No.59 Seminar ： Power of Emotion: Faith, Ethic, and Aesthetic in Early Modern South Asia
- Kiyokazu Okita (The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research)
- 2013/05/07 4:00pm
- The Hakubi Center for advanced research (iCeMS West Wing 2F, Seminar Room)
- Japanese
Summary
Have you ever fallen in love? Do you remember the bitter-sweetness of your first love? Strong emotions such as attachment and passion are sometimes seen negatively since they paralyze you and make you lose self-control. This is precisely why detachment from worldly emotions and disciplining the mind are so important in South Asian religious traditions such as Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Yet emotions are so fundamental in our being that many find it difficult to do away with them completely. Vaishnavism, an influential branch within Hinduism, however, teaches that we should take advantage of emotions. According to the tradition, by directing emotions towards God rather than towards mundane objects, they can become a powerful soteriological tool. In this seminar, first I shall explain basic concepts and terminologies that are necessary to approach South Asian religious traditions. Then I shall focus on the Bengal school of Vaishnavism founded by Caitanya in the sixteenth century, and examine how this particular school dealt with the power of emotion and related issues in the pre-colonial and colonial periods in South Asia.