martes, 26 de mayo de 2015

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Australasian Association of Buddhist Studies (AABS)
Dear list members,

Our next seminar will be at 6:00-7:30pm on Wednesday June 3 in Room S325 of the John Woolley Building, University of Sydney.

We hope you can attend.

Kind regards,
AABS Executive


Re-envisioning Sanskrit: Approaching Texts through Language and Embodiment

According to the models of existence that are presented in the Ṛgvedic Āraṇyakas, language belongs to a group of diverse deities (devatā) that abide within the mortal body and together generate the person or puruṣa as a constantly shifting array of emotional, psychological, sensory, and physiological dynamics. While the transience of these states and their appearance of incommensurability with the goal of realizing a self (ātman) has led scholars to value them negatively as an impediment to realization, it is the deities’ contribution of their own substantial identities to the person that sets the parameters of spiritual attainment in its temporal and practical aspects and describes the potential for transformation. In contrast, then, to the critical interpretations that have come to dominance in historical studies of Sanskrit’s religious significance, these texts and their teachings demonstrate an understanding that language and its internal structures are crucially involved in personhood, its very manifestation and malleability. This indicates that as a living expression of reality with its hidden connections, physical embodiment is the immediate context for the unfolding of Vedic revelation. The result is the suggestion that rather than looking for a language named Sanskrit it would be more productive to ask what it means to become saṃskṛta.
 
Stephanie Majcher works in both the academic and wider communities as a lecturer on the religious traditions and culture of South Asia. She is currently completing a PhD in Indian Studies at the University of Sydney and in previous years has been actively involved in the development and delivery of both language and non-language programs. Stephanie has been the recipient of a Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship and a University Medal for her work on Sanskrit, and will be a presenter at the 16th World Sanskrit Conference (Bangkok).
 


Buddhist reliquary stupa

Gold leaf covered schist reliquary in the form of a stupa.  Kusana period, North Western India. National Museum, Karachi, Pakistan. Copyright: Huntington, John C. and Susan L.Huntington Archive