dr Sangeetha Menon graduated in Zoology, and then took her postgraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Kerala, with a thesis entitled ‘The Concept of Consciousness in the Bhagavad Gita. A gold-medalist and first rank holder for postgraduate studies, she has been a fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Studies since 1996.

 

Comparative theology as intellectual and spiritual practice

The study of great religious texts demands much of the scholar, in part because such texts require professional linguistic and historical expertise, familiarity with the tradition in which the text arose, and a sense of the wider and often unstated context. But such religious texts also make demands on the reader, drawing him or her into thinking and feeling in specific ways about the topics discussed in the text. The reader then has to make choices about where, if anywhere, to draw a line between scholarly detachment and engaged participation. If the reader comes from a religious tradition, then he or she also brings the expectations of that tradition to the reading process, complicating even the initial scholarly learning practice. Prof. Clooney will illustrate the complexities of this learning with respect to his current study of the Srimad Rahasyatrayasara of Vedanta Desika (fourteenth century, South India).

Professor Frank Clooney, SJ, is Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard. Prof. Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books in the area of Hindu Studies and comparative theology, including Fr. Bouchet’s India: An 18th-Century Jesuit’s Encounter With Hinduism (2005), Divine Mother, Blessed Mother (2005), and Hindu God, Christian God (2001).

 

Making room for the goddess: A theology of Sri in fourteenth-century South India

While Vedanta Desika (fourteenth century, South India), as a Srivaisnava Hindu, was a member of a tradition with the greatest respect for the Goddess Sri, in his era there was still lively debate about her precise status in relationship to the supreme deity, Narayana.

In his Srimad Rahasyatrayasara, Desika pushes for a complete acceptance of Sri as the eternal consort of Narayana, an indispensable equal participant in the divine work of enabling human salvation.

Though in many ways a theological conservative and defender of traditional orthodoxy, Desika here shows himself to be radical and innovative in his defense of Sri. Comparison and contrast with debates over the identity of Jesus in early Christian theology and over the role of Mary, mother of Jesus, as co-mediatrix of redemption, clarify Desika’s theological method and contribution to the theology of Sri.

Professor Frank Clooney, SJ, is Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard. Prof. Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books in the area of Hindu Studies and comparative theology, including Fr. Bouchet’s India: An 18th-Century Jesuit’s Encounter With Hinduism (2005), Divine Mother, Blessed Mother (2005), and Hindu God, Christian God (2001).

 

The power of divine beauty: A study of the Saundaryalahari

Wahlstrom Lecture

Among the varied ways of worshipping a goddess, the chanting of her eulogy is favoured by many a devotee and the existence of a wide range of such litanies are part of India’s religious tradition. The Saundaryalahari, of the 9th–10th century, probably falsely attributed to Shankaracharya, is one such grand prayer. Can the explicit delineation of beauty, rampant in this text, be a path to mukti? In this case what are the ramifications for the worshipper? The Saundaryalahari deals with esoteric cults such as Srividya and its technicalities. However despite the Tantric nature of this text, it has been ‘appropriated’ by large numbers of city dwelling self-confessedly, ‘non-tantric’ women, who chant it regularly. Besides embarking on an exegetical study, this talk will share some of the explorations the speaker has been able to make through interviews held in major cities in India. The lecture will examine the way beauty has been delineated in this text and how it has been entwined with bhakti, both from the view of the goddess herself as well as the worshipper. Nilima Chitgopekar is Associate Professor of History in the Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University. She has written books dealing with the Shaiva pantheon which include, Encountering Sivaism: The Deity, the Milieu, the Entourage (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers), and The Book of Durga (Penguin), and edited Invoking Godesses: Gender Politics in Indian Religion (Shakti Books). Her forthcoming title, Rudra:The Idea of Shiva (Penguin), a fictionalised biography of Shiva, will be released in June of this year.