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This book presents contemporary scholarship on the Yoga Sūtra. It revisits Patañjali’s philosophy by bringing it into dialogue with contemporary concerns across a variety of topics and perspectives. Questions regarding the role of the body in the practice of classical yoga, the debate between the realistic or idealistic interpretation of the text, the relation between Yoga and other Indian philosophical schools, the use of imagination in the pursuit of self-knowledge, the interplay between consciousness and nature, the possibilities and limitations of using it as a therapeutic philosophy, the science of meditation, and overcoming our fear of death probe the many dimensions that this text continues to offer for thought and reflection.
The Sāṃkhya System brings new life to an ancient Hindu system of thought. Sāṃkhya spans the fields of philosophy, physics, metaphysics, psychology, and ethics. Although notably not theological, its key premises can be found in virtually all religious traditions that originate from India. Sāṃkhya espouses a reciprocity between Prakṛti, the realm of activity, and Puruṣa, the silent witness. It also delineates the phenomenal experiences that arise from Prakṛti, including the operations of the human body, the five great elements, and the eight mental states. Sāṃkhya proclaims that knowledge of world and self can lead to freedom. This book presents a new translation of Īśvarakṛṣṇa's Sāṃkhya Kārikā, with grammatical analysis. It includes interpretive essays that explore the philosophical aspects of the Sāṃkhya system by Geoffrey Ashton, Ana Funes Maderey, Mikel Burley, Christopher Key Chapple, and Srivatsa Ramaswami, as well as its sociological and psychological applications as delineated by Marzenna Jakubczak, McKim Marriott, and Alfred Collins.
Philosophy begins with a question. The same question is often asked in different languages. Comparative philosophy is a project that engages thinkers from all areas of the world and approaches common problems from different perspectives. The conversations look at not only interactions between cultures, but also the relationships among humans, animals, and nature. But the many languages and unfamiliar terms can seem intimidating even to those with formal philosophical training. This book provides an approachable survey of current topics from some of the newest comparative philosophers as they enter the field. Arising out of a graduate student philosophy conference at the University of Hawai...
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 resul...
Este libro trata sobre seres humanos que dicen haber sido pájaros y peces en vidas pasadas, meditadores que describen cómo dieron el paso de la vida a la no-muerte, pensadores convencidos de que, si entrenamos la mirada del alma y la orientamos hacia dentro, recordaremos nuestro origen divino. Relacionando el modo de vida que nos plantea el budismo antiguo y la ascesis esbozada en los Yogasutra de Patañjali, sale a la luz la importancia de la memoria corporal del practicante. La autora revisa algunos aforismos «budistas» del yoga de Patañjali, y también el legado budista que reflejan algunos de los comentarios que acompañan a los aforismos. Otros temas igual de importantes son abordados con lucidez: la memoria de vidas pasadas, el trance meditativo, y la relación del practicante con su propio cuerpo, con la felicidad o con el suicidio.
'How do gender constructions transform religious experiences?' 'What is the role of bodily materiality in ethics and epistemology?' 'How does rethinking gender and sexuality force us to reconceptualise settled ontological frameworks?' This collection provides the first research resource to Indian philosophical gender issues, exploring a variety of texts and traditions from Indian philosophy where the treatment of gender is dynamic and diverse. Organised around three central themes - the gender dynamics of enlightenment in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions; the simple binary opposition of genders in Indian traditions; the ways in which symbolic representations of gender differ from social rea...
The History of Indian Philosophy is a comprehensive and authoritative examination of the movements and thinkers that have shaped Indian philosophy over the last three thousand years. An outstanding team of international contributors provide fifty-eight accessible chapters, organised into three clear parts: knowledge, context, concepts philosophical traditions engaging and encounters: modern and postmodern. This outstanding collection is essential reading for students of Indian philosophy. It will also be of interest to those seeking to explore the lasting significance of this rich and complex philosophical tradition, and to philosophers who wish to learn about Indian philosophy through a comparative lens.
Clear, accessible, and meticulously annotated, Tracing the Path of Yoga offers a comprehensive survey of the history and philosophy of yoga that will be invaluable to both specialists and to nonspecialists seeking a deeper understanding of this fascinating subject. Stuart Ray Sarbacker argues that yoga can be understood first and foremost as a discipline of mind and body that is represented in its narrative and philosophical literature as resulting in both numinous and cessative accomplishments that correspond, respectively, to the attainment of this-worldly power and otherworldly liberation. Sarbacker demonstrates how the yogic quest for perfection as such is situated within the concrete realities of human life, intersecting with issues of politics, economics, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as reflecting larger Indic religious and philosophical ideals.
In Living Landscapes, Christopher Key Chapple looks at the world of ritual as enacted in three faiths of India. He begins with an exploration of the relationship between the body and the world as found in the cosmological cartography of Sāṃkhya philosophy, which highlights the interplay between consciousness (puruṣa) and activity (prakṛti), a process that gives rise to earth, water, fire, air, and space. He then turns to the progressive explication of these five great elements in Buddhism, Jainism, Advaita, Tantra, and Haṭha Yoga, and includes translations from the Vedas and the Purāṇas of Hinduism, the Buddhist and Jain Sūtras, and select animal fables from early Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Chapple also describes his own pilgrimages to the Great Stupa at Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, the five elemental temples (pañcamahābhūta mandir) in south India, and the Jaina cosmology complex in Hastinapur. An appendix with practical instructions that integrate Yoga postures with meditative reflections on the five elements is included.