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This book explores the ethical and social implications of
unilateral gifts of esteem, offering a perceptive guide to the
uniquely South Asian contributors to theoretical work on the gift.
A richly diverse collection of classical Indian terms for
expressing the many moods and subtleties of emotional experience
Words for the Heart is a captivating treasury of emotion terms
drawn from some of India's earliest classical languages. Inspired
by the traditional Indian genre of a "treasury"-a wordbook or
anthology of short texts or poems-this collection features 177
jewel-like entries evoking the kinds of phenomena English speakers
have variously referred to as emotions, passions, sentiments,
moods, affects, and dispositions. These entries serve as beautiful
literary and philosophical vignettes that convey the delightful
texture of Indian thought and the sheer multiplicity of
conversations about emotions in Indian texts. An indispensable
reference, Words for the Heart reveals how Indian ways of
interpreting human experience can challenge our assumptions about
emotions and enrich our lives. Brings to light a rich lexicon of
emotion from ancient India Uses the Indian genre of a "treasury,"
or wordbook, to explore the contours of classical Indian thought in
three of the subcontinent's earliest languages-Sanskrit, Pali, and
Prakrit Features 177 alphabetical entries, from abhaya
("fearlessness") to yoga ("the discipline of calm") Draws on a
wealth of literary, religious, and philosophical writings from
classical India Includes synonyms, antonyms, related words, and
suggestions for further reading Invites readers to engage in the
cross-cultural study of emotions Reveals the many different ways of
naming and interpreting human experience
In South Asia, the period between 1100 and 1300 CE was a
particularly prolific time for theorists from India's three main
indigenous religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism - to
articulate their views on the face-to-face gift encounter. Their
gift theories shaped a cosmopolitan sensibility that shared ethical
and aesthetic values that reached across regional, sectarian, and
religious boundaries. This book explores the ethical and social
implications of unilateral gifts of esteem, offering a perceptive
guide to the uniquely South Asian contributors to theoretical work
on the gift. For theorists of the gift in medieval South Asia, the
ideal gift was a one-sided gesture, eliciting neither reciprocity
nor gratitude from the recipient. This marks an intriguing
departure from other theories of the gift, in which underlying
reciprocity expresses itself through either another gift,
gratitude, or a lingering sense of dependency on the part of the
recipient. In contrast, the lack of reciprocity in the South Asian
gift configures moral relationships that are asymmetrical and
hierarchical, in which the central ethical value expressed is
esteem.
How did ancient Buddhists read and interpret the Buddha's words? In
Voice of the Buddha, Maria Heim reads the early Buddhist scriptures
with Buddhaghosa, the principal commentator, editor, and translator
of the Theravada intellectual tradition. Buddhaghosa considers the
Buddha to be omniscient and his words "oceanic." Every word,
passage, bookindeed, the corpus as a wholeis taken to be "endless
and immeasurable." Commentarial practice thus requires disciplined
methods of expansion, drawing out the endless possibilities for
meaning and application. Heim considers Buddhagohsa's theories of
scripture and follows his practices of exegesis to yield fresh
insight into all three collections of the early Pali texts: Vinaya,
the Suttas, and the Abhidhamma.
Drawing on a rich variety of premodern Indian texts across multiple
traditions, genres, and languages, this collection explores how
emotional experience is framed, evoked, and theorized in order to
offer compelling insights into human subjectivity. Rather than
approaching emotion through the prism of Western theory, a team of
leading scholars of Indian traditions showcases the literary
texture, philosophical reflections, and theoretical paradigms that
classical Indian sources provide in their own right. The focus is
on how the texts themselves approach those dimensions of the human
condition we may intuitively think of as being about emotion,
without pre-judging what that might be. The result is a collection
that reveals the range and diversity of phenomena that benefit from
being gathered under the formal term "emotion", but which in fact
open up what such theorisation, representation, and expression
might contribute to a cross-cultural understanding of this term. In
doing so, these chapters contribute to a cosmopolitan, comparative,
and pluralistic conception of human experience. Adopting a broad
phenomenological methodology, this handbook reframes debates on
emotion within classical Indian thought and is an invaluable
resource for researchers and students seeking to understand the
field beyond the Western tradition.
Drawing on a rich variety of premodern Indian texts across multiple
traditions, genres, and languages, this collection explores how
emotional experience is framed, evoked, and theorized in order to
offer compelling insights into human subjectivity. Rather than
approaching emotion through the prism of Western theory, a team of
leading scholars of Indian traditions showcases the literary
texture, philosophical reflections, and theoretical paradigms that
classical Indian sources provide in their own right. The focus is
on how the texts themselves approach those dimensions of the human
condition we may intuitively think of as being about emotion,
without pre-judging what that might be. The result is a collection
that reveals the range and diversity of phenomena that benefit from
being gathered under the formal term “emotion”, but which in
fact open up what such theorisation, representation, and expression
might contribute to a cross-cultural understanding of this term. In
doing so, these chapters contribute to a cosmopolitan, comparative,
and pluralistic conception of human experience. Adopting a broad
phenomenological methodology, this handbook reframes debates on
emotion within classical Indian thought and is an invaluable
resource for researchers and students seeking to understand the
field beyond the Western tradition.
Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action
(karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how
intention and agency were interpreted in all genres of early
Theravada thought. It offers a philosophical exploration of
intention and motivation as they are investigated in Buddhist moral
psychology. At stake is how we understand karma, the nature of
moral experience, and the possibilities for freedom. In contrast to
many studies that assimilate Buddhist moral thinking to Western
theories of ethics, the book attends to distinctively Buddhist ways
of systematizing and theorizing their own categories. Arguing that
meaning is a product of the explanatory systems used to explore it,
the book pays particular attention to genre and to the 5th-century
commentator Buddhaghosa's guidance on how to read Buddhist texts.
The book treats all branches of the Pali canon (the Tipitaka, that
is, the Suttas, the Abhidhamma, and the Vinaya), as well as
narrative sources (the Dhammapada and the Jataka commentaries). In
this sense it offers a comprehensive treatment of intention in the
canonical Theravada sources. But the book goes further than this by
focusing explicitly on the body of commentarial thought represented
by Buddhaghosa. His work is at the center of the book's
investigations, both insofar as he offers interpretative strategies
for reading canonical texts, but also as he advances particular
understandings of agency and moral psychology. The book offers the
first book-length study devoted to Buddhaghosa's thought on ethics
Renunciation is a core value in the Buddhist tradition, but
Buddhism is not necessarily austere. Jewels—along with heavenly
flowers, rays of rainbow light, and dazzling deities—shape the
literature and the material reality of the tradition. They decorate
temples, fill reliquaries, are used as metaphors, and sprout out of
imagined Buddha fields. Moreover, jewels reflect a particular type
of currency often used to make the Buddhist world go round: merit
in exchange for wealth. Regardless of whether the Buddhist
community has theoretically transcended the need for them or not,
jewels—and the paradox they represent—are everywhere.
Scholarship has often looked past this splendor, favoring the
theory of renunciation instead, but in this volume, scholars from a
wide range of disciplines consider the role jewels play in the
Buddhist imaginary, putting them front and center for the first
time. Following an introduction that relates the colorful story of
the Emerald Buddha, one of the most famous jewels in the world,
chapters explore the function of jewels as personal identifiers in
Buddhist and other Indian religious traditions; Buddhaghosa’s
commentary on the Jewel Sutta; the paradox of the Buddha’s
bejeweled status before and after renunciation; and the connection
in early Buddhism between jewels, magnificence, and virtue. The
Newars of Nepal are the focus of a chapter that looks at their
gemology and associations between gems and celestial deities.
Contributors analyze the Fifth Dalai Lama’s reliquary, known as
the "sole ornament of the world"; the transformation of relic
jewels into precious substances and their connection to the
Piprahwa stupa in Northern India and the Nanjing Porcelain Pagoda.
Final chapters offer detailed studies of ritual engagement with the
deity known as Wish-Fulfilling Jewel Avalokiteśvara and its role
in the new Japanese lay Buddhist religious movement Shinnyo-en.
Engaging and accessible, Jewels, Jewelry, and Other Shiny Things in
the Buddhist Imaginary will provide readers with an opportunity to
look beyond a common misconception about Buddhism and bring its
lived tradition into wider discussion.
'Ethics' was not developed as a separate branch of philosophy in
Buddhist traditions until the modern period, though Buddhist
philosophers have always been concerned with the moral significance
of thoughts, emotions, intentions, actions, virtues, and precepts.
Their most penetrating forms of moral reflection have been
developed within disciplines of practice aimed at achieving freedom
and peace. This Element first offers a brief overview of Buddhist
thought and modern scholarly approaches to its diverse forms of
moral reflection. It then explores two of the most prominent
philosophers from the main strands of the Indian Buddhist tradition
- Buddhaghosa and Santideva - in a comparative fashion.
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