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Keywords = ātman

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23 pages, 540 KiB  
Article
How Did Chinese Buddhists Incorporate Indian Metaphors? A Study of Lushan Huiyuan’s Use of Firewood–Fire Metaphors in the Shadow of Indian Canons
by Fang Xin
Religions 2024, 15(8), 986; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15080986 - 14 Aug 2024
Viewed by 2197
Abstract
In the discourse of Lushan Huiyuan 廬山慧遠, the firewood–fire metaphor (xinghuozhiyu 薪火之喻) is employed to illustrate personhood (shen 神), referring to pudgala. Scholars often criticize Huiyuan for interpreting personhood as a true “self” (ātman) under the influence of [...] Read more.
In the discourse of Lushan Huiyuan 廬山慧遠, the firewood–fire metaphor (xinghuozhiyu 薪火之喻) is employed to illustrate personhood (shen 神), referring to pudgala. Scholars often criticize Huiyuan for interpreting personhood as a true “self” (ātman) under the influence of the Vātsīputrīya school, thus contradicting the doctrine of non-self. This paper suggests that this might be a dual misunderstanding of both Huiyuan and the Vātsīputrīya school. Huiyuan’s firewood–fire metaphor is indeed profoundly influenced by the Vātsīputrīyas’ three kinds of designation. Yet, he never commits to the substantial self, and his argument primarily aims to refute the view of annihilationism (duanmie 斷滅), that is, that life ceases to exist after one period ends. This stance fully aligns with the doctrine of non-self that has been central since the inception of Buddhism. Additionally, Huiyuan’s explanation of the indestructibility of personhood (shen bumie 神不滅) is a reluctant proposition; its fundamental purpose does not lie in discussing transmigration, but rather in demonstrating the state of “body and mind both cease” following the cessation of causes and conditions once “transmigration ends”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Religions and Humanities/Philosophies)
17 pages, 359 KiB  
Article
The Metaphysical Magnificence of Reduction: The Pure Ego and Its Substrate According to Phenomenology and Vedanta
by Olga Louchakova-Schwartz
Religions 2023, 14(7), 949; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070949 - 24 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1943
Abstract
This article examines relationships between the absolute being of the universal ego (Ātman-self) according to the Indian religious philosophy of Vedanta (V) and the phenomenological, irreal being of the transcendental ego in Husserl’s phenomenology (P). Both Ātman and the transcendental ego [...] Read more.
This article examines relationships between the absolute being of the universal ego (Ātman-self) according to the Indian religious philosophy of Vedanta (V) and the phenomenological, irreal being of the transcendental ego in Husserl’s phenomenology (P). Both Ātman and the transcendental ego are accessed in the first-person perspective by onto-phenomenological reductions. Such reductions, as stated by Husserl, have absolute freedom of positing and, thus, can reveal or conceal states of being. In contrast with P-reduction, which renders the being of the ego-pole invisible, V-reduction penetrates into the being of the ego-pole and opens a horizon of unique, non-intentional mental states. Following the dialectics in pre- and post-reduction givenness of being, there emerges a picture of connection between the intentional phenomenological being of the transcendental ego and the non-intentional being of the pure ego of Vedanta (Ātman-self). The pure ego of Vedanta manifests as a substrate for the transcendental ego of phenomenology. From this, we can conclude that reductions function as the loci of dialectical syntheses of being, whereby the unity of being has a fuller, more complex and multi-sided sense than the one intended in the natural attitude. In their breaking of theoretical habits conditioned by the substance metaphysical tradition, reductions are truly indispensable in the revelation of being that grounds the theory of knowledge. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religious Experience and Metaphysics)
16 pages, 295 KiB  
Article
Politics without Fear: King Janaka and Sovereignty in the Mahābhārata
by Brian Black
Religions 2022, 13(10), 898; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100898 - 25 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1987
Abstract
This paper will analyse a series of dialogues that features kings named Janaka, which appear in the Śānti Parvan of the Mahābhārata. Although there is some variation among these episodes, kings named Janaka tend to be characterised as exemplary rulers who engage [...] Read more.
This paper will analyse a series of dialogues that features kings named Janaka, which appear in the Śānti Parvan of the Mahābhārata. Although there is some variation among these episodes, kings named Janaka tend to be characterised as exemplary rulers who engage in dialogue with learned philosophers and who are strongly associated with the ideals of self-cultivation, renunciation, and liberation. I will argue that the name Janaka functions as a conceptual repertoire for ideas and practices associated with a particular understanding of royal authority. As I will show, the dialogues featuring kings named Janaka characterise sovereignty as both dynamic and fragile because the king is always in the process of displaying his knowledge and self-control. In this way, the different dialogical episodes featuring different Janakas conceptualise political authority differently, thus contributing to an ongoing, inter-textual and inter-religious discussion about sovereignty in ancient India. Full article
29 pages, 499 KiB  
Article
One or None? Truth and Self-Transformation for Śaṅkara and Kamalaśīla
by David Vincent Fiordalis
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1043; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121043 - 24 Nov 2021
Viewed by 2944
Abstract
This article explores how two influential 8th-century Indian philosophers, Śaṅkara and Kamalaśīla, treat the threefold scheme of learning, reasoning, and meditation in their spiritual path philosophies. They have differing institutional and ontological commitments: the former, who helped establish Advaita Vedānta as the religious [...] Read more.
This article explores how two influential 8th-century Indian philosophers, Śaṅkara and Kamalaśīla, treat the threefold scheme of learning, reasoning, and meditation in their spiritual path philosophies. They have differing institutional and ontological commitments: the former, who helped establish Advaita Vedānta as the religious philosophy of an elite Hindu monastic tradition, affirms an unchanging “self” (ātman) identical to the “world-essence” (brahman); the latter, who played a significant role in the development of Buddhist monasticism in Tibet, denies both self and essence. Yet, they share a concern with questions of truth and the means by which someone could gain access to it, such as what, if anything, meditation contributes to knowledge and its acquisition. By exploring their answers to this and related questions, including how discursive and conceptual practices like learning, reasoning, and meditation could generate nonconceptual knowledge or knowledge of the nonconceptual, this essay shows the difficulty of separating “philosophical” problems of truth from those related to self-transformation or “spirituality,” as Michel Foucault defines the terms. It also reassesses, as a framework for comparison, the well-known contrast between “gradual” and “sudden” approaches to the achievement of liberating knowledge and highlights them as tensions we still struggle to resolve today. Full article
15 pages, 258 KiB  
Article
From Līlā to Nitya and Back: Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa and Vedānta
by Arpita Mitra
Religions 2020, 11(11), 569; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11110569 - 30 Oct 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1985
Abstract
There has been a long-standing academic debate on the religious orientation of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa (1836–1886), one of the leading religious figures of modern India. In the light of his teachings, it is possible to accept that Rāmakṛṣṇa’s ideas were Vedāntic, albeit not [...] Read more.
There has been a long-standing academic debate on the religious orientation of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa (1836–1886), one of the leading religious figures of modern India. In the light of his teachings, it is possible to accept that Rāmakṛṣṇa’s ideas were Vedāntic, albeit not in a sectarian or exclusive way. This article explores the question of where exactly to place him in the chequered history of Vedāntic ideas. It points out that Rāmakṛṣṇa repeatedly referred to different states of consciousness while explaining the difference in the attitudes towards the Divine. This is the basis of his harmonization of the different streams within Vedānta. Again, it is also the basis of his understanding of the place of śakti. He demonstrated that, as long as one has I-consciousness, one is operating within the jurisdiction of śakti, and has to accept śakti as real. On the other hand, in the state of samādhi, which is the only state in which the I-consciosuness disappears, there is neither One nor many. The article also shows that, while Rāmakṛṣṇa accepted all of the different views within Vedānta, he was probably not as distant from the Advaita Vedānta philosopher Ādi Śaṁkara as he has been made out to be. Full article
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