This article surveys recent work on Vedānta, focusing on English-language secondary scholarship since the year 2000. The article consists of two parts. The first part (published previously) identified trends within recent scholarship, highlighting several promising areas of new research: the social history of Vedānta, Vedānta in the early modern period, vernacular Vedānta, Persian Vedānta, colonial and post-colonial Vedānta, and pedagogy and practice. It also covered edited volumes, special journal issues, and ongoing collaborative research projects. The second part (published here) provides (...) an overview of scholarship on specific schools of Vedānta (Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, etc.), as well as a survey of philosophical, theological, and comparative studies. The article concludes with suggestions for further research. (shrink)

Using logic-laden terms to translate and interpret what the ancient Indian Buddhist thinkers said when we are not sure what they spoke about when they spoke about ‘contradictions’, etc. in natural languages can sometimes make things frustrating. Keeping in mind Wittgenstein’s exhortation, “don’t think, but look!”, I approach the issues of contradiction, negation, and the catuṣkoṭi via case-by-case study on several pertinent passages in Dharmapāla’s Dasheng Guangbailun Shilun. The following are some interrelated observations which should not be overgeneralized, especially considering (...) the limited scope of this study and its methodological considerations. First, there is an implicit rule of non-opposition and there could be no real oppositions for apparent oppositions because of implicit qualifications. Moreover, these are not new since or after Dignāga. Second, Dharmapāla and his contemporaries are familiar with the two negative usages, and prasajya-pratiṣedha is used for negating the opponents’ theses and is related to the no-thesis view. It’s not a good idea to assign truth values to sentences using prasajya-pratiṣedha or to a thesis in which the terms have no real objects. And Dharmapāla’s theses are just therapeutic tools. Third, in Dharmapāla’s discussion of the negative catuṣkoṭi, one can see the rule of non-opposition, the strategy of qualifications, and the two negative usages. Although the four positions in the catuṣkoṭi are regarded as mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, they are jointly exhaustive in pragmatic context, and are mutually exclusive under some interpretations, but not all. My tentative suggestion is that the catuṣkoṭi is a loosely term-based way of categorization. Last but not least, in the text discussed, I do not see Buddhist thinkers endorsing any contradictions. (shrink)

The Indian Buddhist Mādhyamika master Candrakīrti (ca. 7th century CE) grounds his philosophy in _lokaprasiddhi_ / -_prasiddha_, “that which is common knowledge / generally accepted among people in the world.” This raises the question of whether Candrakīrti accepts _everything_ that is “common knowledge” or instead distinguishes and privileges certain justifiable beliefs within common knowledge. Tom J.F. Tillemans has argued that Candrakīrti advocates a “lowest common denominator” version of _lokaprasiddhi_ instead of a model which promotes “in some areas at least, more (...) of a qualitative hierarchy of opinions and thus criticism by optimally qualified, insightful individuals.” In this way Candrakīrti is characterized as a “typical Prāsaṅgika” who advocates “a populist _lokaprasiddha_ and global error theory,” leading to “a dismal slough of relativism” in which Candrakīrti is compelled to uncritically acquise in the opinions of “average worldlings.” I argue that Candrakīrti instead employs a version of _lokaprasiddhi_ that distinguishes expert knowledge from the untutored notions of the _hoi polloi_. This argument is based upon a new interpretation of _āgama_ Candrakīrti twice quotes, and Candrakīrti’s usage of the terms _lokaprasiddhi_ / -_prasiddha_, _loka_- / _laukikavyavahāra_, _saṃvṛti_ and _saṃvṛtisatya_, and _laukika paramārtha_. I conclude that Candrakīrti presents himself as an expert in the determination of mundane affairs (_laukikārthaviniścayanipuṇa_), the foremost of which is the “mundane ultimate” (_laukika paramārtha_), the Buddha’s teaching of the path to liberation. Candrakīrti illucidates this for those following “the Victor’s path of reasoning” (_jinasya yuktipathānuyāyin_). He bases his philosophy in a position that is simply mundane (_laukika eva pakṣe sthitvā_), but which is nevertheless rationally demonstrable within the parameters of that which is common knowledge among people in the world (_lokaprasiddhi_). (shrink)

Although the Kaula literature of the Newars did not give rise to a systematic philosophical school like that of their Kashmiri counterparts, I will argue in this article that philosophical thinking can be detected in Newar ritual texts. I do this by translating and analysing the unpublished _Kālīsūtra_, an important hymn found in Newar Uttarāmnāya liturgies whose transmission and composition will also be touched upon. This hymn indicates that the cult of Kālī in Nepal had a distinct ontological stance tending (...) towards a non-dualism which was world-affirming while also seeing consciousness as the ultimate reality. Several key conceptual strands of the _Sūtra_ such as the relationship between transcendence and immanence, reality and cognition and the divine and the body will be elaborated upon. In the process, I will show that the _Kālīsūtra_’s philosophy brings into sharper focus doctrines already present in the canonical Krama and thus displays many affinities with the Pratyabhijñā, a school which shares its cultic backdrop. (shrink)