Asian Cultures and Languages

This project examines the religious conception of agriculture of the Vedic tribes as they transitioned from semi-nomadic pastoralism to an agriculturally-based sedentism in the Gangetic Basin. The basic thesis is that the Vedic peoples had a theology of agriculture that was sufficiently complex to both retain continuity through, as well as adapt itself to, the sedentary transition. This two-sided dynamic, which emerged directly from the close reading of the source texts, breaks down quite neatly into plowing material that demonstrates continuity and harvest material that demonstrates adaptation through discontinuity and innovation. This study examines those changes and continuities through the careful philological reading of select textual sources pertinent to the issue, beginning with the earliest Sanskrit text, the Ṛgveda, which precedes the sedentary transition and reflects the milieu of semi-nomadic tribes in the northwest of the subcontinent in the Bronze Age. Examining the Vedic texts closely, the ancient conception of agriculture is shown to be predicated upon an analogy involving a reproductive complementarity between gods, humans, and animals, who cooperate to inseminate the earth and thereby produce food that sustains them all and therefore perpetuates the cosmos. The integrality of agriculture to the cosmic order enables a formalized association between Prosperity and Plow, allowing the plow to turn up an all-encompassing prosperity for those who ritually demonstrate this knowledge. This positive conception was carried through as the Vedic tribes transitioned to sedentism in the Gangetic basin during the early Iron Age.

The Vedic Association of Prosperity and Plow An association between Prosperity and Plow was integral to the religious conception of agriculture throughout the Vedic period. This association was formalized in two distinct ways. The first formulation was through the dual divinity śúnāsīrau, literally " Prosperity and Plow. " This dual divinity, attested already in the Ṛgveda, was attributed with actions on par with other anthropomorphic deities who play a role in the agricultural process, and was similarly implored for good will and a healthy and abundant crop as well. Originally considered separate and distinct, śúnāsīrau came to be increasingly identified with Indra. The second formulation was quite distinct from the first, operating in an entirely different way. The great Indo-Europeanist Calvert Watkins demonstrated that numerous branches of Indo-European would indicate agricultural produce as a higher taxon through a stylistically elaborated enumerative list functioning as a merism; the seemingly unique Vedic development of this tradition replaced simple agricultural crops as the members of the enumerative list for an extensive range of items, both concrete and abstract, that shifted the higher taxon indicated from agricultural produce to an all-encompassing Prosperity, as a result of the Plow. Watkins surmised that the merism may have originated in an Indo-European ritual context. This is precisely what we see in the Vedic instances of this merism; the most notable instance is in a ritual dialogue prescribed in the Kauśika Sūtra to be performed at the first plowing of the year. The dialogue, which occurs between husband and wife, is quite simple semantically but the Sanskrit is highly ornate in stylistic elaboration, including the use of alliteration, etymological figures, and ring composition.

The Most Learned Local Expert in Śāstra at the Examination of the Ground This paper examines the phrase deśikaḥ śāstravittamaḥ, the " most learned local expert in śāstra, " which describes a figure whose role is significant for mediating the tension inherent in the local enactment of typically universalizing scriptural injunction. The phrase is given in the Śaiva Ajitāgama (Ajāg 7.4), in the section detailing the preliminary undertakings for the construction of a temple. The entire process of temple construction, which is laid out with relative uniformity throughout the Śaiva āgamas, is all subsumed under the sūtra-like phrase karṣaṇādi pratiṣṭhāntam, " beginning with plowing (rite), ending with the consecration (of the deity image). " The preliminary to the process is the bhūparīkṣā, the " examination of the ground, " in which the ground of the prospective site is inspected so as to determine the quality of the soil by means of traditional tests performed by this prescribed local expert. The procedures carried out by, or under the supervision of, this local expert contain aspects that today could be considered both rational and ritual. These scripturally mandated procedures invest this " most learned local expert in śāstra " with considerable power and authority, including the right the reject a site as unfavorable. The key qualifier in the description of this figure is the adjective deśikaḥ, " local, " wherein universalizing normative discourse reflexively intimates its own inherent contingency and relativity in relation to regional specificity. The substantive which is so-qualified, śāstravittamaḥ, " the most learned expert in śāstra, " serves as a counterweight to the contingency of this local specificity by grounding the authority of the figure precisely back in the universalizing normative discourse of śāstra.

This thesis looks at contemporary Hindi-language documentary film in South Asia and its relationship to marginalized populations. In South Asia, three of the most visible marginalized groups are Dalits, women, and the homeless and impoverished, and many contemporary South Asian documentaries deal with subjects in these categories. Documentary film, especially ethnographic and advocacy film, has a long history of representing groups which are less visible in mainstream media. This thesis analyzes the conflicting perspectives of the filmmaker, audience, and subject, and determines the voices that are represented in the final products. Are the marginalized subjects of Hindi-language documentaries truly heard through this medium? Does documentary film achieve some form of justice and representation for the unheard? How is this reconciled with the voice and perspective of the filmmaker?

In a recent research trip to the Early Historic Period Buddhist site of Sanchi in modern Madhya Pradesh, I re-read, photographed, and catalogued the hundreds of donative inscriptions found on the vedika architectural fragments on all three major stūpa-s. When I began comparing and contrasting what was found in Marshall, Foucher, and Majumdar’s The Monuments of Sanchi (1982) volumes with my records I noticed a small discrepancy in the list of inscriptions from stūpa II. Curiously, five pavement slab inscriptions could not be found in Marshall’s list, Lüders’ old list (1912), or in Tsukamoto’s (1996) more recent catalogue. After carefully searching all known publications of the Sanchi inscriptions, I determined that these five donative inscriptions were unnoticed by previously scholars who all undoubtedly relied heavily upon Marshall or Lüders’ list without ever revisiting the source material. In this brief article, I present the five previously unnoticed donative inscriptions and attempt to provide new insights into dating stūpa II. Additionally, to flush out what is known and unknown about the stūpa II inscriptions, I compare some recurring donor names to those found at stūpa I and Bharhut. I assemble evidence to augment the relative chronology of stūpa II and its approximate date compared to the other stūpa-s.

Some of the earliest South Asian Buddhist historical records pertain to the enshrinement of relics, some of which were linked to the Buddha and others associated with prominent monastic teachers and their pupils. Who were the people primarily responsible for these enshrinements? How did the social status of these people represent Buddhism as a burgeoning institution? This paper utilizes early Prakrit inscriptions from India and Sri Lanka to reconsider who was interested in enshrining these relics and what, if any, connection they made have had with each other. Traditional accounts of reliquary enshrinement suggest that king Aśoka began the enterprise of setting up the Buddha’s corporeal body for worship but his own inscriptions cast doubt as to the importance he may have placed in the construction of stūpa-s and the widespread distribution of relics. Instead, as evidenced in epigraphy, inclusive corporations of individuals may have instigated, or, at the very least, became the torchbearers for, reliquary enshrinement as a salvific enterprise. Such corporations comprised of monastics as well as non-monastics and seemed to increasingly become more managerial over time. Eventually, culminating at places like Sanchi, the enshrinement of the corporeal remains of regionally famous monks partially supplanted the corporeal remains of the Buddha. Those interested in funding this new endeavor were corporations of relatives, monastic brethren, and others who were likely friends and immediate acquaintances. In the end, the social and corporate collectivity of early Buddhism may have outshined some textual monastic ideals of social isolation as it pertained to the planning, carrying out, and physical enshrinement of corporeal remains for worship, thus evoking an inclusive sentiment with the monastic institution rather than disassociation.

This article serves as a contribution to the financial primacy of Buddhist women in early historic South Asia. Presented here is a single case study from the first century bce monastic stūpa site from Central India called Sanchi whereby gender demographics are analysed over two subsequent stages of funding. Investments by women not only fuelled the construction of the built landscape but, as time went on, female donors were crucial to the economic solvency of the monastic institution at Sanchi. Such a micro-history of Buddhist women from classical India illustrates the agency of women during Buddhism’s formative years.

This paper borrows from recent trends in business finance (namely venture capitalism) to begin theorizing a model for the spread of Buddhism outside of the Buddha’s homeland in ancient Magadha. During the Early Historic Period (300 BCE–300 CE) in South Asia, dozens of new Buddhist pilgrimage sites emerged centered on stūpas, the relics of the Buddha and prominent Buddhist saints. At many of these sites, donor records were etched into stone, thus creating a roster of some of the earliest financiers to the burgeoning Buddhist monastic institution. I sifted through these donor records to examine just who these early patrons were, where they came from, and potentially what their aims were in funding a new religious movement. Not only did the donative investment records exist for posterity, meaning for the sake of future investors to the Buddhist saṃgha, but they also served as markers of ongoing financial success. If the old adage holds true, that it takes money to make money, then whose money did the early saṃgha utilize to create its image of success for future investors? My research reveals that a majority of the investors to the saṃgha were the monastics themselves. Put simply, monks and nuns formed the largest and most authoritative patronage demographic from which they used their own personal wealth to, in essence, ‘pull the saṃgha up by its bootstraps’. I argue that this phenomenon aligns closely with modern business creation and growth in the United States and elsewhere since many founding members of businesses and institutions often begin their endeavors with their own personal assets, including wealth, property, and/or loans.

This article examines asset accumulation and capitalization in early Sri Lankan Buddhism from the 1st c. BCE until the 5th c. CE using financial records inscribed into stone. The interplay between religious and economic practices shaped early Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka. The collected material corpus suggests that Buddhism's growth on the island was closely connected to its corporate monastic ability to fundraise and acquire non-fungible assets with resources that could be sold for profit. In the early centuries of this strategy-which monastics may have exploited to avoid censure for violating rules regarding voluntary poverty and moderation-haphazard and inconsistent linguistic expressions indicate an unfamiliarity with the practice. However, as the centuries passed, the Buddhist sam. gha developed coherent and consistent language to express the nuance of capitalization, including uniform terminologies for profit. Capitalizing assets like land became a standard way to supplement and perhaps supplant less e cient fundraising practices like door-to-door collections. As Buddhism spread to the rest of Asia, this phenomenon spread. This article demonstrates that tracing language development is a powerful method of exploring the early Buddhist corporate firm's deliberate and powerful economic engagement.

This work uses the theory of Lacanian Othering on medieval Indian texts to assess the multiple layers that construct the narrative of Self and Other in texts, such as Padmavata and Prithviraja Rasau. While this method allows this work to transcend existing 'communal versus syncretic' debate in the Indian history, it also lays a ground-work to reduce appropriation of pre-modern works by modern nationalist narratives and see them as historic construction of times when they were penned. This work focuses on selected episodes of conflict between Rajput and Turko-Afghan rulers in the texts and assesses how both poems construct identities which are beyond the categories of 'communal' or 'syncretic'. The aim of this research is to take the study of pre-modern Indian literature and history in an entirely new domain where the connection between ontology, history, and conflict can be established with greater certainty and accuracy.

What is it about objects that can really define how an individual is seen and constructed? This paper engages Kopytoff's (1986) ideas on objects, commodities, and commoditization with Lacan's theories of language, mind, and objects to synthesize a new understanding of objects, commodities, and how these translate into the ontological semiotics of an individual that Kopytoff explores in relation to the socio-cultural structures from an anthropological perspective. Bringing in psychoanalytic perspective of Lacan provides an alternative and contrasting view of not just objects, desire, and commodities but also of the individual which is object-ified in making objects a subject of his/her desire.