Teaching by Example: An Interpretation of the Role of Upamāna in Early Nyāya Philosophy

In this paper I will discuss the significance of upamāna (knowledge by analogy or comparison) in the Nyāyasūtra as a source of knowledge and its role in understanding and learning about the world. Some philosophers, particularly Buddhists, have argued that upamāna is reducible to inference. I am going to defend the Nyāya view that upamāna is in fact a fundamental source of knowledge which plays a significant role in teaching and learning. In fact, I am going to argue that by introducing upamāna as a pramā[ndot]a the Naiyāyikas accounted for the way humans acquire certain types of knowledge. Finally, I will highlight the similarities between the role of upamāna in the Nyāyasūtra and some of Wittgenstein's remarks on family resemblance and proof.     

Of Seeds and Sprouts: Defilement and its Attachment to the Life-stream in the Sarvāstivāda H[rdot]daya Treatises

The notions of selflessness (anātmaka) and karman are two key concepts in Buddhist philosophy. The question how karman functions with respect to the rebirth of a worldling who is, actually, devoid of a self, was a major philosophical issue in early Buddhist doctrine. Within the Sarvāstivāda school, the Vaibhā[sdot]ikas became the representative of an interpretation of this problem that hinges on the notion of ‘possession’ (prāpti). Their theory was contradicted by the Sautrāntikas, whose interpretation is based on the notion of ‘seed’ (bīja). The Sarvāstivāda H[rdot]daya treatises, compiled in a time period spanning from the beginning of the common era to the fourth century AD, i.e. the period of the rise of the Sautrāntika school, are a particularly interesting set of works, as they reflect the gradual development of these two major theories.     

The Madhyamaka Concept of Svabhāva: Ontological and Cognitive Aspects

This paper considers the philosophical interpretation of the concept of svabhāva, sometimes translated as ‘inherent existence’ or ‘own-being’, in the Madyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy. It is argued that svabhāva must be understood as having two different conceptual dimensions, an ontological and a cognitive one. The ontological dimension of svabhāva shows it to play a particular part in theories investigating the most fundamental constituents of the world. Three different understandings of svabhāva are discussed under this heading: svabhāva understood as essence, as substance, and as the true nature of phenomena (absolute svabhāva). The cognitive dimension shows svabhāva as playing an important rôle in our everyday conceptualization of phenomena. Svabhāva is here seen as a superimposition (samāropa) which the mind projects onto the world.     

The Meaning of Prakṛti in the Yogasūtra and Vyāsabhāṣya

It is a common mistake, especially, perhaps, among students of the religions and philosophies of India, to assume that the word prak?ti, best known as the ultimate material principle in the Sā?khya and Yoga systems of religious thought, the material cause of the world in Hindu theologies and, as such, an epithet of the goddesses in Hinduism, always refers to an ultimate principle. Even in Sā?khya and Yoga texts the word prak?ti is used in various ways. Prak?ti does not always refer to the ultimate principle. Translators often leave the word prak?ti untranslated and mislead the reader to assume that the ultimate principle is referred to, when it is not. This article discusses the use of prak?ti in the Sā?khya-Yoga texts the Yogasūtra and the Vyāsabhā?ya and criticises some translation practices.     

The Pari[ndot]āma Aesthetics as Underlying the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a

This paper offers a literary and ideological deconstruction of the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a; it traces the Purā[ndot]a's formation through the convergence of the Vedāntin, the Aesthetic and the Vai[sdot][ndot]ava traditions, and argues that it is the doctrine of Pari[ndot]āma which underlies the treatise. I first examine the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a's literary components; the roots of these are traced back historically to the Vedānta and ālvār traditions, and the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a's nature as an opus universale, representing an all Indian cultural ‘melting pot’, is highlighted. The paper then looks at the relations of Vai[sdot][ndot]avism and dramaturgy, both historically as well as theologically, and argues that the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a was traditionally read as a drama. It proceeds to decipher the aesthetic theory underlying the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a, and argues that it is Bharata's dramaturgical rasa theory. Within the rasa tradition, Abhinavagupta's and Bhoja's positions are highlighted and compared through three seminal points and it becomes apparent that the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a's underlying aesthetic theory is close to the Pari[ndot]āma doctrine of Bhoja where ?[rdot][ndot]gāra is considered to be the supreme rasa. As Bhoja's date is no doubt later than the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a's it is assumed that the Bhāgavata Purā[ndot]a was influenced by one of Bhoja's predecessors. The paper ends by reinforcing this analysis by highlighting a later tradition which had actually accepted this point of view and that is the Gau[ddot]iya Vai[sdot][ndot]ava tradition.     

Śaṇkara on Action and Liberation

In this paper I attempt to understand the implications of ?a?kara's claim that liberation is not an action. If liberation is not an action, how is it up to us and therefore our responsibility? What role do actions have in a life concerned with liberation? The key to understanding ?a?kara's view, I suggest, requires broad reflection on his claim in his commentary on Brahma Sūtra I.1.4 that cessation of action in accordance with Vedic prohibition is not an action. I will conclude by discussing the implications of this interpretation on the nature of māyā in ?a?kara.     

In pursuit of the sorcerer's power: sacred diagrams as technologies of potency

Drawing upon research for a dissertation on lived religion in Myanmar as it pertains to various religious cults and followers whose devotions are directed towards Buddhist sorcerer saints (weizzā), this article examines the technologies at work in potency practices involving the production and use of in (cabbalistic squares) and sama (diagrams and drawings using specific Burmese syllables). In particular, the paper will examine how such devices are used by the devout traversing the weizzā path and explain how in and sama are employed to transform one's self into a full-fledged weizzā. The paper will conclude with a discussion on how such an examination can help us reshape our understanding of Burmese Buddhism in contemporary Myanmar.1 ?1. All Burmese and Pāli translations are mine unless stated otherwise. In the body of this article, Burmese words and phrases will be transcribed phonetically. Proper names and the titles of works in Pāli and Buddhist technical vocabulary in Pāli will be transliterated according to the Pāli Text Society convention with diacritics. Pāli words that have been domesticated in English to a certain extent, such as ‘sangha,’ will not receive diacritics except when used as technical vocabulary.      

On the nature and message of the Lotus Sūtra in the light of early Buddhism and Buddhist scholarship (towards the beginnings of Mahāyāna)

The aim of this paper is to compare the contents of the Lotus Sūtra and the style of presentation of its message with the thrust of the Buddha's teachings as they are preserved in the early Buddhist sources, particularly the Sutta Piaka of the Pāli Canon, and also in the Pāli commentarial literature. In the process it attempts to identify in the early sources the precedents of some of the bold statements in the Lotus Sūtra which appear as complete innovations, but may be elaborations of elements contained in Pāli sources in germinal form. Despite the difference in style, language and mythological imagery, the conclusion is that both the Sutta Piaka and the Lotus Sūtra express in their respective manners the true spirit of the Buddhist message. Attention is drawn also to the striking parallels between the Buddhist picture of the multiple universe and modern cosmological theories.     

“EYDELE,THE REBBE”

This article examines the categories of “secular” and “religious” and the way they are employed in Israeli literature by analyzing some of the recent debates about this issue. These debates attempted to respond to the new phenomenon of Shira emunit – “faith” or “religious” poetry – that has emerged in Israel in the last two decades. The debate, like some of the new developments it addressed, is indicative of a larger shift in Hebrew literature and Israeli culture. The secularity of Hebrew literature, a foundation of Israel’s dominant national‐secular high culture and virtually unquestioned for decades, is now being challenged. The article also traces the conflicting characteristics of Shira emunit by investigating the anthology Shira hadasha (1997) and Admiel Kosman’s poetry.     

Confucius's Aesthetic Concept of Noble Man: Beyond Moralism

The prevailing interpretation of ren (humanness) in the Analects is ethical. One consequence of this interpretation is the one-dimensional image of the Confucian junzi (noble man) as a rigid moralist, a fastidious observer of li (ritual). But there are numerous passages in the Analects that resist such a one-sided representation of the junzi, especially Confucius's remarks related to the (Book of) Songs and music. My basic thesis is that Confucius's concept of junji is aesthetic. This is implied by his notion of junji ru (noble scholar) as opposed to xiaoren ru (common scholar). The noble man is one awakened to the beauty of humanness. It is because of this awareness that he ‘sets his mind on the Way, depends on virtue, relies on ren and enjoys the arts.’ Confucius included the Songs and music in his curriculum precisely for the purpose of cultivating in his pupils this aesthetic sensibility.     

Eastern Concepts of Love: A philosophical reading of Narada Bhakti Sutra

Bhakti has been an all-pervasive concept in the philosophical and religious traditions of India. The origin of bhakti can be traced in the Vedas wherein the root-word bhaj and various synonyms appear and in that point in time no distinction was made between secular (prema) and religious love (bhakti). Narada Bhakti Sutra (NBS) is a premier treatise on the nature of bhakti that emphasizes the connection between bhakti and prema and treats the age-old enigma about the nature of love in an original fashion. NBS has usually been interpreted in a theistic manner, often with theistic interpolations into the text. This paper interprets NBS with a philosophical approach to discover its unique insights on the perennial philosophical issue, namely, ‘what is love?’ and shows that NBS harks back to the age of the Vedas in which secular love and religious love were inter-twined.     

Making Sense of the Philosophy of Sport

Beginning from an earlier claim of mine that there was really no such area of study as the philosophy of sport, Part One of the paper reconsiders the place previously given to David Best’s distinction between purposive sports and aesthetic sports. In light of a famous cricketing event in the 1977 contest between England and Australia (‘The Ashes’), in which Derek Randall turned a cartwheel after taking the winning catch, the paper clarifies that not all aesthetically-pleasing events taking place in sporting competitions can be understood as the aesthetic in sport. Then, in Part Two, the force of the claim that philosophy is one subject is explored. The conclusion is that a focus just on the philosophy of sport is necessarily inappropriate, since it will present the student with only cases from sport to then apply to sport. Rather, one’s understanding must be informed by (much of) the breadth of philosophy. Charles Travis’s view of occasion-sensitivity provides a clear example of appropriately contextual appeal. Part Three of the paper returns to the need for an institutional account of sport, one recognizing that there is no one occasion on which a particular sport is played; and hence no single set of conditions which can uniquely identify that sport. Thus, soccer played with one’s children typically differs from elite soccer: but both are (genuinely) soccer. When one turns to the appreciation of sport (in the light of Stephen Mumford’s excellent Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion [2012a]), one recognizes that, in order to genuinely appreciate sport, one cannot detach oneself from the outcome as completely as Mumford’s extreme purist seems to. But reflection on that case may also return us to contextualism by moving us away from attachments to the complete or the exceptionless in our accounts of spectating as of sport: maybe there is no one thing that occurs in all the relevant cases.     

The Divine Command Theory of Mozi1

In this study, I will examine the famous ‘divine command theory’ of Mozi. Through the discussion of several important chapters of Mozi, including Fayi (law), Tianzhi (the will of heaven), Minggui (knowing the spirits) and Jianai (universal love), I attempt to clarify the arguments of Mozi offered in support of his distinctive ideas of serving heaven, knowing the spirits and loving all. The analysis shows that there are serious problems with his assumptions, hence they fail to support his conclusions as to the heaven–human relationship, and the man–man relationship. That is to say, at least in the texts covered, Mozi did not justify the moral or social relationship in society by appealing to the religious relationship.     

Relativity of the human world and Dao in Lao-Zhuang—An Interpretation of chapter 1 of the Zhuang-zi and of the Lao-zi1

In this essay I offer an interpretative reading of the first chapter in the two canonical works, the Zhuang-zi and the Lao-zi, and argue that there is an inner connection between the first chapters of the two books. My presupposition is that what Zhuang-zi has argued in “Xiao Yao You” is the theme of the relativity of the position of the human world, which is in accord with the mystery of Dao presented at the beginning of the Lao-zi. Therefore, there are two opposite directions running in the Daoist philosophy in Lao-zi and Zhuang-zi: the first one is from this world (worlds) to Dao; the second one is from Dao to the worlds. While the first emphasizes the relativity of the point of views of the worldly beings, the second shows the mystery of Dao. This can be seen as a hermeneutical circle.     

Prophetic models in Islamic and Christian spirituality in the thought of Ibn Arabī and Meister Eckhart

A comparative study of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad in Christianity and Islam reveals common background, basic similarities, and differences. Ibn Arabī (d. 1240) and Meister Eckhart (d. 1327) regard Moses and Jesus not only as prophetic models but also as mystical examples for the Mūsāwī type of saints and ‘Jesus‐like’ (‘īsāwī) saints in both traditions. However, the two experts understandably differ with regard to the divine nature of Jesus. Eckhart considers Christ as the image of God (imago Dei), ‘the Only‐Begotten Son of God’, while Ibn Arabī perceives Jesus as having both a human nature (nāsūt) and a divine nature (lāhūt). Eckhart sees Jesus as the best model, but Ibn Arabī sees the best model as Muhammad. Eckhart regards Jesus as the source of existence, whereas Ibn Arabī perceives Muhammad as the source of the chain of prophecy and sainthood, wihc derives from the Muhammadan reality (aqīqa Muammadiyya).     

The Cheng Brothers’ Onto-theological Articulation of Confucian Values

In this article, I attempt to provide a new interpretation of li (commonly translated as ‘principle’) in the neo-Confucian brothers Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi. I argue that (1) the two brothers’ views on li are not as radically different as many scholars have made us to believe; (2) li in both brothers is a de-reified conception, referring not to some entity, including the entity with activity, but to activity, the life-giving activity of the ten thousand things; and (3) this life-giving activity, in terms of its mysterious wonderfulness, is called shen (literally meaning ‘God’ or ‘divinity’), and thus we have a Confucian theology (shen-talk) in the Cheng brothers, very similar to the Christian theology of creativity by Gordon Kaufman.     

‘Deeply Female and Universally Human’: The Rise of Kuan-yin Worship in America

American convert Buddhism has always been comparatively aniconic and opposed to supernaturalism. Earlier periods saw popular Asian bodhisattvas, such as Kuan-yin, relatively marginalized in the new Zen communities. With a rise in the number of female leaders, new found appreciation for ritual, and discovery of the crossover appeal of Kuan-yin, however, bodhisattvas are a visibly growing presence in American Zen and other traditions. Large numbers of converts claim Kuan-yin as an integral part of their Buddhist practice and drawing on and furthering this blossoming of Kuan-yin appreciation is a substantial new industry of bodhisattva-related products, including books advocating devotion to one or more figures. Now even many non-Buddhists have taken interest in Kuan-yin, who is valued for being a feminine figure in a world of mainly male deities.     

The Compatibility between Bodhisattva Compassion and ‘No-self’

Since arguably Bodhisattva Practice (bodhisattva-carya) is the foundation of Mahayana Buddhist ethics, it is significantly important for Bodhisattva compassion to be compatible with other Buddhist doctrines, specifically with the doctrine of ‘no-self ’ (anatta). There are two thoughts on the relation between compassion and ‘no-self ’: they are compatible or incompatibility. Most Buddhist authors accept the former view. However, the principal problem with the two views is that their arguments have not been singled out. So the acceptance or denial of the compatibility may not be well grounded. This paper is to identify and evaluate the arguments for and against the agreeability, and to defend the compatible view.     

Di Algemeyne Entsiklopedye,the Holocaust and the changing mission of Yiddish scholarship

The first attempt to publish a comprehensive encyclopedia in the Yiddish language began in Berlin in the early 1930s. The editors of Di algemeyne entsiklopedye (The General Encyclopedia) were initially concerned with bringing the latest discoveries from fields such as history, demography, biology, economics and political science to readers in need of assistance in comprehending the larger world. Almost from its inception, however, the project was forced to reconsider its agenda because of the Nazi rise to power. Dropping their original timetable, the first seven volumes were published in Paris (to where its editors first fled after Hitler’s 1933 appointment as Chancellor) and the final volumes were published in New York (to where they subsequently fled the 1940 German invasion of France). With its final volume in 1966, Di algemeyne entsiklopedye totaled twelve volumes—one more than originally planned. Only five ultimately fell within the editors’ original edifying mission, while the remaining seven volumes were dedicated to the subject “Yidn” (“Jews”). Originally planned as a supplement to the Normale volumes, the Yidn series became the primary focus of the Entsiklopedye on account of the rapidly deteriorating circumstances of the Jews in Europe. In this, the Entsiklopedye serves as a useful map of the changing representational imperatives that shaped Jewish scholarship as a consequence of the Holocaust.     

Bodies and Liturgy: An Interview with Mary Deeley

Susan Ross interviewed Mary Deeley, PhD, a pastoral associate at the Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Susan and Mary began their conversation by talking about the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (abbreviated here as GIRM), which was issued in 2003, and about other ways that bodies are a central part of the liturgical experience. The GIRM speaks of the dignity of the liturgy, the significance of movements, postures, singing, and silence and the roles that these play in liturgical practice.