The concept of Prāyaścitta in the Introductory Passages of the Ratnakaraṇḍikā (original) (raw)
Related papers
Dying to Redress the Grievance of Another: On prāya/prāyopaveśa(na) in Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī
In this essay, I examine selected narratives in the Rājataraṅgiṇī that invoke a specific practice of suicide by starvation, what is referred to as prāya, prāyopaveśa and/or prāyopaveśana. Commonly attested in the legal literature, as well as in the epics, prāya is normally deployed there to redress financial grievances, to force debtors to pay their due. The use of the practice in the Rājataraṅgiṇī is often quite different than this, however: Kalhaṇa has suggested that Brahmins, and others, engaged in the fast-unto-death not only to redress their own (financial) grievances, but also the grievances of others. In particular, Kalhaṇa presents prāya as a tool used to compel Kashmiri kings to conform to the dharmaśāstric strictures of good government, to promote policies favoring not only Brahmins but also other, non-Brahmin subjects. The existence of such a form of the fast-unto-death is significant, for it signals a potentially unselfish use of caste, however imperfectly and corruptly the Rājataraṅgiṇī shows it to have been applied: by threatening their own deaths and promising thereby the karmic and social consequences of brahminicide, Brahmins sought to compel those sovereigns who pursued their own narrow interests better to serve the common good. That this is so raises a trio of vital concerns regarding (1) the nature of the fast and its modern legacies, and (2) the nature of royal succession, on the one hand, and (3) the proper role of social and political elites, on the other, in premodern South Asia.
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2017
that humans may have sometimes served as actual victims (p. 238). (The anthropomorphic head pictured on the cover of the book is a clay specimen used by Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala in their modern performances of Vedic ritual, where no victims of any kind are immolated.) At least in a symbolic sense, however, Collins agrees with Heesterman that the head beneath the altar "attests to the violent relations that lie hidden beneath the surface of the bloodless. .. classical ritual" (p. 198). The bottom line, for Collins and Heesterman alike, is that the displacement of conflict from Vedic sacrifice creates a void in which a wide range of meanings-language, myth, philosophy, and theology-may arise. While situating his project as a study of myth and ritual in India over a thousand-year period from 500 B.c.e. to 500 c.e., Collins offers the caveat that his "primary mode of analysis will be textual, not historical" (p. 3). Indeed, the book's stance throughout is pointedly ahistorical: like Girard and Heesterman, Collins makes an argument predicated on a loosely defined "prehistory," whose legacy reverberates in the historical cultures that follow. And while his reading strategy may be textual in that it takes the Vedas and the Sanskrit epics as the main frame of reference, its primary concern is not to systematically analyze the stratified testimony of these texts, nor to philologically engage text and language. Instead, Collins' approach is thematic and comparative: for instance, he invokes the work of medievalist Henry Charles Lea to frame the dynamics of rivalry in Vedic ritual (p. 96), Jacques Derrida on Greek ritual to decode the Brāhmaṇa story of Cyavana (p. 223), the "speculative realism" of philosopher Quentin Meillassoux to analyze the Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā doctrines of Jaiminī (p. 231), postcolonial theory on climate change to talk about Karṇa's role in the Mahābhārata (p. 243), and so on. While sometimes disorienting, this approach makes for a fascinating read. The Head beneath the Altar concludes with a short chapter ("Yajñānta: The End of Sacrifice") that aims to elaborate on the differences between Girard's critique of sacrifice and those Collins has assembled from Hindu mythology. Here, Collins acknowledges that his culminating ambition in interpreting Hindu critiques of sacrifice from the perspective of mimetic theory is to "articulate an ethical position" (p. 241) that will minimize the scapegoating, rivalry, and violence of mimesis in human culture. To this end, he returns to the epic hero Karṇa-who, he argues, transcends the mimetic structures of violence and sacrifice in the Mahābhārata war-to highlight his potential as a model for "universal singularity" (p. 241) in the modern context of global environmental catastrophe. In this way, a book that began as an analysis of how the old world has shaped religion concludes as an idealistic pitch for how religion might shape the new world. On the final pages Collins makes the case for locating "the end of sacrifice" in Hindu traditions of sacrifice, and more precisely in the Vedas as deployed by Girard in his Sacrifice lectures: because Vedic thinkers discerned the violence inherent in sacrifice in the Brāhmaṇas, they were able to transcend "archaic religion" (p. 243) and produce the philosophical innovations of the Upaniṣads. In the context of Indology, this assessment neglects recent work by Signe Cohen, Brian Black, and Patrick Olivelle, among others, which interrogates the conventional wisdom that the Upaniṣads represent a monumental turning point in Indian cultural history; more broadly, however, the conclusion leaves the impression that, avowed differences aside, Collins' work cannot escape its Girardian inspiration. In true mimetic fashion, one might say, Collins has fashioned a reading of Hindu myth to rival Girard's reading of Western myth. The Head Beneath the Altar contains several tables, endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.
Horizonte - Revista de estudos de Teologia e Ciências da Religião, 2018
The objective of the present article is to suggest that systematic, deliberate and gradual renunciation (tyāga) constitutes the fundamental thrust of Indian Vedic traditions and the main feature of what may be called a religious or spiritual outlook, in contrast with a mundane one. I’ll try show that renunciation is ultimately purportful in enabling one to overcome suffering (duḥkha) through gradual immersion into the knowledge of the deepest levels of one’s immediate Reality. Considering the two-step ladder that make-up Vedic religious designs according to Advaita Vedānta - viz., karma as ritual-related actions leading to improved rebirths, and jñāna as knowledge-related disciplines leading to ultimate self-realization, - the specific focus of the present article will be on the first step. Accordingly, I’ll strive to unveil the specific characteristics, modalities and cognitive facets of renunciation that make up, in my opinion, the fundamental meaning of dharma as a goal to be pursued in accordance with the narrative prescriptions of the Vedas and in the form of ritual actions - karma -, leading one to paradise in next life.
Sin and expiation in Sikh texts and contexts: from the Nānak Panth to the Khālsā (2012)
« Sin and expiation in Sikh texts and contexts: from the Nānak Panth to the Khālsā ». In Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara (eds.), Sin and Sinners: Perspectives from Asian Religions, Leiden, Brill, 2012, p. 31-56. L’article opère, autour de la question du péché et de l’expiation, une coupe à travers les sources sikhes, de la première, l’Ādi Granth, livre sacré des sikhs compilé en 1604 par leur cinquième Gurū, Arjan, à la plus récente, le code sikh de 1950 (Sikh rahit maryādā), en passant par le deuxième livre sacré des sikhs, le Dasam Granth, compilé au début des années 1730, et, surtout, les deux grandes histoires traditionnelles sikhes de la première moitié du 19e siècle. L’évolution des conceptions sikhes en matière de péché et d’expiation, telle qu’il est possible de la restituer à partir de ces sources, est rapportée à l’évolution socio-historique de la communauté.
Early Medieval Europe, 2006
This article reconsiders the function of penitentials in the tenth and eleventh centuries; were they used mainly to support priests in the administration of penance, or rather as legal texts in either the episcopal court or in the schoolroom? Through an examination of the evidence of the manuscripts from across Europe, it shows that whilst few new penitentials were composed, many older ones, especially those which gave their authorities, continued to be copied in this period, and that most were preserved in a legal rather than pastoral context. Finally, it suggests that this shift towards collections of a legal nature indicates not only tighter episcopal control, but also a concern for the better legal training of priests.