Lectures Archive - Page 17 of 204 - Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Archives: Lectures

Hinduism 1, V (MT22)

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, X (MT22)

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. 

The relationship between āsana (posture), sukha (bliss), and meditation in early yoga (MT22)

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”.

Readings in Vedānta, V (MT22)

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.

Sanskrit and Pali Prelims, IX (MT22)

Readings in Phenomenology, V (MT22)

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).

Hinduism 1, IV (MT22)

Sanskrit and Pali Prelims, VIII (MT22)

Readings in Vedānta, IV (MT22)

Visualization in Some Bengali Hindu Contemplative Traditions: Vaishnava bhakti, Shakta Tantra, Baul songs and Raja Yoga (MT22)

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.

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.