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Letting be: Thoreau and Cavell on thinking after the bhagavatgita

Author(s): Branka Arsić / Language(s): English Issue: 07/2015

The essay starts from Cavell’s contention that what is sometimes called one’s “cultural identity” is never available to the one whose identity it is supposed to be, but is instead registered by those whose cultural identity it isn’t, and explores in particular Cavell’s propositions regarding how the mind can start revealing to itself what is opaque to it. The paradigmatic example of how the mind undoes itself to better access what is different from it is found in Thoreau’s practices at Walden. Analysis of Cavell’s reading of Thoreau leads me to propose that the work of undoing and leaving oneself – without which there is no substantive transformation – requires a certain joyous mourning over what is left behind.

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Трансцендентализмът на съзерцанието в ранния будизъм

Author(s): Ivan Kamburov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2015

The present article analyses in depth the transcendental specificity of contemplation in Early Buddhism and the functional significance of the Buddhist dharma theory. In addition, it describes the phenomenological procedures of Buddhist reductionism and compares them with the phenomenological paths of Western philosophy – particularly the phenomenological manner of thinking.

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Motywy indyjskie w poezji Romana Rostworowskiego

Author(s): Hermina Cielas / Language(s): Polish Issue: 7/2014

Along with the development of colonialism in Europe, more and more people became interested in Oriental cultures. Not only objects of international trade such as spices and textiles reached our continent, but also elements of culture; especially in the field of literature, philosophy and religion. In the era of Romanticism and Young Poland, according to current trends, many writers used oriental motifs in their works. Roman Rostworowski (1885–1954), poet and landlord, whose poetry was imbued with Young Poland convention and the Indian philosophical and religious thought, was a continuation of this tradition. Numerous references to Indian culture in the works of Rostworowski show not only a source of his inspiration but also his personal path of spiritual development, which he followed from the first moment of contact with Indian philosophical and religious literature.

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KONTROWERSJE WOKÓŁ UTWORZENIA ŻEŃSKIEJ WSPÓLNOTY MONASTYCZNEJ WE WCZESNYM BUDDYZMIE

Author(s): Joanna Gruszewska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2016

The ordination of women in early Buddhism, as it is depicted in the Pāli Canon, was a point of controversy. At first, Buddha rejected the request of the women, who wanted to join the monastic community. However, under some conditions he finally gave his permission for establishing the order of nuns (bhikkhunī saṃgha). For many women it opened a possibility for an alternative way of life and an opportunity to pursue their religious needs outside a family. Paper deals with examining reasons of the controversy, which are rooted in Brahmanical worldview, taking into account religious and social context of ancient India.

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SOME “MAJOR” TRENDS IN AŚOKA’S MINOR ROCK EDICTS

Author(s): Balázs Gaál,Ibolya Tóth / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

It is commonly held among scholars that Aśoka’s Minor Rock Edicts were the king’s first attempts at engraving his messages on stone, and as such, they represent the earliest evidence for writing in India. While this may be true, it has not been duly emphasised that the text of the Minor Rock Edicts, in several versions as we have it, shows considerable traces of influence by the Major Rock Edicts and Pillar Edicts. Particular instances for such an influence in the text are the intrusion of the key term dhaṃma or the use of a general formulaic language characteristic of the later edicts. In our discussion, we wish to bring out some of these “Major” trends in the Minor Rock Edicts, making proposals for new interpretations and reading in Minor Rock Edicts I and II. On a similar basis, we will propose placing the Greco-Aramaic edict from Kandahar in the context of the Minor Rock Edicts, and try to account for the elements which may be derived from the Major Rock Edicts by the same scribal procedure as can be supposed to have been at work in formulating the text of the Minor Rock Edicts.

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A NEW FRAGMENT OF AN UNKNOWN COMMENTARY TO THE YUANJUE JING

Author(s): Zhang Tieshan,Peter Zieme / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2012

The fragment we are publishing here is preserved in the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage (the former China Institute of Cultural Relics). It is the 53rd leaf of an Uigur manuscript that contains the beginning of an unknown commentary to the Yuanjue jing. Other leaves of the same manuscript of the Hedin Collection in Stockholm were studied by K. Kudara in 1992.

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SLEEP WELL! SLEEPING PRACTICES IN BUDDHIST DISCIPLINARY RULES

Author(s): Ann Heirman / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2012

The present paper gives a detailed analysis of the guidelines on sleeping practices as stipulated in Buddhist monastic disciplinary texts and in Chinese manuals. It shows how sleep is perceived in normative texts, both in India and in China, and how monastics should deal with their daily need for sleep. The analysis reveals a striking contrast between sleep as a relatively innocent time when one’s actions incur no guilt, and sleep as a potentially harmful time of the day, given its assocation with disrespect, inactivity and sexual practices, and given the fact that during one’s sleep one might unwillingly display one’s true nature, which for some monastics appears to be quite detrimental.

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AYAGRĪVAVIDYĀ: SPELL TO THE HORSE-NECKED ONE

Author(s): Beáta Kakas / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2011

The Hayagrīvavidyā included in a Gilgit manuscript belongs to the earliest works invoking the god Hayagrīva. It is a spell which could be applied to achieve several aims. The god destroys the enemies, rescues from danger, his mantra protects against all sorts of evil, demons and black magic. His mare-face is believed to counteract the effects of enemy mantras.

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SUROCOLO BRONZES AND THEIR TANTRIC TEXT

Author(s): Nirmala Sharma / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2011

New identifications of seven statuettes from Surocolo are proposed on the basis of the Nayasūtramaṇḍala from the Shingon denomination of Japanese Mantrayāna, whose central Buddha is Vajrasattva.

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REVIEWS

Author(s): Zoltán Szombathy,Abdurishid Yakup / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2011

Review of: 1. VIRGINIE PREVOST: L’aventure ibāḍite dans le Sud tunisien. Effervescence d’une région mé- connue. Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2008, 480 pages. ISSN 1239-6982, ISBN 978-951-41-1019-1. by: Zoltán Szombathy 2. SIMONE-CHRISTIANE RASCHMANN – JENS WILKENS (eds): Fragmenta Buddhica Uigurica. Ausgewählte Schriften von Peter Zieme. Berlin, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2008 (Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Turkvölker, Band 7), 646 pages. by: Abdurishid Yakup

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Buddhist philosophy for the treatment of problem gambling

Author(s): Edo Shonin,William Van Gordon,Mark D. Griffiths / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

In the last five years, scientific interest into the potential applications of Buddhist-derived interventions (BDIs) for the treatment of problem gambling has been growing. This paper reviews current directions, proposes conceptual applications, and discusses integration issues relating to the utilisation of BDIs as problem gambling treatments. Method: A literature search and evaluation of the empirical literature for BDIs as problem gambling treatments was undertaken. Results: To date, research has been limited to cross-sectional studies and clinical case studies and findings indicate that Buddhist-derived mindfulness practices have the potential to play an important role in ameliorating problem gambling symptomatology. As an adjunct to mindfulness, other Buddhist-derived practices are also of interest including: (i) insight meditation techniques (e.g., meditation on ‘emptiness’) to overcome avoidance and dissociation strategies, (ii) ‘antidotes’ (e.g., patience, impermanence, etc.) to attenuate impulsivity and salience-related issues, (iii) loving-kindness and compassion meditation to foster positive thinking and reduce conflict, and (iv) ‘middle-way’ principles and ‘bliss-substitution’ to reduce relapse and temper withdrawal symptoms. In addition to an absence of controlled treatment studies, the successful operationalisation of BDIs as effective treatments for problem gambling may be impeded by issues such as a deficiency of suitably experienced BDI clinicians, and the poor provision by service providers of both BDIs and dedicated gambling interventions. Conclusions: Preliminary findings for BDIs as problem gambling treatments are promising, however, further research is required.

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Master Yinshun and the Pure Land Thought

Author(s): Stefania Travagnin / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2004

The Chinese scholar-monk Yinshun (1906-), who is conceived as the founder of the renjian fojiao which is spread in Taiwan, dedicated quite a large part of his literary production to the Pure Land doctrine. This paper is divided into three main parts. The first section is an introduction to Yinshun's works on Pure Land and includes the criticism that those writings received. The second part discusses the concepts of purity and pure land in Yinshun's writings. Finally, the third and main part includes monographies on the main Pure Land in Mahayana Buddhism (the Pure Lands of Amitabha, Aksobhya, Maitreya and the Medicine Buddha), as concerned and analysed by Yinshun. This study aims to define Yinshun's philosophy through the analysis of his interpretation of the Pure Land doctrine, and provides a portrait of the Pure Land school in the contemporary Taiwan through questioning Yinshun's hermeneutics of Dharma. In addition, this work touches the issue of the relationship between tradition and innovation, by taking Yinshun and his Pure Land philosophy as case-study.

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Receptarea și imaginea yogăi în lexicografia românească (I)

Author(s): Liviu Bordaş / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 16/2020

The first part of the paper offers an overall and detailed survey of the reception and image of yoga in various types of Romanian dictionaries (linguistic, encyclopedic, specialized, etc.), while the second part is reserved for a special discussion of the dictionaries devoted to religion during the Communist era.Three words, with their derivates, have been taken into consideration: “fakir” (“fakirism”, “fakiric”, “fakiristic”, etc.), “yoga” (“yogism”, “yogistic”, “yogin”/ “yogist”, etc.), and “tantra” (“tantrism”, “tantric”, “tantrist”, etc.). The timeframe covers the 20th century till the end of 1989, with incursions before (for “fakir”, etc.) and after (for “yoga”, “tantra”, etc.) this period.The survey offers ample material for a discussion on influences between diction¬aries and cases of intertextuality, as well as on the impact of political contexts on understanding yoga and the interpretative patterns which survive political eras.

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THE CONCEPT OF ANIMISM AND THE PRACTICE OF SPIRIT-POSSESSION: REFLECTIONS BASED ON THE ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF LAI-HARAOBA (IN MANIPUR) AND DAIVA-ARADHANE (IN TULUNADU), INDIA

Author(s): Svetlana Ryzhakova / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

Nowadays the concept of animism experiences a period of a certain ‘revival’. Over the last decade several approaches towards the usage and application of the term have been developed. In India the term ‘animism’ was a part of the social and political distinction between ‘tribe’ / ‘caste’ (fixed in colonial Census of India, and still in use), ‘non-Aryan’ / ‘Aryan’, ‘non-brahmanical’ / ‘brahmanical’ etc. In this paper I question whether there is any kind of ethnographic reality beyond the definition of animism in contemporary India. What kind of practices in particular communities can ‘justify’ the statement of their members ‘being an animist’? Is it possible to make a distinction between a ‘Hindu’ and an ‘animist’ on the basis of anything other than just a statement? Spirit-possession is a widespread reality which is not necessarily connected to animism in any of its given interpretations. However, an aspect of fluidity and formlessness of soul/spirit and a practice of arriving of a deity/spirit/soul/etc. into a human body are very important for the agenda of animism and shamanism. I am drawing attention to the sacred institutions of two very distant places in contemporary India – Manipur and Tulunadu – as the examples of preserving very specific local religious traditions along with indigenous languages and peculiar social set-ups. Both have a strong animistic character, and both are the traditions of invocation of deities, who are formless and do not have constant image or idol (murti). Both have a very strong connection to a particular locus and ethnic and social group, and – which is more important – to a specific ritualistic drama, conducted by mediums, ritualistically possessed by the spirits of the deities. I am arguing that the idea of personality seems to be very important here, and an ontology of animism based on the phenomenon of an unstable soul created by the many contexts, is fused with many other outlooks – Hindu, Christian or else. Worshiping of local formless deities, like in lai-haraoba of Meitei of Manipur, or daiva-aradhane of the Tulu-speaking people of South Karnataka and North Kerala, can serve as two examples of animism with a positively interpreted spirit-possession in slightly ‘Hinduised’ societies and religious cultures of border localities of India.

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IDEJA RAZVOJA U OBNOVITELJSKOJ MISLI MUHAMMEDA IKBALA

Author(s): Amra Bilajac / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 17/2013

Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) is a contemporary Muslim poet and thinker of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent who has dedicated his life to the matters of spiritual and political renewal of Islamic civilization in the world. He has enlightened the pure spiritual message of Islam and provided it as a source of social and political liberation of Muslim peoples. The progress of the Muslim world he primarily has seen in the so-called new ijtihad, independent interpretation of the main sources of Islam as a form of a new construction of practical norms of the global community of Muslims. He urges religious leaders to redefine or look at the true definition of ijtihad which is an ongoing process that determines (according to his book Reconstruction of religious thought in Islam): the principle of dynamism, an opinion or legal decisions and the ultimate authority in passing legislation.

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IQBALOVA REINTERPRETACIJA SUFIJSKE MISLI

Author(s): Muhammad Suheyl Umar / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 17/2013

This paper presents Iqbal’s understanding of Sufi thought and his critique of it. For Rumi Sufism was a spiritual calling and system of recovery from illness and social deviation of his time. For Iqbal Sufism phenomenon is a foreign thing implemented in the teachings of Islam and nurtured in the lap of Persian culture. His critique of Sufism is not a sign of hostility, but only a response to the adopted theory and practice which is manifested in India and is attributed to the influence of pantheistic schools of thought as well as the influence of Persian thought. Iqbal’s criticism of the process of decadence and deviation was not guided only by Sufism, but the entire spectrum of Islamic civilization to rejuvenate the non-Arab Islamic world, which was hovering between hope and despair. The author of this paper argues that Sufism for Iqbal was a system of “repairs, means for correcting” the disease of modern society and deviations, including the criticism of some decadent aspects of Sufism.

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Предпосылки Индивидуализма (Статья Вторая)

Author(s): Oleg Donskikh / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2024

This article discusses the question of how the personal element, which became the starting point of the movement toward individual thinking, manifested itself in the culture of ancient Israel and the culture of ancient India. The article attempts to describe the features of these cultures, which unlike the ancient Egyptian and Sumero-Akkadian, allowed to pass this way to the end. The process of formation of monotheism from the pre-state period to the great prophets is traced. It is noted that socio-political life, which determined with such force the status of man in a number of other Near Eastern cultures, in Israelite culture was subordinated to religious life, which otherwise determined the consciousness of man's status. In doing so, henotheism is gradually overcome. In the consciousness of the Israelite people the idea of complete dependence on God, who reveals himself through the prophets and establishes the requirement of a personal relationship to him, is established. At the same time, God, acting as a guarantor of justice, is revealed through the problem of theodicy, which can be posed only by a free personality. The movement of thought in ancient India turns out to be the opposite of what we see in ancient Israel: while the latter is affirmed through a long but persistent movement towards monotheism, Indian Brahmanism accepts the great diversity of divine reality and through the affirmation of its unity only multiplies the number of its components The decisive period for the emergence of individual consciousness was the period of the Upanishads. At this time, the deepened comprehension of the texts of the Vedas leads to the fact that a philosophical knowledge is built over religious knowledge. The specificity of Indian consciousness is determined by the long period of its oral existence, when the sounding speech in ritual or in the process of meditation acquires the key importance in the realization of the unity of the world. Individual consciousness is manifested in the process of concentration, directed towards understanding rather than mere reproduction of ritual mantras. The practice of asceticism played a role here. Just like in some other cultures in India real authorship emerges in the Axial period as an important sign of awareness of individual creativity.

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Individualitatea ca „rău fundamental”, în budhismul Yogācāra

Author(s): Ovidiu Cristian Nedu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 13/2023

According to the Idealistic school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Yogacāra, human existence is not as muchthe condition of a “being”, of an entity, but a mere experience projected by the cosmic consciousness, by the so-called “store-house consciousness” (ālayavijñāna). Nevertheless, human existence has some special features; it doesn’t represent a simple cosmic experience but rather an “alteration” of the normal condition of reality. The peaceful and homogenous state of reality gets altered when human mind starts developping experiences of self-“elevation” (unnatti), of “pride” (māna) towards what it appropriates as its own identity. The natural calm of reality gets disturbed, and the experience projected by the mind becomes an afflicted (klișta) one; this is the beginning of suffering (duikha) and of bondage (samsāra). Thus, the projection of individuality upon the calm cosmic level can be considered as the “fall” of Yogācāra Buddhism.

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Her Parasites: A poetic ecospiritual perspective of the COVID-19 pandemic and nature’s intelligence

Author(s): Komathi Kolandai / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2024

In this transdisciplinary perspective, I present my initial ecospiritual thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic in a poem, titled Her Parasites. I identify with other thinkers – both those in science and not – who articulated ecophilosophical musings about the pandemic in various ways, some of whom were met with mockery and censure. In the hope that it will inspire openness and a sense of curiosity, I draw on metaphysical insights from Vedic treatises and the literature on environmental decline, zoonotic epidemiology, health science, animal agriculture, animal ethics, and animal sentience to explain my poem’s philosophical and ecological framework. I focus on the scientific knowledge of epidemics caused by viruses that transcend species boundaries, why cross-species hopping occurs, and the nature (and incredible intelligence) of such viruses. I invite readers to consider ancient Vedic principles that articulate the rationale for living harmoniously with other sentient beings and entities. Considering the unseen metaphysical association between the pandemic and animal cruelty explained through the Vedic laws of Karmā, I present the possibility that one of the lessons Mother Earth might have wanted the Homo sapiens species to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic is its need to alter its diet. I end with a discussion on the possibility and value of this change. The downplaying or denial of animal sentience (strategies to overcome the psychological discomfort of incongruence between loving animals and eating them, as described in social psychology), is a barrier to this change. However, observed through a Vedic lens, this cognitive dissonance suggests that the Homo sapiens species is innately humane, the realisation of which might hold the key to this dietary change.

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MIHAELA GLIGOR AND ELISABETTA MARINO (COORD.), TAGORE BEYOND BORDERS: ESSAYS ON HIS INFLUENCE AND CULTURAL LEGACY

Author(s): Rahul Shrivastava / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2023

Review of: Mihaela Gligor and Elisabetta Marino (Coord.), Tagore beyond Borders: Essays on His Influence and Cultural Legacy, Routledge: London, New York, 2023, ISBN: 978-1-032-11208-4, 138 p.

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