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
Constructing the Wheel of Time. Strategies for Establishing a Tradition
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
The founding project of a tradition is usually expressed in its early texts, but not always explicitly. What its authors say—especially in the passages in which they introduce the tradition—, what they omit and, above all, the way in which they communicate content (apart from its being true or untrue) reveals their inner concerns, their perception of the surrounding reality and the motivations, at least in part and aside from the ones given, that led them to write. The first steps taken in establishing traditions, and particularly their founding projects, are especially interesting for historical research, which does not merely record the facts but also explores their mystification and enquires into the reasons for this.
The Buddhist tantric system known as the Wheel of Time (Kālacakra), which spread through Northern India and Tibet around the beginning of the XI cent., is extremely interesting in this regard and has been studied relatively little according to the aforesaid perspective, which is the one I intend to explore here. Except for the premises necessary for my discourse (§ 1), I shall not reiterate the basic historical information on this system, for which I refer the reader to the contributions by John R. Newman.
It is possible to show that the system's authoritativeness was established by the early teachers of the Kālacakra and by the first Tibetan historiographers through a precise intellectual ‘operation’, which involved, among other things, the definition of the Scriptures and of the qualities that their interpreter should possess, the fixing of hermeneutical criteria and the choice of the main themes.
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- Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011
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