[INDOLOGY] Misunderstood origins

[Herman Tull]

Just a brief follow-up regarding Bronkhorst's work, since I am one of the
individuals whose work Bronkhorst cites as significantly misunderstanding
the import of the "early" Upanisadic formulations of karma (see, The Vedic
Origins of Karma, 1989, a revision of my dissertation).

Bronkhorst's work views the Indian texts as well as the assorted strands of
Buddhism, Jainism, and Vedic thought with a deep chronological (a term that
occurs frequently in the work) bias. Personally, I find many of his
arguments compelling, and I consider his work ground-breaking (this is a
notoriously difficult realm to penetrate; Witzel, too, has made significant
strides here).

My argument, however, was made on a quite different basis. Following the
type of work that I (as a graduate student) believed Heesterman was engaged
in, I sought out conceptual (not chronological) origins; that is, I wanted
to see what Vedic concepts could be "unearthed" within the representation
of karma in the Upanishads; in other words, to get a sense of the Vedic
framework--which is stated in fairly clear terms throughout the Satapatha
Brahmana in particular (as discussed in my work)--on which karma hangs in
the Upanishads (in this, there are some implicit chronological assumptions
of "early and late").  As I view the project now, I recall some
Durkheim-ian influences as I considered the Upanishads, and their
doctrines, as having to be meaningful within a "collective consciousness"
of Indian thought that encompassed the Vedic period broadly (again, not as
a matter of chronology, but as a matter of discourse).

with regards,

Herman Tull

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Jonathan Silk <kauzeya at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am not sure what you specifically wish to discuss, but I dare to attach
> here something which I wrote on Bronkhorst's book which, I believe, begins
> to engage some of his ideas...
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl> wrote:
>
>> > a bit to start a discussion? ;)
>>
>> Frankly?
>>
>> Quite frankly - I'd rather prefer following the discussion on the
>> contents of Prof. Bronkhorst's paper.
>>
>> Or - is there somewhere a trace of the Buddhologists' (Historians of
>> India, Historians of Indian Literature) reaction to its theses?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Artur Karp
>>
>> 2016-04-11 9:42 GMT+02:00 Roland Steiner <steiner at staff.uni-marburg.de>:
>>
>>> In support of Prof. Silk's remarks I would like to point to the
>>> following short paper by Claudius Naumann:
>>>
>>> "Versiegende Quellen. Einige Anmerkungen über den Sinn und Unsinn von
>>> Internet-Verweisen in wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten". In: Zeitschrift der
>>> deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 162.2 (2012), pp. 460-464.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Roland Steiner
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> J. Silk
> Leiden University
> Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
> Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
> 2311 BZ Leiden
> The Netherlands
>
> copies of my publications may be found at
> http://www.buddhismandsocialjustice.com/silk_publications.html
>
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