Moments of Poiesis in Buddhist Texts

This paper revisits the notion of poiesis as a productive force of language in Buddhist texts. It proposes to view these texts as operating within a constitutive tension between the openness of meaning, its virtually infinite expressive potential, and its inevitable narrowing into determinate expression. Whereas some twentieth-century philosophers regarded such closure as veiling being as such, Buddhist authors, despite (or precisely through) their strong nominalist commitments, often treat this condition as an opportunity to deploy language in transformative ways. Drawing on a range of Indian Buddhist textual materials, the paper delineates moments of poiesis in which language turns back upon itself and generates new possibilities for meaning, understanding, and perception. Taking this feature to be a constitutive aspect of Buddhist textual production, the paper concludes by considering how it might best be studied and approached, through which disciplines and with what analytical tools, within the study of Buddhist texts.