One God, one śāstra: philosophical developments towards and within Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta between Nāthamuni and Veṅkaṭanātha
In the case of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta school, one has the advantage of having some basic historical elements to judge about the development of the theological and philosophical thought of the school. We have, in fact, at least some historical data about the time, place and personality of key figures such as Yāmuna, Rāmānuja and Veṅkaṭanātha and a good amount of works from them has survived and can be accessed. Some attempts have been made (e.g., by Oberhammer, Neevel, Mesquita) to offer a general interpretation of this early development, but many problems have remained open, and not only because of the lack of materials (regarding, e.g., Śrīvatsaṅka Miśra, Nāthamuni, important parts of Yāmuna’s work, etc.).
This panels aims at joining scholars working on the early Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, and making them discuss the development of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta from its forerunners to a full-fledged philosophical and theological phenomenon. Possible leit-motivs in the analysis of this development can be topics such as (the list does not aim to be exhaustive):
- the increasing importance of the topic of aikaśāstrya, possibly paralleling the emphasis on the existence of just one God
- the adaptation of other schools to one’s theistic approach (from Nyāya and Yoga in the case of Nāthamuni to Uttara Mīmāṃsā in the case of Rāmānuja, to Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and again Nyāya for Veṅkaṭanātha)
Organisers: Elisa Freschi, Marcus Schmücker
Participants at July the 1st 2014: Francis X. Clooney, Elisa Freschi, Robert Leach, Halina Marlewicz, Erin McCann, Lawrence McCrea, Srilata Raman, Marion Rastelli, Marcus Schmücker
If you are interested in participating, or in knowing further details, please drop a comment here or send a line at my email address (my name dot my surname at gmail dot com).
The 16th World Sanskrit Conference will take place from the 28th of June to the 2nd of July in Bangkok. Further infos can be found here.
I should have noticed it before, but here am I. At the link above you can read a thought-inspiring blog entry by Helen De Cruz reporting Elizabeth Fricker’s arguments on how we rely on the “testimony” of GPS, googlesearch and so on and have lost the skill to read maps, sum up numbers and so on. This is closely related to a further problem I have dealt with in the past, namely whether thermometers, GPS devices and other tools can be said to be testimony-bearers. You can read more about this controversy at this post (and in the article it refers to).