37 | The Bhagavad Gita – Modern Interpretations, Cross-Cultural Perspectives
This panel explores from various disciplinary perspectives the Bhagavad Gita in modern contexts and as a transnational document. Papers are invited dealing with modes of its reception and with reinterpretations among modern-day philosophers, politicians, spiritual leaders, writers etc.
Convenors:
· Angelika Malinar University of Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland)
Timeslots:
· 07/26 | 17:30-19:00 UTC+2/CEST
Long Abstract
Krishna’s words and his teachings to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita convey some of the principal ideas and debates regarding dharma in ancient India. In its compositional time, this seminal work negotiated conflicting religious-philosophical doctrines as well as the socio-political issues connected to them.
The Bhagavad Gita is also a text that later transcended its own historical, literary, and religious-philosophical contexts and opened itself up to multiple interpretations. During the nineteenth century, the text became an arena for negotiating the hegemonic claims of modern western epistemic parameters of historical and philological analysis (“Orientalism”) vis-à-vis the Indian scholastic and performative traditions, Hindu reformers, and individuals from various backgrounds pursuing their own philosophical, religious, political, and spiritual commitments.
Expanding on studies by Sharpe, Larson and others, this panel examines the classic Indic work as a modern world text from both cross-cultural and intra-cultural perspectives. It explores the history of the Bhagavad Gita’s modes of reception and the continuity and discontinuity that have existed between past uses and contemporary uses in concrete social and political conditions. It also considers the impact the Gita’s appropriation had during the “entangled history” of the colonial-modern period.
Seeking scholars from various disciplines of the humanities, we invite contributions that analyze the Bhagavad Gita as a transnational document and discuss the modes of its reception and reinterpretations among modern-day philosophers, politicians, spiritual leaders, and writers across cultures and regions.
Presentations
-
07/26 | 15:30-15:50 UTC+2/CEST
Vernacular Commentary and the Bhagavad Gītā: Questions of Transition and Circulation (Akshara Ravishankar) -
07/26 | 15:50-16:10 UTC+2/CEST
The First English Gita and Four British Orientalists (Richard Davis) -
07/26 | 16:10-16:30 UTC+2/CEST
The Ethics of Oneness: Reading Democracy Alongside the American Transcendentalists and the Bhagavad Gita (Jeremy Engels) -
07/26 | 16:30-16:50 UTC+2/CEST
Coping With "Karmayoga" in Late Nineteenth Century Interpretations of the Bhagavadgita (Angelika Malinar) -
07/26 | 17:30-17:50 UTC+2/CEST
An Anti-British Vision of the Bhagavad Gita in Tamil Verse (Gita Pai) -
07/26 | 17:50-18:10 UTC+2/CEST
"Like a Web of Pearls on Thread:" Women and the Bhagavad Gita in Modern Times (Erika Baldt) -
07/26 | 18:10-18:30 UTC+2/CEST
Bhagavad Gita, Hindu Religious Ethics and Modes of Capitalist Accumulation in India (Bhabani Shankar Nayak) -
07/26 | 18:30-18:50 UTC+2/CEST
Reading the Bhagavad Gita From an Eco-Humanistic Perspective on the Banks of the River Ganga in Rishikesh (North India). (Johan Krieg)