The Central Questions

Indian yogis, monks, and ascetics pursue extraordinary paths that invert the normal aims and values of society.  This course surveys the teachings on spiritual training and self-cultivation developed in India, their conceptual basis, the range of techniques used, and their philosophical development in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.  What was their purpose?  How are they supposed to work?  For whom were they designed?  What roles do yogis and ascetics play in religious life?  What is their ethical status in the world?

Web Link on the Largest Meeting of Ascetics in the World:  The Kumbh Mela

Course Objectives The course aims to help students understand the assumptions, goals, and rationales of the ascetical and meditative traditions of India, by examining the theory and practice of a variety of techniques of mental and physical self-discipline.  This study also lays the groundwork for comparison with other, non-Indian religious movements.    Requirements Students’ grades will be based on: (i) Preparation for and participation in class discussion, including occasional preparation of written outlines of assigned readings, for distribution in class (25%); (ii) a 4-page take-home midterm exam essay (25%); (iii) a 10-page research paper, including a first draft, a final draft, and a 20-minute oral presentation (50%).  [Please click here for advice on paper writing.]

A Sufi Muslim Darwish

Books for Purchase

Patrick Olivelle, trans., Upanisads
Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 2nd ed., trans. by W. R. Trask
Barbara Stoler Miller, trans., Yoga: Discipline of Freedom
Alan Babb, Absent Lord : Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture
David Gordon White, Tantra in Practice
Course Reader
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Schedule of Topics and Readings

The Human Predicament and Therapies for Desire

Week 1: The Search for Reality and Self in the Early Upanishads

1/8     Introduction: Self-Knowledge and Self-Perfection in the Veda
1/10   Olivelle, pp. xxiii-lviii (see also p. xiv) and the follow passages from the Upanishads:
              What Really Matters — Brahman and Atman:
          Brhadaranyaka 3.1-4.2 (pp. 34-58): Yajñavalkya as the model sage
          Chandogya 6 (pp. 148-156): Uddalaka instructs his son Shvetaketu in Brahman
          Chandogya 7.1-15 (pp. 156-164) Sanatkumara instructs Narada in progressing to knowledge of the highest reality
          Chandogya 8.7-12 (pp. 171-175): The Gods and the Asuras try to learn about the Atman from Prajapati
          Taittiriya 3.1-6 (pp. 190-191)
          Kena (pp. 227-230)
              The Nature of the Self:
          Brhadaranyaka 1.4 (pp. 13-17): The world created out of the Atman!
          Kaushitaki 4 (pp. 220-225): Gargya Balaki and Ajatashatru, King of Kashi
          Kaushitaki 1 (pp. 202-206): the destination of the Atman after death.

Week 2: The First Principles of Yoga: Self-Control of Body, Breath, and Mind

1/15       The Methods and Aims of Studentship:
          Review: Kaushitaki 1.1: humility
          Review: Kena 4.7-9 (p. 230): tapas, self-control, rites as the foundation of knowledge
          Chandogya 8.4-5 (pp. 169-170): The nature of brahmacarya
          Chandogya 4.4-15 (pp. 130-135): Two parables of students who gained their first lessons in mysterious ways
              Recitation, Mantras, and the “Great Utterances” or “Calls” (mahavyahrtis):
          Taittiriya 1 (pp. 179-184)
          Mandukya (a “middle” upanishad): OM
              The “Breaths” (pranas) and the Vital Powers (indriyas):
          Brhadaranyaka 1.5.21-23 (pp. 21-22): “an investigation into rules of discipline” [vrata])
          Chandogya 1.2.1-9 (p. 99): The Gods conquer the Asuras with the “breath within the mouth” (compare 1.3.1-21)
          Kaushitaki 2.11-12 (pp. 212-213): The “dying-Around” of the gods and their regeneration from breath.
              The contest of the “breaths”:
          Brhadaranyaka 6.1 (pp. 79-81)
          Chandogya 5.1.1-5.2.3 (pp. 137-139)
          Kaushitaki 13-14 (pp. 213-215), which includes a rite of transfer of powers from father to son
              The Heart and the Channels (the Yogic “Subtle-Body”):
          review: Brhadaranyaka 4.2.2-4 (p. 57); Taittiriya 1.6 (pp. 181-182)
          Chandogya 8.1 and 8.6 (pp. 167, 170-171)
              The Psychology and Physiology of Sleep and Death:
          Brhadaranyaka 1.5.3 (p. 19) and 4.3-4 (pp. 58-68)
          Brhadaranyaka 2.1 (pp. 23-26; compare Kaushitaki 4, esp. 4.19-20 (pp. 224-225)
              Inner Fire, Interior Sacrifice:
          Brhadaranyaka 5.9 (p. 75): Agni present within everyone
          Chandogya 5.19-5.24 (pp. 146-148): Eating can be sacrifice
          Kaushitaki 2.5 (p. 208): Pratardana's "Internal Fire Sacrifice" (antara agnihotra) of restraint (samyamana)
1/17   Katha (entire, pp. 232-247): The conquest of death through yoga
          Shvetashvatara 1-2, 6 (pp. 253-256, 263-265): Identifying the divine person: Rudra as Lord
          Mundaka (entire, pp. 268-277): Credo of an early ascetical sect within Atharva-Veda tradition?
              Note the explicit distinction between higher and lower knowledge (MuU 1.4-5),
                   the emphasis on asceticism and meditation in the wilderness, and the “head-vow” (shiro-vrata).

Major Systems of Self-Development

Week 3: Patanjali’s Yoga

1/22 Eliade, chs.1-2; Yoga Sutra (parts 1 and 2).
1/24 Yoga Sutra (parts 3 and 4).

Week 4: The Buddha’s Middle Way

1/29 CR 1 (Life of the Buddha);
 CR 2 (Bronkhorst, The Two Traditions of Meditation, excerpts).
1/31 CR 3 (Gombrich: “The Sangha’s Discipline”).

Week 5: Buddhist Meditation and Discipline

2/5 CR 4 (Spiro, “Monasticism”).
2/7 CR 5 (King, Theravada Meditation, excerpts).

Week 6: The Jain “Victors”

2/12 CR 6 (Jaini: “Medicant Path”); Babb, ch. 1.
2/14 Babb, ch. 3.
  MIDTERM ESSAY DUE THURSDAY BY 7 pm

2/19, 21: Washington Holiday (No Classes)

Tantric Yoga

Week 7: Tantric Yoga and the Nath Yogis

2/26   Eliade, pp. 200-254;
          White, ch. 29 (Flood, “Purification of the Body”);
          CR 7 (excerpts from the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika).
2/28   Eliade, pp. 254-273;
          White, ch. 18 (Hayes, “The Necklace of Immortality”).
  STATEMENT OF PAPER TOPIC & BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE 

Week 8: The Image of the Tantrika and Religious Polemics

3/5     Eliade, pp. 274-318;
          White, ch. 7 (Davis, “Praises of the Drunken Peacocks”);
          White, ch. 4 (Lorenzen, “A Parody of the Kapalikas in the Mattavilasa”);
3/7     White, ch.13 (Dundas, “The Jain Monk Jinapati Suri Gets the Better of a Nath Yogi”);
          White, ch. 16 (Khan, Conversation between an Ismaili and a Kanphata Jogi).

Week 9: Buddhist Tantrism

3/12   White, ch. 19 (Bentor, “The Tibetan Practice of the Mantra Path According to Lce-sgom-pa”);
          White, ch. 30 (Lopez, “A Tantric Meditation on Emptiness”).
3/14   White, ch. 14 (Germano and Gyatso, “Longchenpa and the Possession of the Dakinis”).
   FIRST DRAFT OF RESEARCH PAPER DUE FRIDAY BY 7 pm

Issues in the Uses of Asceticism

Week 10: Ascetic Practice for Women?

3/19   CR 8 (Murcott, “The First Buddhist Women”)
3/21   CR 9 (Jaini, “Introduction” to Gender and Salvation).
          CR 10 (Denton, “Varieties of Hindu Female Asceticism”);
 
Week 11: In-the-World Asceticism?

3/26   CR 11 (Bhagavad-Gita extracts).
3/28   PAPER PRESENTATIONS

   RESEARCH PAPER DUE FRIDAY BY 7 pm

Week 12: Asceticism as Social Action?

4/2    CR 12 (Michael Carrithers, The Forest Monks of Sri Lanka, excerpts).
4/4    CR 13 (“Mahatma Gandhi”).
 
   RELIGION 231 COURSE READER

1. “The Life of the Buddha as a Way of Salvation,” ch. 2 in The Buddhist Tradition, ed. by Wm. Theodore de Bary (New York: Modern Library, 1968), pp. 55-72.

2. Johannes Bronkhorst, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), pp. 1-30.

3. Richard Gombrich, “The Sangha’s Discipline,” ch. 4 in Theravada Buddhism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988), pp. 87-117.

4. Melford Spiro, Buddhism and Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), ch. 12 ("Monasticism I") (pp. 279-304).

5. Winston L. King, Theravada Meditation: The Buddhist Transformation of Yoga (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992), pp. 41-50, 64-77, 82-115.

6. Padmanabh S. Jaini, “The Mendicant Path and the Attainment of the Goal,” ch. 8 in The Jaina Path of Purification (Berkeley: U. Cal. Press, 1979), pp. 241-273.

7. Hathayogapradipika of Svatmarama, translated by Srinivasa Iyangar and A. A. Ramanathan (Chennai: Adyar Library, [1972] 2000), pp. 6-13, 22-27, 32-39, 42-44, 51-55, 78-84.

8. Susan Murcott, The First Buddhist Women: Translations and Commentary on the Therigatha (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1991), pp. 39-73.

9. Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Introduction” to Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women (Berkeley: U. Cal. P., 1991), pp. 1-30.

10. Lynn Teskey Denton, “Varieties of Hindu Female Asceticism,” ch. 10 in Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women, ed. by Julia Leslie (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson U. Pr., 1991), pp. 211-231.

11. R. N. Dandekar, “The Bhagavad Gita: Action and Devotion,” in Sources of Indian Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 1, ed. by Ainslie T. Embree (New York: Columbia U. Pr., 1988), pp. 276-296.

12. Michael Carrithers, The Forest Monks of Sri Lanka (Delhi: Oxford U.P., 1983), pp. 46-.

13. “Mahatma Gandhi: Nationalist India’s ‘Great Soul’,” ch. 6 in Sources of Indian Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 2, ed. by Stephen Hay (New York: Columbia U. P., 1988), pp. 243-274.