Prueitt Draft Syllabus

Imagination and Reality in Classical Indian Philosophy

A Buddhist monk in first century BCE India meditates intently on the Buddha Siddhārtha, who
has long since departed from this world. He receives a vision in which the Buddha gives him
new teachings and reveals these teachings to the world as the true word of the Buddha. A 4th
century Buddhist philosopher contends that the world we normally take to be real is actually as
insubstantial as a dream. An audience member at a classical Sanskrit drama is so taken by the
play that s/he experiences emotions in a universalized form, revealing a reality that is beyond self
and other. A tantric practitioner strives for liberation through visualizing himself as identical to
his deity. A 10th century Hindu philosopher describes how the god Śiva imagines the world into
existence, creating reality from the play of revealing and concealing his own nature. Classical
Indian religions exhibit a complex understanding of the relationship between imagination and
reality, and the philosophies intertwined with these religions developed equally sophisticated
theories of the ways in which human experiences of what is real and what is imagined meld into
one another. This course will explore these theories and the contexts within which they evolved.

Course Structure and Grading:

Weekly blog and class participation (10 blog entries): 30%
Three unit essays at 15% each (~1200-1500 words; topics given by me): 45%
Final research paper (~2000-2500 words; topic chosen by student in consultation with me): 25%

Required Texts:
 Bhavabhūti. Rāma’s Last Act. Trans. Sheldon Pollock. New York: New York University
Press, 2007.
 Shulman, David. More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.
 Thurman, Robert (trans). The Holy Teaching of Vimalakīrti: A Mahāyāna Sūtra.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.
 Wedemeyer, Christian. Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2013.

Schedule:
Prelude: The structure of the cosmos in early and medieval South Asia (one class):
 Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism, “Chapter 5: The Buddhist Cosmos,” 112-132;
Narayana Rao, “Purāṇa,” The Hindu World, 97-118

Part I: Reality as Imagination

Mahāyāna Sūtras (three classes):
 First Class: Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism, “Introduction,” 1-44
 Second Class: Nattier, A Few Good Men, Chapter 4, “The Institutional Setting,” 73-102;
selections from the Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra (trans. Harrison)
 Third Class: The Holy Teaching of Vimalakīrti
The world as mind (three classes):
 First Class: Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism, “Chapter 4: Yogācāra,” 84-102; Gold,
Paving the Great Way, “Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra,” 128-174

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 Prueitt Draft Syllabus

 Second Class: selections from Vasubandhu, Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes
(trans. D’Amato); Vasubandhu, The Twenty Verses (trans. Kachru)
 Third Class: Ram Prasad, Advaita Epistemology and Metaphysics, “Section I: Śaṅkara:
Externality,” 25-92
The role of concepts in Dharmakīrtian Buddhism (two classes):
 First Class: Eltschinger, “Dharmakīrti,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie (64: 253),
397-438; Eltschinger, “Nescience as Erroneous Cognition,” Buddhist Epistemology as
Apologetics, 247-265
 Second Class: Dunne, “Key Features of Dharmakīrti’s Apoha Theory,” Apoha, 84-108;
Dunne, Foundations of Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy, “Conclusion,” 319-330 and translation
“PVSV ad PV 1.68-75,” 339-352

Part II: The Circumscribed Reality of Performance

Imagination in Sanskrit poetics (two classes):
 First Class: Shulman, More than Real, Chapters 1-2, 1-50.
 Second Class: Shulman, More than Real, Chapters 3-4, 51-108
Close reading: Rāma’s Last Act (two classes):
 First Class: Bhavabhūti, Rāma’s Last Act, Introduction – Act III
 Second Class: Rāma’s Last Act, Prelude to Act IV – Act VII; Shulman, “Bhavabhūti on
Cruelty and Compassion,” 49-82.
Religion and aesthetics (two class):
 First Class: Shulman, More than Real, Chapter 5, 109-143
 Second Class: Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta,
Introduction, XVI-LII.

Part III: Imagination as Reality

Visualization and tantric ritual (three classes):
 First Class: Wedemeyer, Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism, Introduction and Chapters
3-4, 1-17 and 68-132
 Second Class: Wedemeyer, Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism Chapters 5-6, 133-198
 Third Class: Sanderson, “Meaning in Tantric Ritual,” (selections: 24-29, 36-53, 76-87)
Pratyabhijñā on the role of concepts (two classes):
 First Class: Ratié, “Pāramārtika or Apāramārtika? On the Ontological Status of
Separation According to Abhinavagupta,” Puṣpikā Vol. 1, 381-406
 Second Class: Ratié, “A Five-trunked, Four-tusked Elephant is Running in the Sky: How
Free is the Imagination according to Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta?,” AS/EA LXIV 2
2010, 341-385
Levels of Reality (two classes):
 First Class: Flood, “Shared Realities and Symbolic Forms in Kashmir Śaivism,” 225-
247; Bäumer, Abhinavagupta’s Hermeneutics of the Absolute, “Levels of Manifestation,”
141-200
 Second Class: Ratié, “The Dreamer and the Yogin,” BSOAS 2010 (73: 03), 437-478

Conclusions: Student presentations of their research topics and ending discussions (two classes)