Johannes Bronkhorst - Böcker

Karma has become a household word in the modern world, where it is associated with the belief in rebirth determined by one’s deeds in earlier lives. This belief was and is widespread in the Indian subcontinent as is the word “karma” itself. In lucid and accessible prose, this book presents karma in its historical, cultural, and religious context.Initially, karma manifested itself in a number of religious movements?most notably Jainism and Buddhism?and was subsequently absorbed into Brahmanism in spite of opposition until the end of the first millennium C.E. Philosophers of all three traditions were confronted with the challenge of explaining by what process rebirth and karmic retribution take place. Some took the drastic step of accepting the participation of a supreme god who acted as a cosmic accountant, others of opting for radical idealism. The doctrine of karma was confronted with alternative explanations of human destiny, among them the belief in the transfer of merit. It also had to accommodate itself to devotional movements that exerted a major influence on Indian religions.The book concludes with some general reflections on the significance of rebirth and karmic retribution, drawing attention to similarities between early Christian and Indian ascetical practices and philosophical notions that in India draw their inspiration from the doctrine of karma.

Language (śabda) occupied a central yet often unacknowledged place in classical Indian philosophical thought. Foundational thinkers considered topics such as the nature of language, its relationship to reality, the nature and existence of linguistic units and their capacity to convey meaning, and the role of language in the interpretation of sacred writings. The first reader on language in—and the language of—classical Indian philosophy, A Śabda Reader offers a comprehensive and pedagogically valuable treatment of this topic and its importance to Indian philosophical thought.A Śabda Reader brings together newly translated passages by authors from a variety of traditions—Brahmin, Buddhist, Jaina—representing a number of schools of thought. It illuminates issues such as how Brahmanical thinkers understood the Veda and conceived of Sanskrit; how Buddhist thinkers came to assign importance to language’s link to phenomenal reality; how Jains saw language as strictly material; the possibility of self-contradictory sentences; and how words affect thought. Throughout, the volume shows that linguistic presuppositions and implicit notions about language often play as significant a role as explicit ideas and formal theories. Including an introduction that places the texts and ideas in their historical and cultural context, A Śabda Reader sheds light on a crucial aspect of classical Indian thought and in so doing deepens our understanding of the philosophy of language.

Karma has become a household word in the modern world, where it is associated with the belief in rebirth determined by one’s deeds in earlier lives. This belief was and is widespread in the Indian subcontinent as is the word “karma” itself. In lucid and accessible prose, this book presents karma in its historical, cultural, and religious context.Initially, karma manifested itself in a number of religious movements?most notably Jainism and Buddhism?and was subsequently absorbed into Brahmanism in spite of opposition until the end of the first millennium C.E. Philosophers of all three traditions were confronted with the challenge of explaining by what process rebirth and karmic retribution take place. Some took the drastic step of accepting the participation of a supreme god who acted as a cosmic accountant, others of opting for radical idealism. The doctrine of karma was confronted with alternative explanations of human destiny, among them the belief in the transfer of merit. It also had to accommodate itself to devotional movements that exerted a major influence on Indian religions.The book concludes with some general reflections on the significance of rebirth and karmic retribution, drawing attention to similarities between early Christian and Indian ascetical practices and philosophical notions that in India draw their inspiration from the doctrine of karma.

The Sangītaratnākara («The Ocean of Music») written by Śārngadeva in the 13th century is the most important theoretical work on Indian classical music. Its prologue, the Pindotpatti-prakarana («The Section of the Arising of the Human Body»), deals with the Indian science of the human body, i.e. embryology, anatomy, and the Hathayogic heory of Cakras. The sources of this work are found in the classical medical texts (Āyurveda) such as Caraka, Suśruta and Vāgbhata, the Hathayogic texts as well as in the encyclopaedic texts (Purāna). After philologically analyzing the mutual relation and background of these texts, the author demonstrates the reasons why the human body is described in this musicological work. His investigation reveals the Indian mystic thought of body and sound. This study, although an Indological one, is an attempt to answer the universal question what music is, i.e. how music is created in the human body, what the effect of music on the human body is, and what music aims at. The second half of the book consists of a translation of the original text of the Pindotpatti-prakarana, including commentaries, with plenty of annotations.

Certain religious behaviours clearly reduce biological fitness. These behaviours include celibacy along with various forms of asceticism, and rituals that harm the performer. Such behaviours are found in widely different cultures. How is this possible? This book shows that these behaviours (as is religion in general) are by-products of features of the human mind whose evolutionary fitness is beyond doubt and explores those features. Which are those features? This book proposes a twofold answer. It draws attention to the layered nature of human consciousness, in which different manners of experience are superimposed on each other. This goes a long way toward accounting for the universal religious belief in some kind of transcendental world, a "higher" reality, different from "ordinary" reality. The layering of consciousness comes about in childhood and gains in prominence with the acquisition of a first language, which is the second feature highlighted in this book. Together, these features explain a variety of "normal" religious behaviours and beliefs, and account for the possibility of mystical experience. They also explain the occurrence of behaviours that do not augment evolutionary fitness.

The volume deals with the history of the concept of A?rya and Aryans in East and West, with the linguistic, textual and archaeological evidence in South Asia and beyond.The terms Aryan and Non-Aryan, corresponding to Sanskrit a?rya and ana?rya, can readily be shown that among the literary traditions indigen- ous to South Asia have always evoked strong responses, both positive and negative, as they continue to do even today; but it can also be shown that while they designate a boundary that is in some sense an ethnic one in the Veda, in other literatures the distinction has a religious or moral character.There have been reconsiderations and reinterpretations of the terms within and outside of the academy. There is on the one hand the established view of a migration of Aryans into South Asia; on the other hand there are new voices calling the whole endeavour fanciful, motivated by colonialism, Orientalism, nationalism, or something else. What is startling is that the criticism of the status quo comes from completely different directions.

This book was written as a doctoral thesis. It was submitted to and accepted by the University of Poona in 1979. Several people contributed to the creation of this book, in various ways. Prof. S. D. Joshi, my supervisor, introduced me to the study of the Sanskrit grammatical tradition. His unfailing skepticism towards and disagreement with the ideas worked out in this book contributed more to their development than he may have been aware. Prof. Paul Kiparsky gave encouragement when this was badly needed. In the years following 1979 Dr. Dominik Wujastyk was kind enough to read the manuscript and suggest improvements in language and style. To all of these lowe a debt of gratitude, but most of all lowe such a debt to Pandit Shivarama Krishna Shastri. In the course of several years he read with me many portions of Nagesa's grammatical and other works, and much besides. His ability to understand difficult grammatical and philosophical texts in Sanskrit was unequalled, and without his help it would have taken far longer to write this book and indeed might very well have proved impossible. Shivarama Krishna Shastri never saw the result of our reading; he died before this book could appear in print. I dedicate it to his memory. J. BRONKHORST Xl INTRODUCTION In the following pages an attempt will be made to establish that the part of Nagesa's Paribha$endusekhara (PS) which deals with Par.

Greater Magadha, roughly the eastern part of the Gangetic plain of northern India, has so far been looked upon as deeply indebted to Brahmanical culture. Religions such as Buddhism and Jainism are thought of as derived, in one way or another, from Vedic religion. This belief is defective in various respects. This book argues for the importance and independence of Greater Magadha as a cultural area until a date close to the beginning of the Common Era.