Dear Colleagues (with apologies for cross-posting), 

I am pleased to announce a public lecture by Professor Roy Tzohar at Waseda University on Friday, October 11, 2019. 

Title: Etymology as an Interpretative Technique: The Case of the Yogācāra Philosopher Sthiramati.

Speaker: Professor Roy Tzohar, Tel Aviv University.

Time: 5pm--6:30pm.

Venue: Waseda University, Toyama Campus, Building 36, Room 581.

Abstract: The paper examines the role of etymological analysis (nirvacana, nirukti) in Indian Buddhist textual culture, focusing, as a case study, on the works of the 6th-century Yogācāra philosopher Sthiramati. By grounding Sthiramati's etymological practices in its broader intellectual context, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, the paper demonstrates the way in which etymological analysis serves primarily as an interpretative technique. In the hands of the skilled commentator, it is argued, etymological analysis becomes itself an independent argument; and by bringing together a rich intertextual context to form a new commentarial synthesis it serves as am important tradition-making activity both textually and linguistically. Understood in this way, etymology is not focused on revealing or excavating semantic meaning that is embedded in language, but rather a way in which meaning is negotiated and created in praxis within the boundaries of a certain tradition. This feature, I hope to show, helps to explain the rather puzzling practice in Buddhist textual circles, of a crossover of an etymology from one language into another (for instance in the translation of texts from Indic languages into Chinese). 

About the Speaker: Professor Roy Tzohar specializes in the history of philosophy with a focus on Buddhist and Brahmanical philosophical traditions in India. He holds a Ph.D. from the Religion Department at Columbia University (2011) and is currently an associate professor in the East and South Asian Studies Department at Tel Aviv University. His recent monograph, A Buddhist Yogācāra Theory of Metaphor (Oxford University Press, 2018), winner of the Toshihide Numata Award 2018, deals with Indian philosophy of language and the Yogācāra philosophy of language and experience in particular. Current research interests include Buddhist philosophy of Language and nonconcpetuality, Indian philosophy of emotion, and the works of the Buddhist poet and philosopher Aśvaghoṣa. 

The lecture will be given in English and translated into Japanese. It is free of charge and open to the public. Anybody interested is welcome.

Nobuyoshi Yamabe

Waseda University