142087 KO Colloquium on the philosophies and religions of South Asia for advanced students (2021W)

After the distribution of the initially relevant materials, a PhD project in its intermediate phase and its results will be focused upon, followed by several sessions that will be devoted to an MA project in its intermediate stage. Finally, we will discuss various issues relevant to a further advanced PhD project. In the course of the meetings, specific aspects of these projects will be discussed in terms of their structure and organization as well as source material and content, and from the theoretical–methodological points of view. This will include oral presentations, the critical reading of selected passages from the relevant Sanskrit literature and the discussion of secondary literature.
(1) “Gāyatrī: Mantra and Mother of the Veda”
(2) “The Notion of the Three Kinds of Suffering (ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika, ādhidaivika) in Classical and Medieval Sanskrit Literature”
(3) “The Beginning of the Vaiśeṣika(sūtra): A Study of the Traditional Conceptualizations of the Origin of the Vaiśeṣika Tradition and of the Interpretations of the Initial Sūtra-s in the Vaiśeṣikasūtra”
The course participants are expected to thoroughly prepare for the meetings by working through the distributed materials and to actively involve themselves in class by means of focused questions and problematization, original contributions to the discussion, the presentation of independently prepared translations, brief oral presentations, etc.