Archives: Lectures
Rudolf Otto’s Perspective of Indian Religious Thought
In the early modern period since the seventeenth century, after contact between East and West became vigorous, Indian religious thought was introduced to the West and attracted the attention of Western intellectuals. One of these intellectuals was the Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto (1869–1937). In his works on Indian religious thought, Otto focused on Vedanta philosophy, represented by Sankara and Ramanuja, and on Vaisnava faith in Hindu religious tradition. According to his framework of religions, the Hindu tradition as the “bhakti religion” corresponds to the Christian tradition in the West. From a comparative viewpoint of religions, based on his Christian theological studies, he argued that religions provided “parallel lines of development” in the East and the West. In my lecture, I would like to clarify the characteristics of Otto’s perspective of Indian religious thought from a hermeneutical perspective of religion and to re-examine to what extent his view may be adequate for the understanding of Hindu tradition. Prof. Yoshitsugu Sawai is Professor of the History of Religions and Chair of the Department of Religious 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).
Archaeologies of power: materialization of imperial ideology on the Aśoka horizon
Archaeologists have conceptualized power either as personal potency or something structural, but more comprehensively as nothing but the dialectical relationship between the two. Comparatively in Indic philosophy, both the normative knowledge of statecraft and personal experience of the ruler were considered as integral to the exercise of overlordship. I will thus archaeologically investigate the role of A?oka the Great in exploiting sources of power especially (but not exclusively) ideology through the archaeological theory of materialization. It has been argued that ideology can be materialized: in ancient South Asia, ideology assumed its materialized forms as royal orders on permanent materials, monuments/monumental art, coins, rituals, distributions of imperial art/architecture/artifacts or settlement patterns/hierarchies. The contents, contexts and locations of A?okan edicts best manifest the modes of power of the Indic world. I will first challenge the discrepancy between A?oka’s proselytization of Buddhism and religious tolerance as well as the long-held dichotomy of the Buddhist and Brahmanical models of his kingship. Secularization of certain technical terms in A?okan edicts and their geopolitical locations rather support such imperial strategies as universal pacification and compartmentalization. The collective evidence of the royal orders of A?oka, Kh?ravera, Rudrad?man and Samudragupta will further illuminate the cakravartin kingship of the Indo-European origin. I will hypothesize that A?oka as cakravartin materialized his power by marking his symbolic circumambulation of his empire with his Major and Minor Rock Edicts located on Mauryan borderlands.
Corporeal relics in stupa deposits from Gandhara
The literary tradition has it that after the Buddha left his earthly body, his body was cremated and his bones divided between 8 kings. These bones are, according to Buddhist tradition, corporeal relics of the Buddha. The 8 kings subsequently buried the Buddha’s bones inside a ritual monument called stupa in their own kingdoms. Literature also claims that the 8 stupas were later opened by King Asoka, who distributed the bones, and had them buried in 84,000 stupas. The deposition of objects inside stupas in Gandhara, present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, could be traced back to the mid 2nd century BC. Not all Gandharan stupas contain bones. Bones in Gandharan stupas consist of both burned and unburned bones. All burned bones are of small size, while unburned bones are of different sizes and show obvious indication of being animal bones. This presentation will look at the spatial distribution of bones in Gandharan stupa deposits, and attempt to discuss reasons of the absence of bones in some stupas. One of the main arguments for the absence of the bones concerns the attitudes towards body remains. Apart from Buddhists, Gandhara was also inhabited by Zoroastrians and Hindus, to whom dead body is considered impure. The co-inhabiting of the Buddhists with the Zoroastrians and Hindus may have prompted the exclusion of bones in stupa deposits.
Elementary Sanskrit: Week One (MT13)
This is the Theology Sanskrit Prelims paper that introduces basic vocabulary and grammar. The course book is Walter Maurer The Sanskrit Language.
Conceptions of Liberation in Classical Indian Philosophy: Session One
In this series of four classes Professor Isaacson will discuss the concept of liberation with particular reference to the section on apavarga (i.e. moksa, liberation) in the Nyayamanjari, the masterpiece of the ninth-century scholar and poet Bhatta Jayanta. In each class we will read a portion of the text and Professor Isaacson will comment upon it. Among other materials that may be brought into the discussion are the Paramok?anirasakarikaof Sadyojyotis and the commentary thereon by Bha??a Ramaka??ha. Professor Isaacson is Professor of Classical Indology at the University of Hamburg. His doctoral work at the University of Leiden was in classical Vaise?ika. He has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Wolfson College Oxford, and the International Institute for Buddhist Studies, Tokyo, and a Sabbatical Fellow of the American Philosophical Society. He is one of the world’s foremost experts in tantric traditions in pre-13th century South Asia, especially Vajrayana Buddhism, and is an expert in classical Sanskrit poetry, classical Indian philosophy, Pura?ic literature, and manuscript studies.
Conceptions of Liberation in Classical Indian Philosophy: Session Two
In this series of four classes Professor Isaacson will discuss the concept of liberation with particular reference to the section on apavarga (i.e. moksa, liberation) in the Nyayamanjari, the masterpiece of the ninth-century scholar and poet Bhatta Jayanta. In each class we will read a portion of the text and Professor Isaacson will comment upon it. Among other materials that may be brought into the discussion are the Paramok?anirasakarikaof Sadyojyotis and the commentary thereon by Bha??a Ramaka??ha. Professor Isaacson is Professor of Classical Indology at the University of Hamburg. His doctoral work at the University of Leiden was in classical Vaise?ika. He has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Wolfson College Oxford, and the International Institute for Buddhist Studies, Tokyo, and a Sabbatical Fellow of the American Philosophical Society. He is one of the world’s foremost experts in tantric traditions in pre-13th century South Asia, especially Vajrayana Buddhism, and is an expert in classical Sanskrit poetry, classical Indian philosophy, Pura?ic literature, and manuscript studies.
Hinduism 1: Session One (MT13)
This lecture series provides some basic material for Theology FHS Paper 20, “Hinduism 1: Brahminism.’ These lectures offer a thematic and historical introduction to the sources and early development of ‘Hindu’ traditions from their early formation to the early medieval period. We will explore the formation of Hindu traditions through textual sources, such as the Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, along with the practices and social institutions that formed classical Hindu traditions. The course will include an introduction to Hindu philosophy. A detailed reading list will be supplied at the start of the lectures which will be based loosely around Gavin Flood’s Introduction to Hinduism (CUP 1996).
Human and animal worlds in the Atharvaveda Samhita: rituals, superstitions and psychoses in animals in Vedic society
The Atharvaveda Samhita, more than any other Vedic text, is an irreplaceable source of data on the Indian society and its non-ritualistic aspects. With regard to animals, the numerous Atharvanic hymns witness a deep conditioning, either positive or negative, of them on the psyche of the Vedic social structure at that stage. Images, metaphors, descriptions of wild and domestic animals abound through the 20 books of this Samhita, together with terrific and theriomorfic descriptions of demons in the act of killing children, women and Brahmans or destroying human bodies, health and peace. The “Vedic eye” created a stunning range of scenarios in-between dream and nightmare of an unparalleled visual and terminological power. This lecture will highlight the relationship between human beings and animals from a moral, linguistic, religious and psychological point of view, also emphasizing interesting aspects of the irrational Vedic fear for the microcosm of the “invisible” animal enemies.