Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Maps and Figures
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- I INSTITUTIONS
- 2 State Formation and Its Structural Foundations
- 3 From the Cult of Chivalry to the Cult of Personality: The Seventh- Century Transformation in Pallava Statecraft
- 4 Changes in Land Relations and the Changing Fortunes of the Cēra State
- 5 Temple and Territory in the Puri Jagannātha Imaginaire
- II IDEAS
- 6 Svayaṃbuddha's Predilections: The Epistemologies of Time and Knowledge
- 7 Bhāravi and the Creation of a Literary Paradigm
- 8 Knowing and Being: The Semantic Universe of the Kūḍiyāṭṭaṃ Theatre
- 9 The Invention of Zero and Its Intellectual Legacy
- III IDENTITIES
- 10 The Evolution of Vernacular Languages: A Case Study of Kannada
- 11 Religious Identities in Times of Indumauḷi's Grief
- 12 Caste, Gender, and the Landed Patriarchy
- 13 The Making of Territorial Self Consciousness (with Particular Reference to Kaliṅga)
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Svayaṃbuddha's Predilections: The Epistemologies of Time and Knowledge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 May 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Maps and Figures
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- I INSTITUTIONS
- 2 State Formation and Its Structural Foundations
- 3 From the Cult of Chivalry to the Cult of Personality: The Seventh- Century Transformation in Pallava Statecraft
- 4 Changes in Land Relations and the Changing Fortunes of the Cēra State
- 5 Temple and Territory in the Puri Jagannātha Imaginaire
- II IDEAS
- 6 Svayaṃbuddha's Predilections: The Epistemologies of Time and Knowledge
- 7 Bhāravi and the Creation of a Literary Paradigm
- 8 Knowing and Being: The Semantic Universe of the Kūḍiyāṭṭaṃ Theatre
- 9 The Invention of Zero and Its Intellectual Legacy
- III IDENTITIES
- 10 The Evolution of Vernacular Languages: A Case Study of Kannada
- 11 Religious Identities in Times of Indumauḷi's Grief
- 12 Caste, Gender, and the Landed Patriarchy
- 13 The Making of Territorial Self Consciousness (with Particular Reference to Kaliṅga)
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The period between the fourth and the sixth centuries stands out for the remarkable strides made on the intellectual front, which in the six centuries that followed were to undergo further refinement, diversification, and change. New trends arose in astronomy, mathematics, linguistics, poetics, dramaturgy, theology, ontology, and epistemology, marking a break with the past that was phenomenal in its scope and orientation. Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra laid down the founding principles of dramaturgy that seem to have had little antecedents, although Bharata frequently cites earlier writers. Many of its tenets were of course forgotten or ignored, but the theory of rasa that it presented came to inform literary practices and continued to be influential well into the early twentieth century. A rich phase in poetics commenced with the theory of vakrōkti (crooked speech) laid out in Bhāmaha's sixth-century Kāvyālaṅkāra, which was followed in the next four centuries by Daṇḍī's theory of guṇa (attribute), Vāmana’s theory of rīti (convention), Ānandavardhana's theory of dhvani (evocation), and more. The study of language broke away from the limiting perspectives of Yāska's Nirukta and Pāṇinī's Aṣṭādhyāyī to take up the question of meaning in all earnest. In this respect, the Buddhist theory of āpōha and Bhartṛharī’s theory of spōṭa set the trend. The Sāṅkhya, Nyāya, and Mīmāṃsa schools came of age, as did several schools in Buddhism, reorienting the approaches to the question of ontology and epistemology. The Sūryasiddhānta and the Āryabhaṭīya broke new grounds, instituting paradigms in mathematics and astronomy that differed from the ones embodied in the Śulbasūtras and the Vēdāṅga Jyōtiṣa. They formed the bases for all subsequent works in the two connected disciplines, from Varāhamihira's Bṛhatsaṃhitā in the sixth century to Sāmanta Candraśēkhara's Siddhānta Darpaṇa in the nineteenth century. Pedagogy and knowledge production underwent a marked shift. The old form of knowledge through sūtras (aphorisms) continued if on a much-reduced scale, but the practice of identifying canonical works and producing glosses on them became the preferred method. This practice was, with stray exceptions like Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya on the Aṣṭādhyāyī, more or less unknown before the fourth century. In the new milieu, commentaries became the standard as it were. Buddhaghōṣa's glosses on the Buddhist canon were among the earliest to register this change.
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- The ‘Early Medieval' Origins of India , pp. 185 - 208Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020