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Ham (2016), Buddhist Critiques of the Veda

Ham, Hyoung Seok. 2016. “Buddhist Critiques of the Veda and Vedic Sacrifice: A Study of Bhāviveka’s Mīmāṃsā Chapter of the Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā and Tarkajvālā“. University of Michigan: PhD diss. URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/120797 [PDF]

From the Abstract: The dissertation includes an overview of Bhāviveka’s long chapter on Mīmāṃsā in his Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā and reviews previous scholarly opinion on the identity of opponent of the chapter. It next examines how Bhāviveka employed each of the traditional critiques against the new opponent, demonstrating that he drew heavily on the Abhidharma and Sāṃkhya literature to counter the Mīmāṃsaka defense of the Veda and Vedic sacrifice, while adding new levels of specificity and sophistication.

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Benke, ‘The Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa’ (2010)

Theodore Benke. The Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa: A 16th Century Manual of Dharma for Śūdras. PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2010. [abstract & official site / PDF]

From the abstract

“From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century C.E., a śāstra of a new type on the topic of Śūdras was composed and circulated among Dharmaśāstrins. […] Śūdradharma texts were one response of the Brahmin intellectual elite to the challenges to traditional dharma and dominance arising from the changing socio-economic conditions of Sultanate and Mughal India. They represent a shift in Dharmashastric discourse from the ritual exclusion of Śūdras as the sign of their social subjection to fuller integration into the Brahmanical fold. […] These śūdradharma texts were primarily concerned with the ritual life of Śūdras—the rites, sacraments, and forms of religious knowledge to which they were entitled in śruti and smṛti. But they also included expositions on the generation of Śūdra jātis according to the theory of varṇasaṅkara and descriptions of the ways of life and occupations of Śūdras. This is a study and translation of one of these texts, the Śūdrācāraśiromaṇi of Kṛṣṇa Śeṣa, among the most brilliant and eminent paṇḍits of late medieval Sanskrit, celebrated as both grammarian and poet.”