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Emergent Forms: Buddhist Poetical Language and Its Contexts, Session 1

Submitted to Program Units
1: Language, Poiesis, and Buddhist Experiments with the Possible Seminar

Roy Tzohar, Tel-Aviv University, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

Did poetical language and Buddhism co-create each other around the turn of the Common Era in South Asia? If so, how? And what are the implications for the beginnings of Indic literature and for the development of Buddhist, Vedic, Jain, and other literary and religious traditions of Asia? Our seminar hosts four research presentations on sources from early to early medieval South Asia, bringing them into conversation with each other through formal responses and general discussion. In this first session, Stephanie Jamison and Charles Hallisey examine the Rig Veda, Therīgāthā, Theragāthā, and other texts to revisit the historical problem of the beginnings of Indic literature and the role of Buddhist sources in contributing to forms of poiesis. Laurie Patton's and Thomas Mazanec's responses will broadly contextualize their presentations and raise questions in light of major scholarly paradigms concerning the history and development of Indic and Chinese literature.

Papers

  • Stephanie Jamison, University of California, Los Angeles

    “Kāvya in the Dark Ages: The Source and the Missing Link”

    Abstract

    In this paper, building on earlier work of my own, I will argue that the art poetry that dominated Classical Sanskrit literary culture, kāvya, has as its stylistic source the elaborate and self-conscious style of the earliest Sanskrit text, the Rig Veda. Despite the large chronological gap between the Rig Veda and Classical kāvya, and the apparent absence of this genre in Sanskrit in the intervening centuries, a missing link can be identified in the discourses of power in Middle Indic languages and in early Buddhist literary works. Both the similarities in poetic devices and the shaping of subject matter will be addressed, with ample examples.

     

  • Charles Hallisey, Harvard University

    Before Literature: Poeisis in the Poems of the First Buddhist Women and Men

    Abstract

    In his The Language of the Gods in the World of Men (2006), Sheldon Pollock argues that Buddhists played a key role in the “the astonishing expansion of the discursive realm of Sanskrit in the century or two around the beginning off the Common Era” (75). This is not only a historical issue. Pollock begins his exploration of this expansion self-consciously by saying, “To speak of beginnings, especially literary beginnings, is to raise a host of conceptual problems” (75). This paper explores how we see important literary beginnings in the Therīgāthā and the Theragāthā, collections of poems of the first Buddhist women and men, and how we can see in them traces of the protean emergence of Literature as a cultural form of poeisis in South Asia.  This conceptual exploration focusing on Pali texts suggests that the historical problem of the beginnings of Literature in India is ripe for reconsideration.

Responding
Laurie Louise Patton, Middlebury College
Thomas Mazanec, University of California, Santa Barbara
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Other

Roving microphone for Q&A and discussion
Accessibility Requirements

Other

We request a room with a large seminar table arranged in a square layout for formal participants along with any audience members who can fit at the table, plus additional seating for other audience members. We also request a roving microphone. These would better accommodate accessibility needs and suit our seminar format where extended in-depth conversation is necessary. Due to the layout of the room assigned to us in 2023 and the lack of a roving microphone, it was difficult to hear audience members trying to participate in the conversation. In San Antonio last November we observed an ideal room layout for our needs at another session; this was GH-Lonestar Ballroom Salon D which hosted the Hindu Philosophy Unit session, "On the Nature of Poetic Language: A Philosophical Roundtable" on Nov. 18th from 9:00-11:00 AM (CST). A room like that would be ideal for our seminar format. We are not sure if this room style is listed as an option below.

Comments

We are unsure whether the room style we would need for accessibility and our seminar format corresponds to any of the options below, though it seems the "Conference" room style may come the closest. We have seen the room layout we would need at another session at the 2023 San Antonio Annual Meeting, and have described it above.

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes

Schedule Preference

Saturday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Schedule Preference Other

We request the Saturday afternoon slots for our consecutive 90-minute sessions due to schedule constraints of presenters who do not normally attend or present at the AAR.
Schedule Info

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

#poiesis #poetry #poetics #Buddhist #Buddhism #literature #Sanskrit #Pali #India #Jain #Vedic
#Buddhism
#poiesis
#Buddhism #Literature #Poetry #Imagery
#Pali
#Buddhism #Language #South Asia
#Sanskrit

Session Identifier

A24-317