Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Lucian Wong
(Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies)
Robert Czyżykowski (Jagiellonian University)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Tony K. Stewart
(Vanderbilt University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Omega room
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 6 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Vilnius
Short Abstract:
This panel will examine the rich repertoire of bodily technologies developed within the highly diverse religious context of premodern Bengal, in which the body has been understood as a key site of human transformation.
Long Abstract:
For some decades now, the body has been deployed as a productive theoretical lens in the sphere of religion – a domain deeply rooted in bodily schemes. Scholarship on South Asian religions has made an important contribution to this discourse, disclosing the body as integral to ritual, society, and cosmology, among other realms, in this region. This discourse has revealed the centrality of body-centred techniques – or bodily technologies – to the Indic religious lifeworld. This panel will explore a range of such techniques developed within an important and highly religiously pluralistic literary domain in this context, namely that of premodern Bengal. Though the 'Middle Bengali' textual corpus (c. 1400 – 1800) is one of the most expansive premodern Indic vernacular spheres, it remains curiously neglected in Western scholarship. The corpus reflects a multiplex religious milieu that encompasses Tantric, Yogic, Sufi, Shakta, and Vaishnava currents, among others. Texts within the corpus ubiquitously deploy body symbolism that, while evincing a diverse spectrum of attitudes toward embodied existence, invariably portrays the body as an indispensable site for human transformation. In doing so, the corpus articulates a rich repertoire of bodily technologies aimed at facilitating such transformation. Such techniques include new forms of bodily movement and posture, breath and sense control, dietary regimens, as well as subtle visualisation. At times, they might be directed toward the enhancement of the present physical body or the reversal of corporeal flows; at others, the creation or disclosure of a new body, whether devotional, tantric, or yogic. This panel will explore a representative segment of the discourse surrounding these transformative body-centred techniques from Bengal, providing an important opportunity for rethinking the relationship between religion, technology, and the human body in a global context.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 6 September, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
In the Bengali Sahajiyā tradition the human body is conceived as the best tool to achieve the religious goal. This vernacular tradition of Tantra was expressed in Middle Bengali works dedicated to various ritual and yogic techniques directed to transform the human body and mind.
Paper long abstract:
In the North-East Indian Tantric Sahajiyā tradition the human body is conceived as the best tool to achieve the religious goal understood as a return to the primeval state and mystical love of Vaishnavas. The Bengali Tantric Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā tradition (17-19 C) represents the vernacular tradition of Tantra and its rich literature was expressed in Middle Bengali. The most influential works of that tradition are authored by Mukundadeva and his disciples (17th cent.). They are characterized by the complex fusion of the great traditions of medieval India - Tantra, Yoga and Bhakti and include elaborate parts dedicated to various forms of Tantric yoga which might be considered as special forms of techniques directed to transform the human body and mind. The works of Mukunda and his disciples were commented upon in the 'Niguḍārthaprakaśavali' ('Array on the hidden meanings', 17-18th cent.). The text is a fine example of the elaborate descriptions of the so called 'teachings about the body' (dehatattva), where amongst the other topics main narration concern a nāḍīs or internal vessels or padmas or lotuses of the body. The aim of the proposed paper is an exploration of the text of the Niguḍārthaprakaśavali, and other related works, such as 'Padmamāla', to uncover various forms of bodily technology deployed by Sahajiyās. It will also address questions concerning the various strategies to interpret esoteric narration in the Sahajiyā corpus.
Paper short abstract:
This paper looks at a set of instances drawn from a variety of early Gauḍīya texts in which people fall unconscious and end up having visions of the eternal līlā. In particular, I examine the role of poetry, as it both causes people to fall unconscious and brings them back to consciousness.
Paper long abstract:
I examine a broad set of instances throughout the early Gauḍīya hagiographic corpus in which a person goes unconscious owing to the effects of extraordinary aesthetic experience (bhāva). I look at what happens to the body and the mind during these moments, focusing on the connection between the mental, affective, and physical responses exhibited. Poetry serves as an important technology of the self in these instances: it can both render people unconscious or help bring them back to consciousness. My discussion details the mechanism by which this technology works. I deal with examples from the Caitanyacaritāmr̥ta, the Karṇānanda, and from various texts written by Kavikarṇapūra.
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to highlight the persistent heterogeneity of technologies of the devotional self and body within Gaudiya Vaishnavism through the examination of vernacular devotional literature produced within a prominent priestly Vaishnava community in early modern Bengal.
Paper long abstract:
The Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, associated with the Bengali Krishna devotee Sri Krishna Chaitanya (1486-1533), extols participation in the play (līlā) of the cowherd god Krishna as a practitioner's principal soteriological objective. From early on in the tradition's development, the cultivation of a devotionally perfected body (siddha-deha), as distinct from both the present physical (sthūla) and subtle (sūkṣma) bodies, was seen as a prerequisite for such participation. While various kinds of devotional bodies were, in theory, theologically open to the Gaudiya aspirant, over time one such bodily form - namely, that of a young milkmaid (mañjari) - and the devotional relationality this form afforded became the privileged ideal of the tradition. Attempts to standardise the understanding of this ideal, along with the techniques to realise it, were in full swing in Bengal by the early seventeenth century. A plurality of Gaudiya understandings of the devotional body nevertheless continued to circulate amidst these centripetal theological forces. In this paper, I will explore one such variant, which came to be known as 'Meditation on the King of Taste' (rasarājopāsana), developed within a prominent priestly Vaishnava community in this context. In particular, I examine the articulation of this variant in two notable Middle Bengali texts produced by writers associated with the community, namely the Muralī Vilāsa by Rājavallabha Gosvāmai and the Vaṃśī Sikṣā of Premadāsa Mīśra. These texts, I argue, illuminate the persistent heterogeneity of technologies of the devotional self and body within Gaudiya Vaishnavism.