Freitag, 21. Juni 2019, 15:15 - 15:45 iCal

Recitation and the Invention of Tradition

in Pre-Classical South Asia

Seminarraum 1, Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde
Universitätscampus, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2.7, 1090 Wien

Vortrag

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A public lecture by Caley Charles Smith | Visiting Assistant Professor, Young Harris College

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In this talk, I will examine the practice of particular forms of recitation found in pre-classical Hindu and Buddhist texts, in which the reciter impersonates a founding figure. First, I will argue that as far back as the Vedic period this form of recitation serves both a soteriological and a sociological objective. The first is religious practice of self-transformation, in which the speaker emulates and assimilates to the idealized founding figure. This transformed self is not only ontologically transformed, but also a socially-transformed self which is placed in a succession of socially-transformed selves, which is to say that verbal emulation is a strategy of creating a nonbiological genealogy, which we might conceive of as a "lineage" or a "tradition". More concretely, we will see that a common "culture of recitation" has formed texts as different from one another as the Lotus Sutra and the Bhagavad Gītā.

 

Caley Charles Smith is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Young Harris College. His research focuses on oral traditions and the influence of embodied textuality on South Asian religious and philosophical history

Zur Webseite der Veranstaltung

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Veranstalter

Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde

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Kontakt

Judith Starecek
Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde
4277 43502
judith.starecek@univie.ac.at

Erstellt am Montag, 17. Juni 2019, 16:22
Letzte Änderung am Dienstag, 18. Juni 2019, 08:47