Table of Contents
- LECTURE> Martin Delhey, "Forever Finding no Fault with saṃsāra: Select Remarks on the gotra Theory of the Yogācārabhūmi and Closely Related Texts"
- RESOURCE> H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report For H-Buddhism: 25 April - 2 May
LECTURE> Martin Delhey, "Forever Finding no Fault with saṃsāra: Select Remarks on the gotra Theory of the Yogācārabhūmi and Closely Related Texts"
by Noboyoshi Yamabe
Dear Colleagues,It is my pleasure to announce the following public lecture.
Speaker: Dr. Martin Delhey (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, the University of Hamburg)
Title: Forever Finding no Fault with saṃsāra: Select Remarks on the gotra Theory of the Yogācārabhūmi and Closely Related Texts
Date: Saturday, May 21, 2016. 4pm-5:30pm.
Place: Waseda University, Toyama Campus, Bldg. No. 36, Rm. 581.
Abstract: Already in its Indian country of origin, the Yogācāra school of Buddhist Mahāyāna Philosophy has been well-known for the doctrinal position that sentient beings differ by nature regarding their soteriological potential or spiritual predisposition (gotra). This conviction was certainly sufficient for setting the Yogācāra followers of Mahāyāna in sharp contrast to opponents who maintained that there is a uniform potential for becoming a buddha present in each creature wandering through the round of births (saṃsāra). However, one further aspect of the Yogācāra gotra theory has been even more contested and seems to be considered as somewhat disconcerting until the present day: the Yogācāras even maintained that there are also sentient beings who do not have any potential for attaining nirvāṇa (agotrastha/aparinirvāṇadharmaka/agotraka).
By referring mainly to text passages from the basic work of this school, i.e. the encyclopedic Yogācārabhūmiśāstra, I would like to clarify the question how exactly this lack of soteriological potential has to be understood in early and mainstream Yogācāra Buddhism. In particular, I will try to show that already in the earliest layers of the Yogācārabhūmi the concept has to be understood exclusively —or at any rate predominantly— as referring to an eternal inability to attain nirvāṇa, although another influential Yogācāra work, namely the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, and its commentaries differentiate between eternal and temporary types of agotrakas. Moreover, I will argue that the seemingly radical idea of an ever-lasting attachment to saṃsāra is far less problematic in terms of the (Mahāyāna) Buddhist claim to lead all sentient beings to a future state of happiness than it may seem.
About the speaker: Dr. Martin Delhey focused on the Yogācārabhūmi, a medieval Indian encyclopedia of scholasticism, in the early years of his career and received his PhD degree for a pertinent thesis at the University of Hamburg. After occupying the position of an assistant professor at the University of Göttingen for a couple of years, he turned his attention predominantly to other topics like Buddhist ethics (in particular, history of suicide), the early Tantric text Mañjusriyamūlakalpa, or manuscripts from the library of the monastery Vikramaśīla. Since 2011, he holds a full-time research position in the newly established inter-disciplinary Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg.
Nobuyoshi Yamabe
Waseda University
RESOURCE> H-Net Job Guide Weekly Report For H-Buddhism: 25 April - 2 May
by Charles DiSimone
The
following jobs were posted to the H-Net Job Guide from25 April 2016 to 2 May 2016. These job postings are included here based on the categories selected by the list editors for H-Buddhism. See the H-Net Job Guide website at
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/ for more information. To contact the Job Guide,
write to jobguide@mail.h-net.msu.edu, or call +1-517-432-5134 between 9 am and 5 pm US Eastern time.
ART AND ART HISTORY
Birkbeck, University of London - Lecturer A in the History of
Architecture, 1400-1800
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=52884
ASIAN HISTORY / STUDIES
Arkansas Tech University - Visiting Assistant Professor of History.
Modern Asia
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=52899
DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Brock University - Assistant professor (3-year contract), European
history (field open) and digital humanities
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=52886
Loyola University - Chicago - Instructor, Textual Studies and Digital
Humanities
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=52894
RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND THEOLOGY
Old Salem Museums & Gardens - Program Coordinator for Humanities,
Medicine, and Science
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=52881
