Papers by Christian Ferstl
Journal of the Oriental Institute, Baroda, 2020
In the seventh chapter of Aśvaghoṣa’s epic Buddhacarita, a certain brahmin ascetic recommends to ... more In the seventh chapter of Aśvaghoṣa’s epic Buddhacarita, a certain brahmin ascetic recommends to the Bodhisattva to go and meet the sage Arāḍa (verses 51-55). The description of the anonymous ascetic who is said to be “lying in ashes” (bhasmaśāyin) is well-intentioned throughout and shows no signs of sectarian polemics. In the present paper I discuss Aśvaghoṣa’s approach to the ascetic and aspects of the literary representation. Moreover, the possibility of an identification of the bhasmaśāyin as an adherent of Pāśupata Śaivism is considered.
Key Words: Buddhacarita, Pāśupata Śaivism, asceticism, ashes, plot
structure
ISSN 0030 – 5324
© Oriental Institute, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara
Dissertation / Doctoral Thesis, 2020
Transgressive Śaivite Practices in Early Works of Sanskrit and Prakrit Poetry.
A cognitive lite... more Transgressive Śaivite Practices in Early Works of Sanskrit and Prakrit Poetry.
A cognitive literary study.
This study - written in German language - is focused on literary representations of fictional śaiva ascetics in six different works of Sanskrit and Prakrit kāvya literature. The literary compositions are early examples of different literary genres, written by authors of different religious affiliation in the 1st or 2nd to 10th centuries. The selected passages are analysed in due consideration of the identifiable literary techniques applied by the poets and in the light of the extant prescriptive and normative works of the supposedly depicted religious traditions.
Apart from a general aesthetic appreciation of the historical works of literature, the study is guided by two major questions: Wherein lies the artistic achievement of the selected works and passages? And: are works of literary fiction in a position to convey knowledge, and if so, what kind of knowledge? In order to pursue these questions the passages are interpreted in their respective literary, historical and cultural contexts. For this so called close reading a wide range of relevant literature was taken into consideration, such as parallel texts in
Sanskrit and Prakrit, historical commentaries and normative literature in Sanskrit, and recent secondary literature in Hindi and several European languages. Quotations from the original text passages are translated into German throughout, conveying elements not only of content but also of form as faithful as possible.
Gain of knowledge is thereby aimed at in three different areas of research: (1) content matter such as the represented religious traditions, social forms of interaction and other points of cultural history; (2) the literary works under focus, their linguistic features as well as their transmission histories; and (3) the literary techniques by which the analysed works of fiction contribute to conveying knowledge. This last point draws on elements of the recent theory of aesthetic or literary cognitivism.
On the whole, the study provides an investigation on Indian cultural and intellectual history by means of historical literary works of fiction, and at the same time offers new interpretations of passages of literary fiction on the basis of historical research with a constant focus on the epistemic value of the literary fictions.
Pre-print version of a conference paper presented at Shinshu University (Matsumoto, Japan), Augus... more Pre-print version of a conference paper presented at Shinshu University (Matsumoto, Japan), August 20 - 24, 2012:
Transmission and Tradition: The Meaning and the Role of "Fragments" in Indian Philosophy
A Symposium on Quotations and Paraphrases from and Allusions to Ancient Texts on Indian Philosophy
(see http://nyaya.oeaw.ac.at/cgi-bin/conf/adv.pl).
Published in:
Ernst Prets (ed.): "Transmission and Tradition : Quotations, Paraphrases and Allusions in Texts on Indian Philosophy," Vienna 2022, pp. 271-290.
ISBN 978-3-7001-8917-6
Copyright © Austrian Academy of Sciences,
Conference Presentations by Christian Ferstl
Tantric Communities in Context , 2019
We can get a glimpse of the social life in an early medaeval Śaiva temple in one of the masterpie... more We can get a glimpse of the social life in an early medaeval Śaiva temple in one of the masterpieces of Sanskrit prose poetry, in Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s Kādambarī. Bāṇa’s peculiar description of an elderly Dravidian who dwells in a Caṇḍikā temple near Ujjayinī provides an account of what constitutes a loose religious community from an etic point of view. A representation such as this is rarely found in emic literature such as the Śaiva āgamas and tantras which, due to their normative function, are usually prescriptive and idealizing in nature. The present contribution to the volume on Tantric Communities in Context touches upon two different kinds of social relations: the one of a tantric temple dweller and the various temple visitors, and the other of the court poet towards this Śaiva tradition. Both of these aspects, of course, must not be interpreted by taking the passage in question as a historical account, but rather it needs to be understood as the peculiar form of representation by a narrator, a work of fiction subjected to literary devices and narrative techniques such as figures of speech, rasa theory, and plot structure. Despite its fictional character, the Kādambarī nevertheless is replete with historical details of socio-religious relevance.
(Pre-print version of a chapter published in: Tantric Communities in Context,
ed. Nina Mirnig, Marion Rastelli, Vincent Eltschinger, Vienna 2019)
Electronic Texts by Christian Ferstl
Transcript of the the edition by Jaydev Mohanlal Shukla: Vāsavadattā of Subandhu, Jodhpur 1966.
G... more Transcript of the the edition by Jaydev Mohanlal Shukla: Vāsavadattā of Subandhu, Jodhpur 1966.
GRETIL-Version
Audio Recording by Christian Ferstl
Recent by Christian Ferstl
The 12th International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS 12) will be held in Vienna, Au... more The 12th International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS 12) will be held in Vienna, Austria, from July 22nd to 24th 2021. The purpose of the conference is to bring together graduate students working with primary sources in Indology so that they can build contacts and present, discuss and publish their research. Organising committee: Vitus Angermeier, Christian Ferstl, Dominik A. Haas, Channa Li. Contact: iigrsuk@googlemail.com
Books by Christian Ferstl
Puṣpikā – Tracing Ancient India through Texts and Traditions: Contributions to Current Research in Indology, 2023
In the series Puṣpikā – Tracing Ancient India through Texts and Traditions: Contributions to Curr... more In the series Puṣpikā – Tracing Ancient India through Texts and Traditions: Contributions to Current Research in Indology, the proceedings of the International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS) are published. Puṣpikā is a peer-reviewed series that provides early-career scholars with a platform to share the results of their research on pre-modern South Asian cultures.
This is the 6th volume in the series, containing thirteen articles based on the talks presented at the 12th IIGRS online and in Vienna, Austria on 22–24 July 2021.
Uploads
Papers by Christian Ferstl
Key Words: Buddhacarita, Pāśupata Śaivism, asceticism, ashes, plot
structure
ISSN 0030 – 5324
© Oriental Institute, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara
A cognitive literary study.
This study - written in German language - is focused on literary representations of fictional śaiva ascetics in six different works of Sanskrit and Prakrit kāvya literature. The literary compositions are early examples of different literary genres, written by authors of different religious affiliation in the 1st or 2nd to 10th centuries. The selected passages are analysed in due consideration of the identifiable literary techniques applied by the poets and in the light of the extant prescriptive and normative works of the supposedly depicted religious traditions.
Apart from a general aesthetic appreciation of the historical works of literature, the study is guided by two major questions: Wherein lies the artistic achievement of the selected works and passages? And: are works of literary fiction in a position to convey knowledge, and if so, what kind of knowledge? In order to pursue these questions the passages are interpreted in their respective literary, historical and cultural contexts. For this so called close reading a wide range of relevant literature was taken into consideration, such as parallel texts in
Sanskrit and Prakrit, historical commentaries and normative literature in Sanskrit, and recent secondary literature in Hindi and several European languages. Quotations from the original text passages are translated into German throughout, conveying elements not only of content but also of form as faithful as possible.
Gain of knowledge is thereby aimed at in three different areas of research: (1) content matter such as the represented religious traditions, social forms of interaction and other points of cultural history; (2) the literary works under focus, their linguistic features as well as their transmission histories; and (3) the literary techniques by which the analysed works of fiction contribute to conveying knowledge. This last point draws on elements of the recent theory of aesthetic or literary cognitivism.
On the whole, the study provides an investigation on Indian cultural and intellectual history by means of historical literary works of fiction, and at the same time offers new interpretations of passages of literary fiction on the basis of historical research with a constant focus on the epistemic value of the literary fictions.
Transmission and Tradition: The Meaning and the Role of "Fragments" in Indian Philosophy
A Symposium on Quotations and Paraphrases from and Allusions to Ancient Texts on Indian Philosophy
(see http://nyaya.oeaw.ac.at/cgi-bin/conf/adv.pl).
Published in:
Ernst Prets (ed.): "Transmission and Tradition : Quotations, Paraphrases and Allusions in Texts on Indian Philosophy," Vienna 2022, pp. 271-290.
ISBN 978-3-7001-8917-6
Copyright © Austrian Academy of Sciences,
Conference Presentations by Christian Ferstl
(Pre-print version of a chapter published in: Tantric Communities in Context,
ed. Nina Mirnig, Marion Rastelli, Vincent Eltschinger, Vienna 2019)
Electronic Texts by Christian Ferstl
GRETIL-Version
Audio Recording by Christian Ferstl
Recent by Christian Ferstl
Books by Christian Ferstl
This is the 6th volume in the series, containing thirteen articles based on the talks presented at the 12th IIGRS online and in Vienna, Austria on 22–24 July 2021.
Key Words: Buddhacarita, Pāśupata Śaivism, asceticism, ashes, plot
structure
ISSN 0030 – 5324
© Oriental Institute, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara
A cognitive literary study.
This study - written in German language - is focused on literary representations of fictional śaiva ascetics in six different works of Sanskrit and Prakrit kāvya literature. The literary compositions are early examples of different literary genres, written by authors of different religious affiliation in the 1st or 2nd to 10th centuries. The selected passages are analysed in due consideration of the identifiable literary techniques applied by the poets and in the light of the extant prescriptive and normative works of the supposedly depicted religious traditions.
Apart from a general aesthetic appreciation of the historical works of literature, the study is guided by two major questions: Wherein lies the artistic achievement of the selected works and passages? And: are works of literary fiction in a position to convey knowledge, and if so, what kind of knowledge? In order to pursue these questions the passages are interpreted in their respective literary, historical and cultural contexts. For this so called close reading a wide range of relevant literature was taken into consideration, such as parallel texts in
Sanskrit and Prakrit, historical commentaries and normative literature in Sanskrit, and recent secondary literature in Hindi and several European languages. Quotations from the original text passages are translated into German throughout, conveying elements not only of content but also of form as faithful as possible.
Gain of knowledge is thereby aimed at in three different areas of research: (1) content matter such as the represented religious traditions, social forms of interaction and other points of cultural history; (2) the literary works under focus, their linguistic features as well as their transmission histories; and (3) the literary techniques by which the analysed works of fiction contribute to conveying knowledge. This last point draws on elements of the recent theory of aesthetic or literary cognitivism.
On the whole, the study provides an investigation on Indian cultural and intellectual history by means of historical literary works of fiction, and at the same time offers new interpretations of passages of literary fiction on the basis of historical research with a constant focus on the epistemic value of the literary fictions.
Transmission and Tradition: The Meaning and the Role of "Fragments" in Indian Philosophy
A Symposium on Quotations and Paraphrases from and Allusions to Ancient Texts on Indian Philosophy
(see http://nyaya.oeaw.ac.at/cgi-bin/conf/adv.pl).
Published in:
Ernst Prets (ed.): "Transmission and Tradition : Quotations, Paraphrases and Allusions in Texts on Indian Philosophy," Vienna 2022, pp. 271-290.
ISBN 978-3-7001-8917-6
Copyright © Austrian Academy of Sciences,
(Pre-print version of a chapter published in: Tantric Communities in Context,
ed. Nina Mirnig, Marion Rastelli, Vincent Eltschinger, Vienna 2019)
GRETIL-Version
This is the 6th volume in the series, containing thirteen articles based on the talks presented at the 12th IIGRS online and in Vienna, Austria on 22–24 July 2021.