[INDOLOGY] recent publications: conference reports over 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14

[Jan E.M. Houben]

Dear David,
Thanks for your feedback. In fact, if you go to http://ashp.revues.org/1748
you should have direct access to the conference reports.
In the course of time I will place a copy on my Academia.edu page.
For Indra I am also preparing an expanded English version of my argument.
In the conference report, the relevant portions are paragraphs 28-32, where
you find quotations of / references to some of the relevant verses and
passages (RV, RVkhila, Asvalayana-samhita, Aitareya-Aranayaka, Panini,
Kasika). Although the "modern" Vedānta-style adhyātman interpretation of
the Vedas is grafted on the ancient one recognized in the old Brahmanas,
Aranyakas and the Nirukta (next to and often co-occurring with adhidaiva,
adhiyajña and aitihāsika interpretations), the two are to be sharply
distinguished. As for the adhyātman interpretation I found for Indra and
which is reflected in the word indriya (including its curious use in the
term indriya-sthāna in Ayurveda), there is nothing particularly Vedāntic
about it: it could equally fit a Vaisesika or Sāmkhya view on the soul or
self.
Best regards,
Jan











*Jan E.M. HOUBEN*

Directeur d’Études

Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite

*École Pratique des Hautes Études*

*Sciences historiques et philologiques *

54, rue Saint-Jacques

CS 20525 – 75005 Paris

johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr

https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben

www.ephe.fr


On 14 December 2015 at 03:32, David and Nancy Reigle <dnreigle at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Jan,
>
> Your first point is of much interest to me: "1. Already in Vedic times the
> name/concept índra was meant to be open to an adhyātman interpretation
> which is largely neglected in modern accounts although it was lexicalized
> in some derivations and by grammarians understood in that way." I do not at
> present have access to this conference report of yours. Could you briefly
> summarize, if possible, the adhyātman interpretation of indra? Thanks.
>
> In modern times there was an attempted resuscitation of the adhyātman
> interpretation of the Vedas by Vasudeva S. Agrawala, who wrote in English,
> and his teacher Madhusudana Ojha, who wrote in Sanskrit (in verse, too hard
> for me to understand). Agrawala regarded the adhyātman as one of the
> ancient schools of Vedic interpretation that Yāska referred to in his
> *Nirukta*, but that had long ago fallen into oblivion. However, I did not
> notice any essay by Agrawala specifically on indra.
>
> Best regards,
>
> David Reigle
> Colorado, U.S.A.
>
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Jan E.M. Houben <jemhouben at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear List members,
>>
>> Since conferences at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes combine
>> teaching with original research, EPHE conference reports may contain
>> contributions of interest to those working in the respective fields.
>>
>> Three points may be singled out from my conference reports over 2011-12,
>> 2012-13, 2013-14 (http://ashp.revues.org/1748).
>>
>> 1. Already in Vedic times the name/concept índra was meant to be open to
>> an adhyātman interpretation which is largely neglected in modern accounts
>> although it was lexicalized in some derivations and by grammarians
>> understood in that way.
>> 2. Pānini's Astādhyāyī, understood as a reconstitutive grammar (rather
>> than as a "wildly generative" grammar), shows a "triple dichotomy"
>> structure; the first dichotomy is the one into:
>> (A) the first part (chapters 1-5), which provides elementary conceptual
>> tools and (through the gaṇas: ALL) linguistic elements needed for PARSING a
>> preliminary Vedic or current statement (which may show some variation,
>> expected to be mostly within the range of Vedic and then current
>> Sanskrit-Prakrit usage)
>> (B) and the second part (chapters 6-8), which gives the rules for the
>> prakriya "progressive development" of the form, including its accentuation
>> (this includes the remaining gaṇas concerning mostly accentuation,
>> cerebralisation, lengthening, vrddhi), as finally used in the (verified or
>> perfected, samskrta) language utterance.
>> 3. Both the unduly neglected shorter Vrtti (I propose to call it
>> laghuvrtti) and the longer vrtti (brhatī) give information on the teachings
>> of Bhartrhari author of the Vakyapadiya, but neither the one nor the other
>> provides a secure access to his statements:
>> only the karikas, i.a. because of their tight inner structure involving
>> regularities of syntax, metrics and sense,  have a reasonable chance to
>> have reliably traversed the centuries and the transfer from mss to mss,
>> although even here, as is well known, we find a relatively small number of
>> textual problems.
>>
>> Since not everyone may easily read French, I have introduced an
>> innovation in the report by summarizing, for each year, some original point
>> in the form of one or two sanskrit verses.
>> This may contribute to demonstrate the wide expressive function not
>> limited to any specific conviction or worldview which Sanskrit has (and
>> which it has fulfilled over the centuries), next to its well known archival
>> function which has been (passionately but still insufficiently) explored in
>> two centuries of indology.
>>
>> Jan Houben
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Jan E.M. HOUBEN*
>>
>> Directeur d’Études
>>
>> Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite
>>
>> *École Pratique des Hautes Études*
>>
>> *Sciences historiques et philologiques *
>>
>> 54, rue Saint-Jacques
>>
>> CS 20525 – 75005 Paris
>>
>> johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>>
>> https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
>>
>> www.ephe.fr
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
>> committee)
>> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
>> unsubscribe)
>>
>
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20151214/a19106e2/attachment.htm>