elisa freschiTibetan – elisa freschi

Junior Professorship in Tibetology at the University of Leipzig

elisa freschi — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 09:34:01 +0000

(In the following I am summarising the German Call for applications, which will be reproduced below. Succesful applicants are expected to learn German in their first 2 years.)

An excellent scholar will be selected for a position to be filled departing from the 1.10.2016, for three years (further three years are possible). It is possible that the person will be selected for a TT (W2 Professur).

AOS: Tibetan Buddhism (Philosophy, Religion, Literature, History of Art). The knowledge of the language used in the primary sources is a requirement. A connection with Mongolistic and the capability to take into account the social aspect of the topics involved and to work indisciplarly are a desideratum.

Deadline for applications: 16 October 2015.
Applications should be sent to:
Universität Leipzig, Dekan der Fakultät für Geschichte, Kunst- und Orientwissenschaften, Herrn Prof. Dr. Manfred Rudersdorf, Schillerstr. 6, 04109 Leipzig Email: dekgko@uni-leipzig.de

To be sent are: a list of academic publications and of classes taught (together with the evaluation received), certified copy of the highest academic degree and of the qualification.

Best luck to all!

An der Universität Leipzig ist folgende Stelle zu besetzen: an der Fakultät für Geschichte, Kunst- und Orientwissenschaften ist
zum 01. Oktober 2016: W1-Juniorprofessur „Tibetologie“ (mit Tenure Track auf W2) (zunächst befristet für 3 Jahre, Verlängerung auf insgesamt 6 Jahre möglich) Gesucht wird eine Persönlichkeit mit herausragenden Kompetenzen in Forschung und Lehre auf dem Gebiet der Tibetologie. Der Forschungs- und Lehrschwerpunkt soll in einem oder mehreren der folgenden Bereiche des tibetischen Buddhismus liegen: Philosophiegeschichte, Religionsgeschichte, Literatur- oder Kunstgeschichte unter maßgeblicher Verwendung originalsprachlicher Quellen. Die Berücksichtigung gesellschaftlicher Dimensionen ist von Vorteil.
Erwartet werden ein interdisziplinär und methodisch reflektierter Forschungsansatz, ferner die Bereitschaft zur Zusammenarbeit mit den benachbarten Fächern an der Fakultät und Mitgestaltung des Forschungsprofilbereichs „Globale Verflechtungen und Vergleiche“. Eine Verbindung zur Mongolistik ist erwünscht.
Für die/den Stelleninhaber/in besteht anschließend an die Juniorprofessur die Möglichkeit der Berufung auf eine W2-Professur im sog. Tenure-Track-Verfahren gemäß § 59 Abs. 2 Sächsisches Hochschulfreiheitsgesetz (SächsHSFG).
Bewerbung bitte bis 16. Oktober 2015 an:
Universität Leipzig, Dekan der Fakultät für Geschichte, Kunst- und Orientwissenschaften, Herrn Prof. Dr. Manfred Rudersdorf, Schillerstr. 6, 04109 Leipzig
Email: dekgko@uni-leipzig.de
Eine Bewerbung per E-Mail ist datenschutzrechtlich bedenklich. Der/Die Versender/-in trägt dafür die volle Verantwortung.
***
Rechte und Pflichten für Professoren/-innen ergeben sich aus dem Sächsischen Hochschulfreiheitsgesetz (SächsHSFG) und der Sächsischen Dienstaufgabenverordnung (DAVOHS). Die Bewerber/-innen müssen die Berufungsvoraussetzungen gemäß § 58 SächsHSFG erfüllen. Die dienstrechtliche Stellung sowie Einstellungsvoraussetzungen der Juniorprofessoren ergeben sich aus §§ 63, 64, 70 SächsHSFG und der Sächsischen Dienstaufgabenverordnung (DAVOS).
Die Universität Leipzig legt Wert auf die berufliche Gleichstellung von Frauen und Männern. Schwerbehinderte werden zur Bewerbung aufgefordert und bei gleicher Eignung bevorzugt berücksichtigt.
Bewerbungen sind mit den üblichen Unterlagen (unter Beifügung einer Liste der wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten und der akademischen Lehrtätigkeit einschließlich vorhandener Nachweise zu Evaluationen, einer beglaubigten Kopie der Urkunde über den höchsten erworbenen akademischen Grad und des Nachweises der Qualifikation für das Berufungsgebiet sowie 1 bis 2 Artikelveröffentlichungen) einzureichen.

A chart of the “History of Eastern Philosophy”

elisa freschi — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 08:50:56 +0000

Most readers will have already noted this chart of “Eastern Philosophy” at Superscholar.

Now, I have already commented about it at DailyNous, but the staff of Superscholars has written to me twice to advertise the map, so that I feel compelled to repeat my comment and some further ones here. I would also like to ask readers: Do you think these maps have some use at all? If so, for whom? Beginners or Advanced scholars?

The first problem regards the very scope of the chart, i.e., its being “Eastern”. “Eastern Philosophy” is a geographic abstraction at best unapplicable to philosophy and at worse very misleading —for reasons pointed out by Manyul Im and Malcolm Keating on the DailyNous, i.e., it makes one assume similarities which are not there and overlook similarities between, e.g., the Greek and the Islamic world, which are there.

As for Indian Philosophy, the ancient part is just plainly wrong (see also Malcolm’s comments reproduced here). There is so little to rescue, that it does not make sense even to try. By contrast, the more recent part (on the schools of Vedānta) is still very misleading (what should it mean that in Dvaita “There is a strict distinction between two equally real worlds: one, the Brahman and two individual people”?), but might have some initial value as a draft upon which one should improve.

Since I am not competent enough about Chinese philosophy, let me quote Manyul Im’s aphoristic comment (also from DailyNous):

This may be the worst chart of East Asian philosophy ever. Super Scholar is neither.

On the same website you can find several other comments, ranging from misspelt Chinese characters to misunderstood concepts… Moreover, Tibetan, Japanese and Korean philosophies are altogether absent.

Thus: If you teach an “Eastern Philosophy”, warn your students!

Buddhism in Tamil Nadu until the end of the first millennium AD

elisa freschi — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:19:14 +0000

Was Buddhism ever predominant in Tamil Nadu? Which Buddhism? And when?

After my last post on the disappearance of Buddhism from South India, I received two emails of readers pointing to the fact that Buddhism must have been prosperous in Tamil Nadu, given that Dharmakīrti himself was born in Tamil Nadu and that the Maṇimēkalai (a Buddhist literary text in Tamil, datable perhaps to the 5th–7th c.) presupposes a Buddhist community and reuses materials from Śaṅkarasvāmin’s Nyāyapraveśa.

In fact, most of us learnt in their early years of study of Classical Indology (broadly construed, so that it should cover the intellectual production of South Asia, from Śrī Laṅkā to Tibet, from Pāli to Sanskrit, Classical Tamil, Classical Tibetan, etc.) that Buddhism had become influential in Tamil Nadu, at least from the time of Amaravati onwards. When one looks closer at the data, however, the findings are less clear.
Concerning the timeline of Buddhism in Tamil Nadu:

First of all, the findings appear to indicate clearly a decline and then disappearance of Buddhism in the early second millennium AD (see this post).
I could not find any information concerning clear evidences of an institutional presence of Buddhism before the 4th c. AD. This does not exclude that there might have been people who considered themselves Buddhists, but they did not leave trace of their belief.

Concerning the type of Buddhism,

Petra Kieffer-Pülz (see her comment here) showed us evidence of the presence of Theravāda Buddhists using Pali as medium in Tamil Nadu from an earlier (perhaps already 3rd c.) until a late age (13th c.). Further evidences about their presence can be found also in Schalk’s work (see the same post).
Schalk (see the same post) gathered informations regarding syncretic Buddhism.
The Maṇimēkalai (see above) reuses materials from the early Pramāṇavāda school.

Thus, it lies beyond question that there were Theravāda and Mahāyāna Buddhists in Tamil Nadu, at least from the 4th c. until their decline in the 12th–13th c.

But what do the Maṇimēkalai and the place of birth of Dharmakīrti (or of Bodhidharma) tell us about the fortune of Pramāṇavāda in Tamil Nadu? Not so much, I think. In fact, even if Dharmakīrti were really born in Tamil Nadu (in order to assert this with safety we should be able to determine that Tibetan historians clearly meant Tamil Nadu when they spoke of, e.g., yul lho phyogs), he left his place of origin very early in his life and does not seem to have left anything comparable to Nalanda in Tamil Nadu.

As for the Maṇimēkalai, the fact that it reuses a relatively easy manual on Buddhist logic does not seem to me to mean anything more than that the Nyāyapraveśa was easy enough to be used by a wide number of readers (and it was in fact used by Jaina and even “Hindu” authors, see Tachikawa 1971).

Once again, I am sorry to admit that I do not read Tamil. Thus, on the Manimekalai I rely entirely on secondary literature (especially Anne Monius, Paula Richman and the contributions in the volume edited by Peter Schalk, A Buddhist woman’s path to enlightenment).

Tibetan medicine between tradition and modernity: an article by Stephan Kloos

elisa freschi — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 14:38:19 +0000

What are the connections of medicine, identity and politics? What does it entail to go to one or another practician, if you live in a Tibetan village? And: when did modernity start? When did the state’s capital become the “center”?

Amchi Medizin zwischen Rand und Mitte (“Amchi medicine between periphery and center”, you can download a cope here) by Stephan Kloos might have escaped some interested people’s attention since it appeared in German. It tells the story of the Amchi (traditional Tibetan practicioner) Tashi Bulu and of his life in Hanu, in Ladakh. However, at the same time it asks broader questions regarding the relationship of Tashi Bulu’s small village and the “center” (be it the capital of Ladakh, or that of India, or a remote West), so that Tashi Bulu’s case throws light on the general picture while becoming better understandable through this interpretative frame.

Tashi Bulu collecting medical plants (from S. Kloos’ website)

But let me start from the beginning, namely from the fact that I usually find anthropological research either superficial (when I listen to papers showing similarities between Tibetan folktales from the 16th c., Brazilian tribes’ beliefs and Siberian Shamans’ practices) or boring (when it only deals with a few people about whom I cannot convince myself to care and who have been repeatedly interviewed). Challenging my (stupid) prejudices was my first objective while reading S. Kloos’ paper and the paper succeeded in (almost) uprooting them.

The paper starts with a methodological introduction, which explains how the concepts of “center” and “periphery”, just like those of “modernity” and “tradition” are not absolute definitions and are rather part of what Michael Taussig calls “epistemic murk” (1987:121, quoted by Kloos at p. 55). Further, as soon as “tradition” becomes self-aware, it turns into something else, namely “traditionalism”. Last, the anthropologist himself (cf. p. 69) interfers with his field, insofar as he represents himself a new “center” (the West). In other words, Kloos concludes, “periphery”, “center”, “tradition”, modernity” and many other similar concepts (Kloos mentions “culture”, “society”, “medical system” —about the complexity of the latter see Kloos 2013)

do not explain anything and rather need to be explained (p. 56).

I could not agree more. The use of labels is often an easy way out (an example from my field of study: “What does ‘authoriality’ mean?” “Easy, it means being ‘original'”…).

The case study regards the village of Hanu Gongma, in Ladakh and the shift from traditional Tibetan medicine, represented by Amchis, to a “modern” health center, payed by the state’s capital and thus perceived as “neutral” in regard to the social relations holding within the village. This shift was caused by (and at the same time reinforced) the loss of the traditional relations holding between a certain family and an Amchi (who was expected to practice out of sheer altruism, but was supported by the village). Now the villagers perceive themselves as “receivers”, depending on a “center” which is the “giver” and to whom one is not indebted at all (p. 68).

Kloos suggests that the central government of India has actively wanted to achieve this dependency, in order to strenghten the loyalty of the border regions (p. 71). He also points out that such risks are inherent in development strategies (p. 68).

What makes Tashi Bulu particularly interesting is that he is a living “actor” in the process and not just a passive element of the society. In fact, Kloos describes how he managed to impose himself as a medium between his village and the center (this time meaning the state’s capital, Leh), introducing in Hanu, among other things, the new system of centrally paid Amchi medicine. This meant that he started being perceived as a “giver” to whom one was no longer indebted, although he was himself still part of the village (and possibly perceived himself as a “receiver” (p. 70).

Last, articles about the irruption of modernity in a remote village often leave me with a strange Sehnsucht, as if there had really been a time prior to this “violation”. Kloos avoids this risk by taking a look at history and showing Hanu’s role under different “centers”. In fact, Hanu is inhabited by Dards (and not Tibetans) but agreed in the 16th c. to adopt the Ladakhi language and gave up its dard identity. This meant many political advantages (both for the Hanu-inhabitants and for the “center” who gained their loyalty), among which was the introduction of the Amchi medicine, which was, hence, itself a “newcomer” in Hanu.

Do you have further instances of the problematic use of concepts such as “center” and “periphery”?

Epistemology of perception, or In order to be in a maṇḍala, you must know what a maṇḍala is (Kozicz 2008–9).

elisa freschi — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 14:10:59 +0000

What experiences the practitioner when he is in an architectural setting of high symbolic value?

Gerald Kozicz discusses in “From Mainamati to Nyarma. Remarks on the Development from Cruciform to Oblong-shaped Temple Layouts” (Journal of Bengal Art, 13) some key transformations in temple architecture and their import. He notices that Buddhist temples around the 10th c. move from an initial structure where a solid stūpa lies at the middle and an ambulatory encircles it to one where the center is occupied by a cella. This is probably due to the influence of the maṇḍala-concept, in order to make it possible for the practitioner to access the center of the temple/of the maṇḍala (and, thus, to identify with its supreme figure). But can one convincingly argue that a practitioner was aware of the symbolic value of the spatial elements within the temple? Was not he just worshipping images, wherever they were put?

image by GK

The topic has to do with two of my pet-topics.

There are no “lay” users of “texts” (including in this definition whatever can be interpreted, be it a philosophical work, a work of art, a performance, an architecture) in Classical South Asia. The audience does not need to be furnished with all interpretative clues, it does not need any in-troduction (Ein-leitung) to lead him/her into the text. By contrast, the audience is usually made of educated people who know the context well enough.
Perception is not a natural, neutral (i.e., subject-independent) process. Rather, it depends on what the perceiver already knows about what s/he is currently perceiving. In my favourite example, one only sees a willow if one knows how it looks like. If not, s/he will not see the willow among other trees. Similarly, Gerald Kozicz comments about the fact that a practitioners perceives the architectural rendering of a maṇḍala also once put in an oblong shape because “the way we experience our environment largely depends on what we know. In other words: perception is not a passive act, but a reflective process. Thus, once the practitioner was initiated, i.e. had the ability to understand the architectural language that was underlying the process of transformation from an ideal diagram to an architectural plan, he was also able to perceive the spatial system as a maṇḍala“.

Do you know of other examples of knowledge-influenced perception?

For my discussion of the dependence of perception on Linguistic Communication, see this post on my previous blog. For other posts on Gerald Kozicz’ work on the spatial symbolism in Buddhist art, see here and here.

Looking at space instead of just surfaces: an interview with Gerald Kozicz

elisa freschi — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 13:21:54 +0000

I came to know Gerald Kozicz because of the panel on Reuse I am organising for the EAAA conference in September 2014 together with Cristina Bignami and Julia Hegewald. We started discussing about his paper for the panel and then Gerald has been generous enough to send me and discuss per email with me many of his other articles. His papers impressed me because they were surprisingly different from my prejudices about art history. This unconventionality, both in Gerald’s research and in his career, made me desire to interview him.

EF: Would you tell us something about your academic background?
GK: I have always been interested in Descriptive Geometry, Drawing, History…and in Asia. Since I wanted to draw, I have studied Architecture. And for the same reasons I tried to study Japanese and have practiced calligraphy. After my degree, which I prepared in Japan, I started working on my dissertation, which focused on environmental friendly sky-scrapers in Hong Kong (thus, again in Asia) and at the same time I joined a research project at the TU Graz about Buddhist architecture in the Western Himalaya Region. Well, my participation in the latter ended abruptly by the end of 2001. Then, in 2004 I contacted several reknowned scholars and also visited Prof. Ernst Steinkellner in Vienna. I presented to him my ideas about working on Tibetan architecture and he supported me. I wrote my first project for the FWF and it has been approved. Since then, I work with stand-alone projects financed by the FWF (the Austrian Science Fund).

EF: In fact, it appears clearly from your work that plans, space, and drawing play an important role for you.
GK: I always start my articles and presentations with some drawings, plans or models. The text just flows automatically once these are ready.

EF: Two things have particularly impressed me in your articles. The first one is importance of architectonic space.
GK: Yes, one cannot understand architecture only through the surfaces, as if one were an ant climbing on the walls and unable to appreciate the three-dimensionality of space. The lantern ceilings which reproduce a maṇḍala in such a way as to unable the practitioner to actually be in its centre are a good example. One cannot achieve it just in a two-dimensional painting. And in order to understand the symbolic value of such a maṇḍala, one needs to take into account the possibilities it opens for practitioners, possibilities which one would overlook if one were to focus only on the beauty of the paintings.

the sketch shows the approach of the practicioner to a two- or three-dimensional maṇḍala (drawing by GK)

EF: The other point which impressed me is the fact that your articles are not only descriptive. As in the example you just mentioned, one sees how you connect art and architecture with their symbolic value.
GK: I try to focus on the vision of the one who thought about building a certain temple, of what he wanted to achieve. Once I have produced a plan and then also a three-dimensional model of the building many things become apparent to me. For instance, it becomes clear that the 100-Stūpa temple must have impressed its visitors who were at first lost and needed to look for the main stūpa. This conveys the idea of the stūpa as a fundamental axis mundi (see image).

the many stūpas around the main one (drawing by GK)

EF: Now to your career. You have the uncommon specificity (among researchers) of having taken parental leave for two years when your daughter was born.
GK: Not even I did it, but I am so thankful for that. That step back from the academic milieu enabled me to focus on what I really liked, again, on drawing, descriptive geometry, history and Asia. And while my daughter slept I drew and wrote my first FWF application, on the development of the Vajrāyāna stūpa-architecture.

EF: Your work is so complex that I wonder how you manage to do all on your own…
GK: I have a good network of people I exchange information with. I show them my models or support them with plans and they help me with Tibetan inscriptions, material analysis of colours and so on. I do not value “interdisciplinarity” if it only means juxtaposition of different perspectives, but sharing expertise is of fundamental importance.

EF: You managed to find your own area of research bridging Tibetology, Buddhist studies, Art History, Architecture… What would you recommend to younger scholars?
GK: To ask themselves what motivated them at first. I managed to unite all my passions in one research and this is what makes it possible for me to enjoy my work.

The Reuse of Laternendecke in Indian, Tibetan, Central Asian… art: a study by Gerald Kozicz

elisa freschi — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 05:50:29 +0000

The Laternendecke (called “Dome of Heaven” in Soper 1947, see image for a wonderful example)

Wooden ceiling of the Mandapa in the Lakshana Devi Temple at Bharmaur, c.700. Photo by Takeo Kamiya

are a way of covering small rooms. In a 2011 article, Gerald Kozicz shows how it has started as a practical solution in areas where wood was scarce, since the Laternendecke made it possible to use also shorter and weaker branches, together with mud. This confirms that its area of origin is Central Asia, from the Aral lake to Punjab. Originally, the Laternendecke had an opening in the middle, which served as a way out for smoke and as a source of light for the room.

In India, this opening has been instead replaced by a circular lotus. This substitution already hints at what happened to the Laternendecke: as can be observed in this wonderful image, this originally practical solution led to wonderful architectonical executions, of great esthetic and symbolic value.

That the Laternendecke has been reused although there was no practical need of it, is due, Kozicz explains, to its symbolic resemantization. The central lotus hints at an axis mundi, around which the cosmos, in the form of concentric squares, rotates. The similarity with other concentric structures, from the Buddha’s nimbus to the maṇḍalas, will not go unnoticed.

Back to Central Asia, the Laternendecke has been reused also where it made no structural sense, e.g., in the caves of Bamiyan, and in other rock- and cave-structures. Since Bamiyan was a central focus in the commercial routes, since the time of the Kuśānas, the Buddhist symbolic language, together with the Laternendecke, could reach the Taklamakan area and last also China.

Interestingly enough, in China the motif has been reused in still a different way, i.e., as simply a flat decorative element.

The flat Laternendecke in a Chinese cave. Photo from www.cavetemples.com

The Islamic conquerors in South Asia often destroyed, out of their iconoclastic tendencies, many Buddhist and Hindu sites, but the floral motif of the lotus could be easily incorporated in their decorative patterns, as Kozicz shows in the case of a Laternendecke originally “Hindu” and integrated in the Adina Mosque in West Bengal.

Finally, the Laternendecke reaches its greatest potential in Ladakh (Kozicz, p. 53), which had witnessed around 1000 a new golden age due to the collapse of other easier routes, which had been occupied by the Islamic invaders. Here the Laternendecke has some variations (e.g., with trapeziums instead of triangles on the periphery of the bigger square) and more importantly it becomes a way to depict whole maṇḍalas in a three-dimensional way. Buddhas are depicted in the vertical spaces, so that they can actually look at the centre of the maṇḍala (the lotus, here used as a Mahāyāna-Vajrāyāna symbol).

Thus, the Laternendecke has a long history of reuse and risemantizations, interestingly enough some of them have occurred through the same elements (such as the lotus at the centre), which have acquired a different value in Hindū, Buddhist or Islamic context.

Kozicz’ article (as usual in his works) includes beautiful images and architectonic schemes.

Gerald Kozicz, “Die Laternendecke: Von den Höhentempeln Bamiyans zu den Stupas von Alchi”. In: Robert Kostka (ed.) Wakhan. Talschaft zwischen Pamir und Hindukusch. Graz 2011 (you can download it freely from this link).

Friday is reading day on this blog. For my monthly planning, see here.

PhD grant in Buddhist translation, Vienna

elisa freschi — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 06:13:14 +0000

The Institute of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna is pleased to invite applications for one PhD grant in Buddhist Translation.

The grant is supported by the Khyentse Foundation as a component of the Buddhist Translation Studies program developed at the University of Vienna under the direction of Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Mathes. The grant will be provided to an outstanding candidate who wishes to write a doctoral dissertation that relates to the translation of Buddhist literature in Tibetan or Sanskrit.

The candidate is expected to have a strong knowledge of Buddhist translation issues and methods as well as a desire to incorporate interdisciplinary methods into his or her research.

The dissertation project must be aimed at providing a significant contribution to Buddhist Translation Studies. The candidate must also be willing to actively participate in contributing to the development of the Buddhist Translation Studies program at the university by participating in relevant workshops and conferences, contributing articles, as well as teaching relevant topics at the department.

Deadline for application: 1st December, 2013

Start date: As soon as possible

Duration: Three years Amount: USD 1200 (about EUR 870) per month

To Apply: Send one copy of an academic CV, transcripts of all higher education, Master’s dissertation or equivalent, contact information of two references, and a dissertation project proposal (no more than two pages) to klaus-dieter.mathes@univie.ac.at by 1st December 2013. Following the submission, an interview will be scheduled for the candidates either in-person or over the internet, after which time an awardee will be chosen.

Further info can be found here and here.