Restraining the Senses and Relations of Care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.27235Keywords:
care, violence, purity, food, hygiene, community, Vedas, Hinduism, Jainism, Yoga, BuddhismAbstract
This article puts late Vedic ritual and the renouncer and householder traditions of early South Asia into dialogue in a new way, by thinking about restraining the senses through the etic lens of regimes of care. Guiding questions in this study are: (1) How do regimes of care help us understand the conceptual interface of violence, restraint, purity and community? (2) How do shifting relations of care help us understand conceptual change over time? Finally, (3) how does conceptual change help us speculate productively about changes in relations of care? The clear thematic bifurcation in the texts will recapitulate what Nathan McGovern has termed a ‘broad, trans-sectarian tension between renunciate and householder lifestyles’.
References
Algeo, John. 1990. ‘Semantic Change.’ In Edgar C. Polomé (ed.), Research Guide on Language Change: 399–408. Berlin: de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110875379.399
Bateson, Gregory. 1935. ‘Cultural Contact and Schismogenesis.’ Man 35: 178–83. https://doi.org/10.2307/2789408
Brereton, Joel Peter. 1981. The Rgvedic Adityas. New Haven, CT: JAOS.
Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2007. Greater Magadha: Studies in the Cultures of Early India. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004157194.i-416
Caland, Wilem. 1903. Über das rituelle Sutra des Baudhayana. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus.
Chatterjee, Indrani. 2013. Forgotten Friends: Monks, Marriages, and Memories of Northeast India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/27689
Clarke, Shayne. 2014. Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticism. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. https://doi.org/10.21313/hawaii/9780824836474.001.0001
Cort, John E. 1998. ‘Introduction: Contested Jain Identities of Self and Other.’ In John E. Cort (ed.), Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History: 1–15. New York: SUNY Press.
——2002. ‘Bhakti in the Early Jain Tradition: Understanding Devotional Religion in South Asia. History of Religions 42 (1): 59–86. https://doi.org/10.1086/463696
Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains. Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203398272
Einoo, Shingo. 2006. ‘Is the Diksa to Be Performed by the Priest? An Analysis of Vedic Texts.’ In Gérard Colas and Gilles Tarabout, Rites hindous: Transferts et transformations: 79–92. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionsehess.17081
Falk, Harry. 1986. Bruderschaft und Wurfelspiel: Untersuchungen zur Entwicklunsgeschichte des vedischen Opfers. Freiburg: Hedwig Falk.
Ferrara, Marianna. 2016. ‘The Function of Yajña between Practitioners and Clients. Rethinking the Genesis, Appropriation, and Control of the Practice from Rgveda Onwards.’ In S. Bindi, E. Mucciarelli and T. Pontillo (eds), Cross-cutting South Asian Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach. New Delhi: DK Printworld.
Govindrajan, Radhika. 2018. Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226560045.001.0001
Graeber, David and Wengrow, David. 2021. The Dawn of Everything. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Hara, Minoru. 2002a. ‘Pasupata Concept of Ahimsa.’ In Jun Takashima (ed.), Pasupata Studies: 67–76. Vienna: De Nobili.
——2002b. ‘Pasupata Concept of Purity (Sauca).’ In Jun Takashima (ed.), Pasupata Studies: 57–66. Vienna: De Nobili.
Heesterman, J. C. 1991. ‘“I Am Who I Am,” Truth and Identity in Vedic Ritual.’ In Gerhard Oberhammer (ed.), Beiträge zur Hermeneutik indischer und abenländischer Religionstraditionen: 147–77. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
——1993. The Broken World of Sacrifice. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Iftode, Cristian. 2013. ‘Foucault’s Idea of Philosophy as “Care of the Self”: Critical Assessment and Conflicting Metaphilosophical Views.’ Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 71: 76–85. Oxford: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.011
Keune, Jon. 2021. Shared Devotion, Shared Food: Equality and the Bhakti-Caste Question in Western India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197574836.001.0001
Killingley, Dermot. 2018. ‘Knowledge and liberation in the Upanisads.’ In Signe Cohen (ed.), The Upanisads: A Complete Guide: 158–72. New York: Routledge.
Knipe, David M. 2015. Vedic Voices: Intimate Narratives of a Living Andhra Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/12336
Kuiper, F. B. J. 1983. ‘The Ancient Aryan Verbal Contest.’ In John Irwin, Ancient Indian Cosmogony: 151–215. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House.
Larios, Borayin. 2019. Embodying the Vedas: Traditional Vedic Schools of Contemporary Maharashtra. New York: De Gruyter.
Larson, Gerald James. 2012. ‘Patañjala Yoga in Practice.’ In David Gordan White (ed.), Yoga in Practice: 73–96. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvcm4gpf.11
Lindquist, Steven E. Forthcoming. Creating a Sage: The Literary Life of Yajñavalkya. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Mayrhofer, Manfred. 1992. Etymologisches Worterbuch des Altindoarischen, vol 2. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
McGovern, Nathan. 2018. The Snake and the Mongoose: The Emergence of Identity in Early Indian Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190640798.003.0002
——2020. ‘Identity in Early Indian Religion.’ In Knut A. Jacobsen (ed.), Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions: 57–71. Abingdon: Routledge.
Minkowski, Christopher Z. 1991. Priesthood in Ancient India. A Study of the Maitravaruna Priest. Vienna: Sammlung De Nobili.
Obeyesekere, Gananath. 2002. Imagining karma: ethical transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek rebirth. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520232204.001.0001
Oguibénine, Boris. 1983. ‘Identity and Substitution in the Vedic Sacrificial Ritual. Essay on a Case of Figurative Disguisement of a Formal Scheme’, Semiotica 47 (1–4): 165–79. New York: De Gruyter.
Proferes, Theodore N. 2007. Vedic Ideals of Sovereignty and the Poetics of Power. JAOS.
Schmidt, Hanns-Peter. 1968. ‘The Origin of Ahimsa.’ In Jean Filliozat et al. (eds), Mélanges d’Indianisme à la mémoire de Louis Renou: 625–55. Paris: Editions E. de Boccard.
Smith, Caley Charles. 2019a. ‘Adhiyajña: Towards a Performance Grammar of the Vedas.’ Religions 10 (6), 394. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10060394
——2019b. ‘How is a Vehicular Homicide like the Sacrifice?’ In Lauren Bausch (ed.), Self, Sacrifice and Cosmos: Vedic Thought, Ritual, and Philosophy: 182–238. Delhi: Primus.
Smith, Frederick M. 2011. ‘A Brief History of Indian Religious Ritual and Resource Consumption: Was There an Environmental Ethic?’ Asian Ethnology 70 (2): 163–79.
Tull, Herman W. 1989. The Vedic Origins of Karma: Cosmos as Man in Ancient Indian Myth and Ritual. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Ulrich, Katherine E. 2007. ‘Food Fights.’ History of Religions 46 (3): 228–61. https://doi.org/10.1086/513255
Witzel, Michael. 1977. ‘An Unknown Upanisad of the Krsna Yajurveda: The Katha-Siksa-Upanisad.’ Journal of the Nepal Research Center (Humanities) I: 139–57.
