Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- I INTRODUCTION
- II DISCOURSE, CONDITIONS AND DYNAMICS OF TRADITION IN SOUTH ASIA
- III HOW TO PRODUCE, CONSTRUCT AND LEGITIMATE A TRADITION
- Buddhism and the Mahābhārata. Boundary Dynamics in Textual Practice
- Trita's Tumble and Agastya's Ancestors: On The Narrative Construction of Dharma
- Creating Traditions through Narration. The Case of Śakuntalā
- A Dynamic Tradition of Truth-telling: Moral Innovation in the Mahābhārata
- From Person to Person: A Study of Tradition in the Guruparaṃparāsāra of Vedānta Deśika's Śrīemat Rahasyatrayasāra
- What Makes a Work ‘Traditional’? On the Success of Nīelakaṇṭha's Mahābhārata Commentary
- Constructing the Wheel of Time. Strategies for Establishing a Tradition
- Bhāṭṭamīmāṃsā and Nyāya on Veda and Tradition
- Why should the Flower of Dharma be Invisible? Sāyaṇa's Vision of the Unity of the Veda
- IV EXPERIENCING BOUNDARIES WITHIN TRADITION: THE CASE OF THE SANSKRIT GRAMMARIANS
- V VIOLATING TRADITION AND ITS BOUNDARIES
- VI THINKING ABOUT TRADITIONS IN SOUTH ASIA TODAY
Trita's Tumble and Agastya's Ancestors: On The Narrative Construction of Dharma
from III - HOW TO PRODUCE, CONSTRUCT AND LEGITIMATE A TRADITION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- I INTRODUCTION
- II DISCOURSE, CONDITIONS AND DYNAMICS OF TRADITION IN SOUTH ASIA
- III HOW TO PRODUCE, CONSTRUCT AND LEGITIMATE A TRADITION
- Buddhism and the Mahābhārata. Boundary Dynamics in Textual Practice
- Trita's Tumble and Agastya's Ancestors: On The Narrative Construction of Dharma
- Creating Traditions through Narration. The Case of Śakuntalā
- A Dynamic Tradition of Truth-telling: Moral Innovation in the Mahābhārata
- From Person to Person: A Study of Tradition in the Guruparaṃparāsāra of Vedānta Deśika's Śrīemat Rahasyatrayasāra
- What Makes a Work ‘Traditional’? On the Success of Nīelakaṇṭha's Mahābhārata Commentary
- Constructing the Wheel of Time. Strategies for Establishing a Tradition
- Bhāṭṭamīmāṃsā and Nyāya on Veda and Tradition
- Why should the Flower of Dharma be Invisible? Sāyaṇa's Vision of the Unity of the Veda
- IV EXPERIENCING BOUNDARIES WITHIN TRADITION: THE CASE OF THE SANSKRIT GRAMMARIANS
- V VIOLATING TRADITION AND ITS BOUNDARIES
- VI THINKING ABOUT TRADITIONS IN SOUTH ASIA TODAY
Summary
There are two major gifts which Wilhelm Halbfass has bestowed upon the Indologist who works outside of the strictly defined Indian philosophy and the six darśanas as such. The first is a renewed interest in the intellectual value of word study, outside of the more narrow realm of etymology. Time and again his work has focused on the history of a particular word as a kind of micro-intellectual history, and with felicitous results. His essay on dharma in India and Europe, and his treatment of the word bhāva and abhāva in Being and What There Is, are two more of the salient examples of this kind of writing. In addition, Halbfass has cautioned us that the medium of cultural transition is as important as the content, no matter what period of Indian thought we are examining. In his epilogue to India and Europe, Halbfass wonders whether the exchange between the two cultures has determined not only the content, but the medium of the message. He is concerned here with both the vehicle and conditions of cultural transmission in this stormy, painful, and enriching relationship.
The present article takes up these two major contributions —the intricacies of dharma and the medium in which cultural transmission occurs. In his ‘Dharma in the Self-Understanding of Traditional Hinduism’, mentioned above, Halbfass takes pains to note particular nuances of the term. For instance, he argues with Robert Lingat's assertion that in the Mahābhārata, dharma is dhāraṇa, ‘supporting’, ‘maintenance’, in the sense of cosmological, eternal law.
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- Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011