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 seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.
Archives: Lectures
Sanskrit Prelims: Session four (TT18)
The course provides an introduction to Sanskrit for the preliminary paper of the Theology and Religion Faculty in Elementary Sanskrit. The class is designed to introduce students of Theology and Religion to the basics of Sanskrit grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. By the end of the course students will have competency in translating simple Sanskrit and reading sections of the Chāndogya-upaniṣad, the Bhagavad-gītā and passages from other texts such as the Buddhist Heart Sūtra (Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra). The course book will be Maurer’s The Sanskrit Language. This course is a continuation from the Sanskrit Prelims course started in Michaelmas Term 2017.
Week 5. What is consciousness? Mind, reason, and phenomenology in Vedānta and Sāṃkhya (TT18)
Graduate Seminars in Indian Philosophy
Readings in Phenomenology: Week five (TT18)
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 seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.
Week 6. What is identity or essence? Attributes, Modes, and Meaning in Parināma-vāda (TT18)
Graduate Seminars in Indian Philosophy
Readings in Phenomenology: Week six (TT18)
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 seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.
Battle of the Gods: A Comparative Study of Narrative Techniques in Nepali Painting
While exploring the collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), I was struck by four dazzling illustrations where splendid architecture and dramatic landscapes in rainbow colours serve as backdrops as Krishna hunts, marries beautiful princesses, and engages in combat. The depicted episodes from the Latter Half of the Tenth Book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa were familiar to me from illustrations produced at the Rajput courts, in the Punjab hills, and in Central India. But here, Krishna had been transposed into the rich and brilliant world of Nepali paintings and occupied the cities and palaces of the Kathmandu valley, his presence bearing testimony to the wide sphere of the Bhāgavata’s circulation and influence.
The four PMA illustrations and the lavish Nepali manuscript to which they belong have never been studied in detail. This is despite the long history of Vaishnavism in Nepal, the ubiquity of artworks dedicated to Vishnu and his incarnations, and the manuscript’s participation in a broader North Indian engagement with the Krishna legend. Moreover, the manuscript is visually spectacular and a singular example in Nepal’s canon. In this talk, I will examine the manuscript’s depiction of the “battle of the gods” between Krishna and Shiva alongside a Nepali scroll that portrays the Harivaṃśa’s version of the encounter. By comparing arrangement of text and image, visualization of space and place, storytelling techniques and style, I will probe how the manuscript’s organization and narrative rhythm derive at least partially from the features it shares with contemporary Hindu (and Buddhist) scrolls. My larger goal is to prompt a revision of the dominant narrative of Himalayan art where “Himalayan” is seen as synonymous with Tibetan Buddhist art; such a characterization fails to account for Nepal’s rich canon of Hindu-themed works and its entangled socio-cultural history where deities, religious practices and artistic styles are shared between Hinduism and Buddhism.
Dr. Neeraja Poddar received her Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia University. She was the Andrew W. Mellon—Anne d’Harnoncourt Postdoctoral Fellow in South Asian Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is now Curator at The City Palace Museum, Udaipur. Poddar’s publications and research focus broadly on South Asian illustrated manuscripts; she is particularly interested in the materiality of books, the relationships between text and image and the transmission and circulation of narratives. She also studies the painting traditions of Nepal with particular emphasis on Vaiṣṇava imagery. Poddar co-curated the reinstallation of the South Asian galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is currently working on a book project related to illustrated manuscripts of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as well as a catalogue of The City Palace Museum, Udaipur’s silver collection.
Śākta Traditions Symposium II: Welcome
Hinduism cannot be understood without the Goddess (Devī/Śakti) and the goddess-oriented Śākta traditions. The Goddess pervades Hinduism at all levels, from aniconic village deities to high-caste pan-Hindu goddesses to esoteric, tantric goddesses. Nevertheless, these highly influential forms of South Asian religion have only recently begun to draw a more broad scholarly attention. Taken together, they form ‘Śāktism’, which is by many considered one of the major branches of Hinduism next to Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism. Śāktism is, however, less clearly defined than the other major branches and sometimes surprisingly difficult to discern from Śaivism in its tantric forms. These sometimes very complex and challenging forms of Śākta religion provide a test case for our understanding of Hinduism and raise important theoretical and methodological questions with regard to the study of religious traditions in South Asia.
The Śākta symposia series at the OCHS include state-of-the-art contributions by a number of scholars to the Śākta Traditions research project (saktatraditions.org) and its endeavor in tracing developments in the history of goddess worship in South Asia among the orthoprax brahmans, among the tantric traditions and at village level. Thus, the symposia act as historical explorations of distinctive Indian and Nepalese ways of imagining God as Goddess (and goddesses) contributing to a survey of important origins and developments within Śākta history, practice and doctrine in its diversity as well as offering an insight into the fascinating Śākta religious imaginaire and ritual practice that is distinctive and sets ‘Śāktism’ apart from other forms of South Asian religion. The symposia will also include contributions on the reception history of Śākta and tantric elements in global religious history and diaspora Hinduism.
Programme
10.00-13.15 Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (http://www.ochs.org.uk/)
13-15 Magdalen Street, Oxford, OX1 3AE (Tel: 01865 304300)
10.00-10.15 Welcome by Prof Gavin Flood (Oxford)
10.15-11.00 Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen (Oxford): Mapping Śākta Traditions
11.00-11.15 Tea and biscuits
11.15-12.15 Prof Knut Jacobsen (Bergen): Tamil Śākta traditions in Europe
12.15-13.15 Astrid Zotter (Heidelberg): Durgā and the Kings of Nepal
13.15-15.00 Lunch
15.00-18.00 Campion Hall (http://www.campion.ox.ac.uk/)
Brewer St, Oxford, OX1 1QS
15.00-15.15 Campion Hall small tour with Professor Gavin Flood
15.15-16.15 Silvia Schwarz Linder (Leipzig): The Doctrinal Teachings of the Tripurārahasya
16.15-16.30 Tea and biscuits
16.30-17.30 Julian Strube (Heidelberg): Modern Śākta Identities in a Global Context
17.30-18.00 Jesper Moeslund (Aarhus): Philosophy as a Meta-language in Tantric Studies
Mapping Śākta Traditions: On the State of the Art and Conceptual Modeling in the study of Hindu ‘Śāktism’
This paper will go up from the particular and examine some of the challenges we face regarding an emic working model of what we refer to as ’Śākta’ and ’Śāktism’. With research history and conceptual history as the point of departure an example will be given of how such a model and definition could be formulated, relating textual details with metatheoretical questions and the longue durée of the history of Śākta traditions. The aim of this paper is therefore to discuss and provide a model of how we can begin mapping the particularity of the text and fieldwork with bigger issues and problems in the study of the history of religious traditions in South Asia. Finally, the usefulness of a better working model and definition of Śāktism is suggested by showing how such a model backed by new research presents a solution to some of the old problems formulated by André Padoux concerning the relationship between Śāktism and tantra.
Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen is a Research Lecturer at the centre and teaches courses and tutorials in Sanskrit, Pali and Indian religions at the OCHS and at the Theology and Religion Faculty, University of Oxford. He is the leader and manager of the Śākta Traditions research project at the OCHS together with Professor Gavin Flood and the founder of the OCHS research office in Kathmandu. His main areas of research include Śāktism, tantric traditions, yoga and asceticism. He has published a number of books and translations and conducted fieldwork in Nepal.
Tamil Śākta traditions in Europe: The Worship of Thurkkai Amma in Hindu Temples in Norway
This paper presents the worship of the goddess Thurkkai/Durgā in Hindu temples in Norway. Hindus in Norway are mostly from Punjab and Tamil Eelam and Thurkkkai/Durgā is the most popular goddess in both these regions of South Asia. The paper focuses in particular on three Eelam Tamil temples in the capital Oslo, and the different constellations of mūrtis and their worship. The focus in the temples is on Thurkkai as mother, and on the relationship of mother and son. Śiva has only a minor presence in the temples and the paper discusses whether the focus of the temples are on the independent Goddess (Devī) rather than on Śiva’s power (Śakti).
Professor Knut Axel Jacobsen is a Norwegian scholar of the history of religions and professor at the University of Bergen. He has a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has been professor at the University of Bergen since 1996. Jacobsen’s main areas of research include Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Pilgrimage in South Asia, and South Asian religions and migration. He is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of the six volume Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism (2009–2015) and editor-in-chief of the Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online.