Papers by Alexander VON ROSPATT
Michigan State University Press eBooks, Nov 1, 2017
Unlike most other regions of South Asia, Nepal has preserved a rich archive of historical sources... more Unlike most other regions of South Asia, Nepal has preserved a rich archive of historical sources that not only informs about the political vicissitudes of kings and kingdoms as well as the exploits of courtly elites, but which also sheds light on the organization and administration of society, the application of law and order, the practices of religious traditions on the ground, economic conditions, material culture, and so on. These sources owe their survival partly to the clement climate that allows palm leaves and paper to survive unharmed for centuries, as well as to the peripheral location of Nepal, which has shielded it from many of the ruptures and upheavals experienced in India proper, including those going along with the hegemony of British colonialism and the installation of Sultanate kingdoms. While these Nepalese sources include standard historiographical sources, such as chronicles, inscriptions, mythological histories and a vast array of legal documents whose systematic study is only beginning now, there are also less well known historiographical genres that have been largely neglected. This includes the so-called ghaṭanāvalīs, that is, diary-like series (āvalī) of records registering ritual events and other incidents (ghaṭana).1 These are not courtly or commissioned texts written in an elite idiom, i.e.,
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2014
Among the rich heritage of medieval forms of Tantric Buddhism and Hinduism surviving among the Ne... more Among the rich heritage of medieval forms of Tantric Buddhism and Hinduism surviving among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley is a unique series of elaborate old age rituals that are performed upon the attainment of a particular age. Drawing upon the vocabulary of planetary appeasement and other birthday rituals of life-cycle sacraments and of dhāraṇī practice, they serve to protect and sanctify the celebrants and prolong their life. After offering a comprehensive overview of these rituals that registers local variations, this paper probes into their origins and function and, in the process, pays particular attention to the intricate ways in which the Buddhist and Hindu versions of these ceremonies relate to each other.
Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan World
I use the term 'renovation' in a broad, non-technical sense. I prefer this to committing myself t... more I use the term 'renovation' in a broad, non-technical sense. I prefer this to committing myself to a more specific term such as those used to identify the seven "levels of intervention" that James Marston Fitch (Historic Preservation, 1982) distinguishes "according to a scale of increasing radicality," namely "1. preservation; 2. restoration; 3. conservation and consolidation; 4. reconstitution; 5. adaptive reuse; 6. reconstruction; 7. replication." As I explain below, the 'renovations' of the Svayambhcaitya were major affairs, involving the replacement of the central wooden axis and the dismantling of the entire superstructure above the dome as well as its reconstruction with new materials. They were hence rather radical forms of "interventions." Since none of the seven terms as defined by Fitch adequately captures the case of Svayambh, and since I am not aware of another technical term that would do so, I chose to use instead the unspecific term 'renovation', rather than opting for a more precise, technical term that would not fit accurately.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The object of the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness is not the nature of time, but existence wit... more The object of the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness is not the nature of time, but existence within time. Rather than atomizing time into moments, it atomizes phenomena temporally by dissecting them into a succession of discrete momentary entities. Its fundamental proposition is that everything passes out of existence as soon as it has originated and in this sense is momentary. As an entity vanishes, it gives rise to a new entity of almost the same nature which originates immediately afterwards. Thus, there is an uninterrupted flow of causally connected momentary entities of nearly the same nature, the so-called continuum (santāna). These entities succeed each other so fast that the process cannot be discerned by ordinary perception. Because earlier and later entities within one continuum are almost exactly alike, we come to conceive of something as a temporally extended entity even though the fact that it is in truth nothing but a series of causally connected momentary entities. A...
In der vielschichtigen Kulturgeschichte Indien lassen sich unterschiedliche Ansatze in der Behand... more In der vielschichtigen Kulturgeschichte Indien lassen sich unterschiedliche Ansatze in der Behandlung des Alterns und der Alten unterscheiden. Dennoch lasst sich verallgemeinernd sagen, dass den Alten nach langlaufiger Vorstellung Respekt und Verehrung gebuhrt. In ubersteigerter Form konnen die Alten sogar als gottgleich betrachtet werden. In Nepal, d.h. genau genommen im Kathmandu-Tal, werden die Alten nicht nur so betrachtet, sondern in einer Serie von komplexen und ausschweifenden Ritualen auch ganz explizit als solche behandelt. Anhand von Bildmaterialien und Videoaufnahmen fuhrt der Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Alexander von Rospatt, der am Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies der University of California in Berkeley lehrt und forscht, in die faszinierende Welt dieser Rituale ein, um durch sie einen Blick auf den Umgang mit den Alten im sudasiatischen Kontext zu werfen (Vortrag am 1. Juni 2015). Das Thema „Anders altern: Kulturelle Vielfalt und Gestaltungsmoglichkeiten“ ste...
Archiv Orientalni, 2002
Some of the renovations of the Svayambhu Stupa of Kathmandu, which have been carried out periodic... more Some of the renovations of the Svayambhu Stupa of Kathmandu, which have been carried out periodically since the 13 th century, were recorded by the participating priests in diary-like chronicles. The focus of these records is on the complex rituals performed on these occasions. The paper explores how and why these rituals became an object of historiography.
On the southern flank of the Himalayas, in a mountainous region that was, until recently, sparsel... more On the southern flank of the Himalayas, in a mountainous region that was, until recently, sparsely populated and did not allow for large numbers to make a living, the Kathmandu Valley, that is the historical Nepal (hence the designation “Nepal Valley” used in this essay), stands out as a place that could support a comparatively prosperous civilization and a diversified urban culture. The subjects of this civilization are the Newars whose Tibeto-Burmese language and other traits reveal their Central Asian origins. Over the course of time, people of different origins, many of them from the Gangetic plain, settled in the Valley and were assimilated. Hence the Newars are a mix of Central Asian, Himalayan and, to a lesser degree, North Indian people. Early on, Nepal was drawn into the fold of South Asian religion and culture and has in that sense been part of “India” for at least eighteen hundred years.1 However, the mountain ranges separating it from the Gangetic ∗A first version of the...
Religious monuments and artefacts are subject to decay and have always been so. While the efforts... more Religious monuments and artefacts are subject to decay and have always been so. While the efforts of present-day, westerntrained conservators to address such decay stand out by their application of modern scientific methods, they are not singular. In earlier times and in other cultures such decay has also been addressed, and for this different approaches have been adopted. This continues to the present with renovations undertaken outside the orb of modern conservation efforts. The differences here are not only technological but also touch upon the underlying rationale. What, in a given context, is conceived to be the principal purpose of restoring, renewing or conserving a given object? What is at stake? What methods are identified as most adequate for the given purpose, etc.? In following this line of enquiry it becomes clear that the contemporary – in its original inspiration western – tradition of conservation is precisely that, a particular tradition with its own history and age...
The upanayana ritual is in many ways the most important Hindu rite of passage , 1 the saṃskāra pa... more The upanayana ritual is in many ways the most important Hindu rite of passage , 1 the saṃskāra par excellence. In this ritual the boy is introduced (upa√nī, hence upanayana) to the teacher by his father. He becomes his student and, as an outward sign of this, puts on the girdle (mekhalā). The teacher in turn introduces (upanayana) the boy to the Vedas, notably by teaching him the Gāyatrī Mantra, which is considered to be a condensation of the Vedas. The boy is thereby initiated into the divine realm of the Vedas and authorized and empowered to function as a ritual subject who may maintain the sacred house fire and carry out rituals as a yajamāna. As an outward sign of this, he is invested with the sacred thread (yajñopavīta). It is by virtue of this ritual that Hindu males become confirmed members of the caste into which they have been born. While śūdras are completely excluded, the performance of the ritual differs for vaiśyas, kṣatriyas and Brahmans by details such as the material...
Journal of Religion, 2008
Awaken: A Tibetan Buddhist Journey toward Enlightenment, 2019
Dharma and Puṇya. Buddhist Ritual Art of Nepal, 2019
Studies in Historical Documents from Nepal and India., 2018
ISBN 978-3-946054-71-9 (Hardcover) ISBN 978-3-946054-70-2 (PDF) ISBN 978-3-946054-72-6 (ePUB)
Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, 2015
The article treats the literary heritage of the Newar Buddhist tradition. It covers works compose... more The article treats the literary heritage of the Newar Buddhist tradition. It covers works composed in the historical Nepal valley first in Sanskrit alone and since the 17th century increasingly also in the local vernacular – Newari. However, Indian Buddhist texts that play a major role in this tradition are also considered.
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Papers by Alexander VON ROSPATT
The book is the first volume of the Documenta Nepalica – Book Series, published by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in collaboration with the National Archives, Nepal.