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Birkenholtz, ‘The Svasthānī Vrata Kathā Tradition’ (2010)

Jessica Lynn Vantine Birkenholtz. ‘The Svasthānī Vrata Kathā Tradition: Translating Self, Place and Identity in Hindu Nepal’. PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2010. 337 pp. UMI Number: 3408505.

From the Abstract

This dissertation presents an alternate social and cultural history of Nepal through the lens of a textual-historical study of the Svasthānī Vrata Kathā (SVK). A popular Nepali Hindu textual tradition, the SVK has an unbroken history that spans five hundred years and three languages (Sanskrit, Newar, and Nepali). Beginning in the sixteenth century, the text expanded from a handwritten eight-folio palm-leaf local legend on the origin of the Svasthānī vrat, or ritual vow, into a Purāṇic sourcebook of thirty-one chapters in over four hundred printed pages. The SVK’s medieval-modern historical span, the diversity of forms of its textual (re)production, and its sustained uniform core narrative provide a lens through which both immediate shifts and gradual transformations in Nepal’s literary, linguistic, social, religious, and political history can be viewed and interpreted.


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Allen, ‘Girls as goddesses in secular Nepal’ (23/05/2011)

Presentation

Michael Allen. ‘The worship of young virgin girls as goddesses in the secular state of Nepal’. Guest lecture, 23 May 2011, 13:00-15:00, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (Copenhagen).

Abstract

In this lecture I intend to focus on some of the current debates in Nepal concerning the worship of young virgin girls as living forms of the goddess. At the heart of these debates is the issue of just what weight should be given to religious beliefs, practices and morals, in this case both Hindu and Buddhist, in what is now constitutionally a federal democratic republic formally committed to the propagation of predominantly secular ideals. Yet, prior to the success of the Maoist-led revolution in 2006, Nepal had been a Hindu monarchy of an orthodox kind in which the divine King and the virgin goddess were the twin pillars that together gave legitimacy to the state. My lecture concludes with some brief insights into just how both the goddess and the state survive today without their king – albeit somewhat precariously so.

Michael Allen is 
Emeritus Professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney.

Venue

NIAS, Leifsgade 33, 3rd floor, 2300 Copenhagen S.

Chanira Vajracharya, (now former) Lalitpur kumari. Photo © I.S., 2010.
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Sciberras, ‘Buddhist Philosophy & Environmentalism’ (2010)

Sciberras, Colette. ‘Buddhist Philosophy and the Ideals of Environmentalism’. Doctoral thesis, Durham University, 2010. [official site / PDF.]

From the Abstract

I argue that the teachings found in the Pāli canon cannot easily be reconciled with a belief in the intrinsic value of life, whether human or otherwise. This is because all existence is regarded as inherently unsatisfactory, and all beings are seen as impermanent and insubstantial, while the ultimate spiritual goal is often viewed, in early Buddhism, as involving a deep renunciation of the world.

Therefore, the discussion focuses mostly on the Mahāyāna, which, I suggest has better resources for environmentalism because enlightenment and the ordinary world are not conceived as antithetical. Continue reading “Sciberras, ‘Buddhist Philosophy & Environmentalism’ (2010)”

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Jones, ‘Of offal & others: 2 works by David-Neel’ (2010)

Robert William Jones, II. ‘Of offal, corpses, and others: an examination of self, subjectivity, and authenticity in two works by Alexandra David-Neel’. Thesis (M.A.) Florida Atlantic University, 2010. [UMI / PDF]

From the Abstract

Kawaguchi & David-Neel, 1916This thesis examines two works (My Journey to Lhasa and Magic and Mystery in Tibet) by Alexandra David-Neel. […] Central to this study is an examination of a claim by His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama that David-Neel creates an “authentic” picture of Tibet. In order to do this the first chapter establishes a working definition of authenticity based on both Western philosophy and Vajrayana Buddhism. This project argues that the advanced meditation techniques practiced by Alexandra David-Neel allow her to access a transcendent self that is able to overcome the self/other dichotomy. It also discusses the ways in which abjection and limit experiences enhance this breakdown. Finally, this thesis examines the roles that gender and a near absence of female Tibetan voice play in complicating the problems of self, subjectivity, and authenticity within these texts.

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Serbaeva-Saraogi, ‘Relative Chronology of Śaiva Texts’ (2009)

Olga Serbaeva-Saraogi. ‘A Tentative Reconstruction of the Relative Chronology of the Śaiva Purāṇic and Śaiva Tantric Texts on the Basis of the Yoginī-related Passages’. In: Jezic, M; Koskikallio (eds.) Parallels and Comparisons: Proceedings of the Fourth Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas. Zagreb: 2009, pp.313–348. [official / PDF]

Dr. Serbaeva-Saraogi’s article inspired me to create the ‘required reading’ tag. This impressive piece of research is associated with a recently completed project at Universität Zürich, which sounds equally intriguing: ‘Translating the Non-Evident: “Altered States of Consciousness” in Vidyapitha Tantras and in Western Transcreations of “Tantrism”‘.

A Tentative Reconstruction of the Relative Chronology of the Śaiva Purāõic and Śaiva Tantric Texts on the Basis of the Yoginī-related Passages

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Slusser, ‘Antiquity of Nepalese Wood Carving’ (2010)

Antiquity of Nepalese Wood Carving
Slusser (2010)

Mary Slusser. The Antiquity of Nepalese Wood Carving: A Reassessment. Freer/Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution: August 2010. ISBN 9780295990293. 325 pp., 201 illus. [official site]

According to the blurb, the author has carbon-dated certain items to a period as early as the Licchavi era, notably the struts of Uku Bāhā, one of the oldest continuously maintained Buddhist institutions in South Asia. Objects still in situ appear to be of much greater antiquity than previously thought.

A preview of Slusser’s findings was published on asianart.com. Given the author’s impressive contribution, we can perhaps overlook the misplaced horror at the recent painting of those wooden struts, which, incidentally, I witnessed during the Bāhā’s preparatory cleaning for its hosting of the Matayā festival. I am sure Dr. Slusser appreciates that sacred places in the Valley are living entities, subject to periodic renovation, which do not stay frozen in time for the amusement of Westerners with antiquarian fetishes.

It should also be said that “the first to publish an Ukubāhāḥ strut—or for that matter any Nepalese wooden sculpture” was not “Pratapaditya Pal in his 1974 Art of Nepal“. Previously there was Stella Kramrisch, and of course Giuseppe Tucci published many photographs of such items in the course of his career, culminating in his ’69 coffee-table book of erotic Newar temple sculpture, Rati-Līlā — a lyrical and mature statement of Tucci’s thinking, juxtaposed in a slightly tawdry way with photographed wood carvings of human (and other) maithuna scenes of questionable artistic merit.

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Fürer-Haimendorf Collection, SOAS

Saptavidhānottarapūjā performed by Badrīratna Vajrācārya, 1957 CE
A slew of photographs taken by the late anthropologist Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (1909–1995) have been placed in an online digital archive hosted by SOAS. Hundreds of these photographs are purposive records of Newar life, taken just after the opening of Nepal to foreign visitors in the late 1950s. Shown here is a worship of Āryatārā performed in Kathmandu by Badrīratna Vajrācārya who, although a well-known figure in Kathmandu, is not identified by name in the archive.

Dozens of other Himalayan and South Asian ethnic groups are represented in the collection, which is a real mine of information for researchers in the field, well worth the cost of digitization. The copyrights — yes, they still matter — are reserved by SOAS and Nicholas Haimendorf.

Link: Fürer-Haimendorf collection, SOAS (at digital.info.soas.ac.uk/).

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Tho, ‘Further Biographies of Nuns’ (2008)

Annlaug Tho. Selected Translations and Analysis of ‘Further Biographies of Nuns’. Master’s thesis in History of Religion, University of Oslo, Spring 2008. [URN & abstract / PDF]

From the introduction: “This thesis is a study of ‘Further Biographies of Nuns’ [續比丘尼傳] compiled by Master Zhenhua [震華大師] in the 1940s. I have selected three biographies from the Tang Dynasty, two from the Song Dynasty, two from the Yuan Dynasty, one from the Ming Dynasty, and four from the Qing Dynasty.”

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Alloco, ‘Snakes, Goddesses and Anthills’ (2009)

Amy L. Allocco. Snakes, Goddesses, and Anthills: Modern Challenges and Women’s Ritual Responses in Contemporary South India. PhD diss., Emory University, 2009. 582 pp. [PDF]

“This dissertation is an ethnographic study of contemporary Hindu snake (nāga) traditions and the worship of snake goddesses (nāgāttammaṉ) in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.”