The Netra Tantra is an important early medieval Śaiva text. We will read and discuss sections of the text based on the two manuscripts in the NGMPP Library and compare these with the published KSTS edition. Apart from reading the text we will discuss its meaning.
Archives: Lectures
Elementary Sanskrit (HT13)
The course continues an introduction to Sanskrit for the preliminary paper in Elementary Sanskrit. The class is designed to introduce students of Theology and Religion to the basics of the Sanskrit grammar, syntax and vocabulary. By the end of the course students will have competency in translating simple Sanskrit and reading sections of the story of Nala. The course book is Maurer’s The Sanskrit Language.
The Meaning of Religious Action
The Importance of Religion Series: This is a series of four lectures based on Flood’s recent book The Importance of Religion: Meaning and Action in Our Strange World (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). A prevailing idea from the Enlightenment, still with us today, is that the light of reason would dispel the darkness of religion and reveal the universe to us. While the desire for enlightenment and the attendant aspiration for a better human future are commendable, the identification of religion with darkness and ignorance is problematic. Religion has not gone away and is a topic of deep concern both because of its destructive capacity and for its constructive capacity as a resource that gives people truth, beauty, and goodness. These lectures are within the broad claim that the importance of religion is existential: religions provide significant meaning to life and guide people in their choices and practices.
No Night Like This: Female Longing in Nammāḻvār’s Tiruviruttam
The great ninth century Vaiṣṇava poet, Nammāḻvār composed a short poem of one hundred verses, the Tiruviruttam, which purportedly utilizes the narrative trajectory of love and longing to speak of the poet’s desire for Viṣṇu. The poet assumes many voices—the heroine, the hero, the mother, the friend—although later medieval commentators only see the heroine’s voice as contiguous with that of Nammāḻvār. Tamil aesthetic theory that governs the reading of akam poetry guides us to determine the poem’s voice based on the poetic situation and the landscape. While such an approach fits some of the female-voice verses in the Tiruviruttam, several verses resist such categories, as they can easily and equally be spoken by the hero, heroine, mother or friend. Using the verses in the Tiruviruttam as an example, I explore what it means for a male poet to assume multiple female voices, and the manner in which he effaces these multiple voices by imbuing these “female-voiced” verses with a deliberate and intentional ambiguity.
Hinduism 2, Hindu Traditions (Paper 21) (HT13)
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.
Readings in the Netra Tantra (HT13)
The Netra Tantra is an important early medieval Śaiva text. We will read and discuss sections of the text based on the two manuscripts in the NGMPP Library and compare these with the published KSTS edition. Apart from reading the text we will discuss its meaning.
Adhyaropa-Apavada Tarka: The Nature and Structure of the Soteriological Upanisadic Argument in Sankaracarya and Swami Sacchidanandendra Saraswati
The lecture will highlight some of the basic features of contemporary vedantin writer Satchidanandendra Saraswati’s advaita vedānta as presented in his magum opus Vedānta Prakriyā Pratyabhijñā(The Method of the Vedānta). Elaborating on Śaṅkarācārya’s postulation of the Upanișads as ‘secret knowledge’ or ‘secret instruction’ (rahasya-upadeśa), Satchidanandendra Saraswati posits a sort of apophatic mystagogy that seeks to reinstate upaniṣadic thinking (vicāra-tarka) as a rigorous rational discipline understood as a ‘device of imagination’ (kalpita-upāya) acceptable only on account of its results, viz., self-realisation (anubhūti). Described as a systematic process of deliberate superimposition of attributes followed by their retraction (adhyāropa-apavāda), upaniṣadic thinking aims at eliminating the various manifestations of the fundamental and recurrent error of objectifying the ultimate Reality (ātman/brahman). It is described as the culminating ladder of a tri-phasic reasoning that includes, in its two initial stages, avirodha-tarka – a set of arguments ‘proving’ the plausibility of upaniṣadic ‘theses’ – and mīmāṃsā-tarka – a set of exegetical arguments ‘proving’ the purportful centrality of the sentences of non-difference (mahāvākya) in the Upaniṣads. Eliminative reasoning constitutes, finally, the fundamental nature of upaniṣadic thinking and the basic tool of a transformative philosophy that ensures the eradication of ignorance as the root cause of human suffering and the concomitant realization of one’s ever-present non-dual nature (ātman/brahman).
Prof. Loundo is Coordinator of the Center for the Study of Religions and Philosophies of India (NERFI). NERFI is an integral part of the Postgraduate Program of Religious Studies (PPCIR) of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It was started in 2010 and is officially registered as a national research group at the National Scientific Research Council (CNPq.), Brazil. In addition to its core group based at UFJF, NERFI has also developed an interdisciplinary network of research collaborators from various universities in Brazil, covering areas such as Philosophy, Social Sciences, Linguistic, Mass Communication and Psychology. Prof. Loundo is a Ph.D. in Indian Philosophy from Mumbai University; an M.A. and M.Phil. in Philosophy from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; and a Postgraduate Diploma in Sanskrit from Mumbai University. His recent publications include: What´s Philosophy After All? The Intertwined Destinies of Greek Philosophy and Indian Upanisadic Thinking (Barcelona, 2011); An Anthology of Hindi Poetry (Rio de Janeiro, 2010); The Seashore of Endless Worlds: Rabindranath Tagore’s Encounters with Latin America (Belo Horizonte: 2011); The Apophatic Mystagogy of the Upanișads in Satchidanandendra Saraswati’s Advaita Vedanta (Juiz de Fora, 2011); Poetry and Soteriology in India: The Devotional Lyricism of Jayadeva’s Gita-Govinda (Campinas: 2011); Bhartrhari’s Nondual Linguistic Ontology (sabda-advaita-vada) and The Semantics of Sanskrit Middle Voice (atmanepada) (Bangalore, 2010);Ritual in Vedic Tradition: Openness, Plurality and Teleology (João Pessoa, 2012);Tropical Dialogues: Brazil and India (Rio de Janeiro: 2009).
Elementary Sanskrit (HT13)
The course continues an introduction to Sanskrit for the preliminary paper in Elementary Sanskrit. The class is designed to introduce students of Theology and Religion to the basics of the Sanskrit grammar, syntax and vocabulary. By the end of the course students will have competency in translating simple Sanskrit and reading sections of the story of Nala. The course book is Maurer’s The Sanskrit Language.
The Cartography of Subjectivity and Consciousness (HT13)
Mapping the Mystical Self Series
Graduate Seminars in Indic Religions 1
Convenors: Lucian Wong and Tristan Elby
This series of seminars will provide a lively and thought-provoking forum for graduate students from across the disciplines to present their latest work on any of the Indic religions, creating an opportunity for regular discussion and cross-fertilisation among students in this area. It will be held fortnightly in Hilary term (weeks 2, 4, 6, 8) on Fridays from 4pm–5pm, with a chance for informal discussion afterwards over refreshments. Each seminar will feature two papers on related themes or subjects, of about 20 minutes each, with a chance for questions after each paper. Any graduate students working on, or otherwise interested in, Indic religions, are warmly invited to attend.
Hanumān, a Four-fold Axis Mundi Mediator? Liminal Identity of the Messenger Monkey
Matt Martin, Wolfson College, Oxford
Fusing textual, theological and ethnographic methodologies, this interdisciplinary paper will bring to the fore some interesting elucidations concerning Hindu traditions’ most popular theriomorphic deity, Hanumān. I will suggest that Hanumān exhibits, by-and-large, all of the characteristics ascribed to a quintessential liminal mediator, and that his shaman-èsque tendencies (derived from this mediatory affiliation) are not merely confined to the literary boundaries of the Ramāyāṇa, but are more widely evident on both cosmic and social levels. In brief, I will consider Hanumān’s liminal mediator nature in relation to the following issues: the mythological flights of Hanumān as documented in the Ramāyāṇa; Hanumān as a theological nexus and cosmic Axis Mundi; and finally Hanumān invoked during healing exorcism rituals, manifested in his Balajī (child-like) persona.
Archaeology of personhood in Early Historic India
Ken Ishikawa
The present paper discusses the concept of personhood in Early Historic South Asia from anthropological / archaeological perspectives, focusing on Indic divine personality.
The construct theory of personhood has been employed in archaeology to explore the idea of personhood in the human past. The person in this context refers to humans, animals or objects. Personhood is constructed through relationships not only with other humans in the society but with all aspects of the world around them. One of the fundamental questions thus is in what context inanimate objects, events or places attain ‘personhood.’
Personhood in traditional India is largely characterized by dividuality, in which the person is considered as a composite of so-called substance-codes that can be transmitted interpersonally. In my view, divine beings display this dividuality with its temporal and transformative nature as seen in the classical example of Ardhanarīśvara, who is half Śiva and half Pārvatī. I will investigate to what extent Indic Gods can be characterized by dividual personhood by looking at archaeological, art-historical, textual/epigraphic and ethnographic evidence from Early Historic South Asia and beyond.
My key case studies include: 1) a manifestation of social interactions: the relic cult and image worship in Indian Buddhism (with ethnographic reference to relics of the Jagannath image), 2) multiplicate personhood: Seven Buddhas of the past in Indian art 3) Avatāras: Buddhist/Jain fusion art of Gujarat and the interchangeability of the 9th avatāra between Buddha and Jain Ādinātha; the divine ‘avatāra’ kingship during the Gupta period.