Religion W4620. Nonduality in Indian and Tibetan
Thought
Columbia University, Fall 2002
Tuesday, October 22
Hindu Idealism: The Yogavasistha
Assigned Reading
- Swami Venkatesananda, The Concise Yoga Vasistha,
Introduction (pp. ix-xv, by Chris Chapple), "On Creation" (pp.
37-116), the story of Gadhi (pp. 202-212), and the story of Queen
Cudala and King Sikhidhvaja together with the emboxed stories it
contains (pp. 333-383).
Related Material
- You will find interesting insights into the
Yogavasistha in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams,
Illusion, and Other Realities, University of Chicago Press,
1984.
- An extended examination of the philosophy of this text is
available in Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian
Philosophy, Volume 2, pp. 228-272.
- Emboxed stories such as those in the Yoga Vasistha are
an Indian speciality; see for example the famous
"Ocean of the Streams of Story" collection, the subject of a recent
translation by Arshia Sattar in a Penguin Classics paperback,
Tales from the Kathasaritsagara. These stories found their
way to Europe and into the story works of authors such as Boccaccio
and Chaucer.
- Stories specifically of the Yogavasistha type have had
a direct influence on some modern European writers, most notably
Hermann Hesse, author of Siddhartha. The clearest example
is the final story ("The Indian Life") at the end of his novel
Magister Ludi, also translated as The Glass Bead
Game; this tale is very much like the story of Gadhi and
similar stories in the Yogavasistha.
Western Relevance
- Edwin Wallace, Mind-Body: Monistic Dual Aspect
Interactionism, a fascinating attempt by a psychoanalytic
philosopher-psychiatrist to overcome the limits of Freud's dualism
using a dialectical monism with some Vedantic resonance.
Links of interest
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