Table of Contents
- CONFERENCE> Multifaceted Divinities in Japan and Beyond
- PUBLICATION> Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography
CONFERENCE> Multifaceted Divinities in Japan and Beyond
Dear friends,I believe this confrence may be of intrest to some of you.
Regards
Erez
Multifaceted Divinities in Japan and Beyond
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv University
May 29-31, 2016
The Israeli Association of Japanese Studies (IAJS) is glad to announce an international workshop on Japanese medieval divinities, which will be held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv University on May 29-31, 2016. The workshop is dedicated to the memory of the Late Prof. R.J. Zwi Werblowsky (Hebrew University), a renowned scholar of comparative religion, who passed away last summer.
The workshop seeks to examine the confluence of various religious systems in medieval Japan through portraits of individual, often multifaceted or pantheon-like, divinities. While investigating the complex identity of these divinities, the presentations will look more broadly at the dialectics of Buddhism (and other imported traditions) and localism, which shaped and disseminated all aspects of Japanese religiosity.
Throughout the medieval period the pantheon was continuously shaped and re-shaped both by inner currents within the religious sphere and by social, geographical and political circumstances specific to Japan. This concurrence is manifested in the multiple and chaotic identities of individual divinities. Rather than mere objects of worship, these divinities functioned as powerful and efficacious figures that shaped reality through complex ritual systems. They were pivotal entities in the creation of notions of identity, territory and sovereignty, and their combinatory nature had impact on their social and political roles.
The examination of Buddhism and local cults in Japan calls for a broader exploration of the theme in other Asian cultures where divinities of local cults throve under Buddhist and other religious influences. The workshop will thus incorporate a panel dealing with divinities of complex nature in other Asian cultures, and will conclude with a round table discussion on the combinatory phenomenon in a comparative fashion. Our aim is to look beyond the dichotomy of Buddhism and localism with which we start and to open a theoretical discussion on the multivalent identity of Asian gods.
Keynote speaker: Bernard Faure, Columbia University
Participants: Abe Yasurō (Nagoya University); Irit Averbuch (Tel-Aviv University); Lucia Dolce (SOAS); Ehud Halperin (Tel-Aviv University); Kadoya Atsushi (Iwaki Meisei University); Sujung Kim (DePauw University); Yagi Morris (SOAS); Or Porath (UCSB); Fabio Rambelli (University of California, Santa Barbara); Gil Raz (Dartmouth College); Jacob Raz (Tel-Aviv University); Carina Roth Al Eid (University of Geneva); Saitō Hideki (Buddhist University); Gaynor Sekimori (SOAS, London); Meir Shahar (Tel-Aviv University); Eviatar Shulman (Hebrew University); Suzuki Masataka (Keio University); Mark Teeuwen (Oslo University).
We welcome scholars and students who wish to attend the workshop. Those who are interested in further details please contact the organizers Irit Averbuch (airit@post.tau.ac.il) and Yagi Morris (yagimorris@gmail.com). The conference site will be accessible via the IAJS website (http://www.japan-studies.org).
The Oranizing Committee:
Dr. Irit Averbuch (Tel Aviv University)
Ms. Yagi Morris (SOAS)
IAJS Academic Committee
Dr. Shalmit Bejarano (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Prof. Rotem Kowner (University of Haifa)
PUBLICATION> Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography
by Alex McKay
Dear Colleagues,I am pleased to announce the publication of the following work:
Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography. Brill: Leiden, 2015. ISBN: 9789004304581. List price: €139.- / $180.-
Tibet’s Mount Kailas is one of the world’s great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancient sacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources, including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of a heavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. He emphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumed as Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountains in the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geography constructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related.
Alex McKay, Australian National University School of Culture, History and Language.
Dungog@hotmail.com
