The Vaṃśī Śikṣā is a Middle Bengali Vaiṣṇava text ascribed to the early eighteenth century author Premadāsa Miśra, who is associated with the Baghnapara community of Vaiṣṇavas in the district of Bardhaman. The text principally deals with an esoteric form of practice known as rāsarājopāsana, or worship of the king of taste. The interpretation of this practice has been an issue of some contention in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava scholarship for some time. In these group reading sessions, we will read and discuss sections of the text that pertain to rasarājopāsana, attempting to decipher the nature of the practice and its possible significance in broader Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava history.
Archives: Lectures
Sanskrit Prelims, VII (TT23)
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.
Against Infinite Nothingness: Arguments for an Ultimate Foundation of Reality in Indian and Western Philosophy, I (TT23)
Indian and Western philosophy both contain debates about whether there is any ultimate foundation to reality. Must there be a fundamental ground of things? And if so, what would it have to be like? Alternatively, could phenomena float free of each other, un-united and ungrounded by deeper causation or constitution? This conflict between scepticism and metaphysical foundations has taken place in different traditions through history, including Classical Indian Buddhists and Vedantins, and Modern Philosophers of grounding and causation.
In these three seminars we debate arguments for an ultimate metaphysical ground of things. Borrowing from Vedanta’s medieval arguments against Buddhist nihilism, we will discuss whether the arguments succeed, and what kind of ultimate reality they might show.
Wednesday 17th May, 3pm:
Philosophies of Fragments or Foundations? Buddhist arguments for Finite Flux vs Vedanta’s Fundamental Unity
Wednesday 24th May, 3pm:
What Shapes Reality? Vedantins Grounding the Modal Coherence of Reality in a Single Power
Wednesday 31st May, 3pm:
Ultimate Stuff, Power or Space? Buddhists Sceptics and Vedantic Monists Coming Together at Last
Pali Prelims (Pali for Sanskritists), VII (TT23)
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 Pali course is designed to providean 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 Dhammapada and 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).
Readings in Phenomenology, IV (TT23)
Our reading group will continue to get to grips with the late Heidegger and will read essays from Basic Writings, beginning with ‘On The Way to Language’.
Sanskrit Prelims, VI (TT23)
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 (Pali for Sanskritists), VI (TT23)
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 Pali course is designed to providean 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 Dhammapada and 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).
Gendering Jajmani, Caste-ing Monastic Governmentality and Capital
In 1855, Rashmoni, a widow of the caste of fishermen, built a large temple on the bank of the Ganges. Then she employed three very poor rural Brahmin men to serve as priests, paying each a small cash-salary, supplemented with annuals gifts of cloth, grain and fuel. Historians of medieval India have long characterized such temple- construction as royal activity, capping their status of yajamans (colloquially jajman) or patrons of ritual (yajna). By this reckoning, Rashmoni’s actions should have also qualified her as a royal yajaman. Yet neither postcolonial nor feminist historians of South Asia have written of these lower-caste widows as royal patrons. What explains their silence? This talk aims to open up the intersections of gender, governmentality and capital through the peculiar relationship identified in jajmani in the records of the first half of the nineteenth century in eastern South Asia.
Indrani Chatterjee is a Professor of History at the University of Texas, Austin. In her pioneering work over the past twenty-five years, Chatterjee has illuminated new dimensions of a variety of underexplored themes in South Asia’s past—including slavery, the household, and monasticism—and has critically reappraised gender and sexuality as frameworks in South Asian history. Her published works include: Gender, Slavery, and Law in Colonial India (OUP 1999), Unfamiliar Relations: Family and History in South Asia (ed. Permanent Black 2004), and Forgotten Friends: Monks, Marriages, Memories of Northeast India (OUP 2013).
Readings in Vedānta, III (TT23)
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 are reading Vedānta Deśika’s Nyāsa- viṃśati, a short but influential treatise on surrender to God from the fourteenth century.
Readings in Middle Bengali: Vaṃśī Śikṣā, III (TT23)
The Vaṃśī Śikṣā is a Middle Bengali Vaiṣṇava text ascribed to the early eighteenth century author Premadāsa Miśra, who is associated with the Baghnapara community of Vaiṣṇavas in the district of Bardhaman. The text principally deals with an esoteric form of practice known as rāsarājopāsana, or worship of the king of taste. The interpretation of this practice has been an issue of some contention in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava scholarship for some time. In these group reading sessions, we will read and discuss sections of the text that pertain to rasarājopāsana, attempting to decipher the nature of the practice and its possible significance in broader Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava history.