NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240003
Sarah Shaw
{"title":"Reciting Buddhist Texts: Long Suttas of the Dīghanikāya in Performance","authors":"Sarah Shaw","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Recital was, and is, an essential part of Buddhist textual transmission. Recently, the role of repetition as a literary feature has been discussed as a key element in the construction and final composition of the texts. This article contributes to the discussion through a literary analysis of the role of repetition and recital in two suttas of the Dīghanikāya. With examination of two key repeat passages and the way each is presented, it demonstrates that repetition in each sutta discussed forms a key function, crucially dependent on what one might term a literary, or an experiential, effect. The suttas were intended to be heard; long suttas were, and often still are, performative, listened to over sometimes several hours, embedded in rituals designed to highlight their efficacy. This article shows that the recital of key repeat passages within the long suttas is linked to specific and often distinctive literary and meditative effects, particularly adapted for oral performance. It suggests that such passages should not be marginalized but rather seen as central indicators of meaning.","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"50 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140762916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240009
M. Skempis
{"title":"Tracking Hermes, Pursuing Mercury, edited by J. H. Miller and J. S. Clay","authors":"M. Skempis","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"806 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140774653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240007
A. Ruiz-Falqués
{"title":"Silent Mastery: The Concealed Art of Buddhist Writing","authors":"A. Ruiz-Falqués","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"18 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140784952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240005
Eviatar Shulman
{"title":"Performing the Buddha’s Word: The Role of the Bhāṇaka","authors":"Eviatar Shulman","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The bhāṇakas were the main textual practitioners of early Buddhism. Although scholarship has been naturally critical of traditional accounts regarding the shaping of the canon, scholars have accepted many of their underlying assumptions, including a ubiquitous reference to bhāṇakas as “reciters,” without questioning the category. However, bhāṇakas were no less performers, storytellers, poets, expounders of the teaching and preachers. This article reconsiders their figure by showing that discourses were not preexisting entities that were placed in collections according to length and topic, but were generated through the particular methods of each Nikāya. Here, I focus on the Saṃyutta-nikāya, showing many of its unique formulas and narrative designs, including central definitions of the doctrine of selflessness and structured narrative frames. The Saṃyutta, we discover, even has its own ideological and philosophical emphases, and its own theory of liberation. This means that a Saṃyutta-text is the product of the Saṃyutta-methods and views. This understanding brings to light important aspects in the performative arts of the bhāṇakas.","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"241 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140776716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240010
Iarfhlaith Watson, Sarah Carol
{"title":"The Study of Religions in Ireland: Past, Present and Future, edited by Brendan McNamara and Hazel O’Brien","authors":"Iarfhlaith Watson, Sarah Carol","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"29 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140772222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240002
Nathan McGovern
{"title":"Towards a Theory of Oral Criticism for Early Buddhist Scripture","authors":"Nathan McGovern","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Because they were originally composed and passed down in oral form, the early Buddhist texts are not amenable to analysis through the tools of standard textual criticism. Taking Milman Parry’s oral theory as a starting point, this article suggests the possibility of an “oral criticism” that can be used with early Buddhist texts and proposes three basic principles to be used therein: (1) applying source criticism to themes rather than texts, (2) comparative analysis of formulas to determine how they changed over time, and (3) the principle of antiquity in diversity. Developing a system of oral criticism will allow for a more robust understanding of the early Buddhist oral tradition and avoid the pitfall of treating isolated examples of that tradition naively as a “received text” for use as historical evidence.","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"58 17","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140795447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240004
Trent Walker
{"title":"Living Phonologies: Khmer Pronunciations of Pali at the Nexus of Writing and Orality","authors":"Trent Walker","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000By offering the first detailed portrait of how a particular local system for Pali pronunciation functions, this article aims to renew our appreciation of the complex interaction between chanted sounds and written words in Buddhist cultures. Seated at the fulcrum between orality and writing, the diverse phonologies of Pali are constantly evolving sites of debate over the nature of the voice of the Buddha and his teaching in Theravāda contexts. To give a precise account of how the living complexity of Pali unfolds, the findings in this article are based on the phonetic transcription and analysis of fifteen multimedia recordings of Pali liturgical chants in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Cambodia. The range of major and minor variations in Pali pronunciation witnessed during this period, and the contentious debates behind these divergencies, open new paths for understanding the past and present of Pali as a Buddhist language.","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"353 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140781149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240008
Prakash Shah
{"title":"India in the Eyes of Europeans: Conceptualization of Religion in Theology and Oriental Studies, written by Martin Fárek","authors":"Prakash Shah","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"42 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140760530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NumenPub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1163/15685276-20240006
Daniel M. Stuart
{"title":"Local Cure, Global Chant: Performing Theravadic Awakening in the Footsteps of the Ledi Sayadaw","authors":"Daniel M. Stuart","doi":"10.1163/15685276-20240006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-20240006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article takes as its starting point a repertoire of protective texts and practices articulated as ritual therapeutics in the early twentieth century by the well-known Burmese scholar-monk, the Ledi Sayadaw. Through an exploration of meditation-practice, meditation-teaching, and meditation-performance contexts in postcolonial Burma and India, I demonstrate the ways in which such texts and practices were adapted and refigured within the teaching models of two important twentieth-century Vipassanā meditation masters, Sayagyi U Ba Khin and S. N. Goenka. I argue that these protective texts and practices are constitutive aspects of the meditation modalities developed by these two teachers. I conclude with an exploration of the history of the Black American theologian and student of U Ba Khin, Leon E. Wright. In reflecting on Wright’s case, I consider the ways in which modern scholarly practices within Buddhist (modernism) studies continue to participate in the erasure of historically marginalized worlds and persons.","PeriodicalId":82210,"journal":{"name":"Numen","volume":"282 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140771979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}