Gitagovinda

Angelika Malinar, Bhagavad Gita, Text and Context• Yogic and ascetic trends in the

Mahabharata• Bhagavata sect in north India

Gitagovinda

• Yogic and ascetic trends in the Mahabharata• Bhagavata sect in north India

Friedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti• Tamil Alvars and the Viraha

Bhakti trope.

GitagovindaYogic and ascetic trends in the Mahabharata• Bhagavata sect in north IndiaFriedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti• Tamil Alvars and the Viraha Bhakti trope.

Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men, • The growth of city-states, • Courtly arts, ‘Sanskritisation’, and

architecture as the medium of political-cultural expansion

GitagovindaYogic and ascetic trends in the Mahabharata• Bhagavata sect in north IndiaFriedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti• Tamil Alvars and the Viraha Bhakti trope.Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men, • The growth of city-states, and courtly arts, ‘Sanskritisation’, and

architecture as the medium of political-cultural expansion

Geoffrey Samuels, The Origins of Yoga and TantraDavid Gordon White, The Alchemical Body, Frederick Smith, The Self-Possessed• The pervasive influence of Tantric

traditions introducing a more ‘embodied’, powerful, accessible, subversive, fresh approach

A religious text?

Brahman vs Krishna:Divine Attributes

Ontological Attributes• Creator kartr• Formless arupavat• Ipseity (self-existence)

svayambhu• Sole existence advitiya• Simplicity (undivided)

niravayava• Immutability• Eternity ananta• Infinity (unlimited) ayama• Omnipresent sarvagata

Religious Depictions:Ascetic Life in the Bhagavad Gita

• The one who is free from desires, whose mind and senses are under control, and who has renounced all proprietorship, does not incur sin the Karmic reaction by doing bodily action. (4.21)

• A Karma-yogi who is content with whatever gain comes naturally by His will, who is unaffected by pairs of opposites, and free from envy, equanimous in success and failure is not bound by Karma. (4.22)

• Some yogis perform the service of worship to celestial controllers, while others study scriptures for Self-knowledge. Some restrain their senses and give up their sensual pleasures. Others perform breathing and other yogic exercises. Some give charity and offer their wealth as a sacrifice. (4.25-28)

• Those who are engaged in yogic practices, reach the breathless state of trance by offering inhalation into exhalation and exhalation into inhalation as a sacrifice (by using short breathing Kriya techniques). (4.29)

• Others restrict their diet and offer their inhalations as sacrifice into their inhalations.

Sectarianism vs. Pluralism

Hindu ‘Borrowing’

• Saiva rulers in Orissa• Saiva theology in Kashmir• Saiva murtis and narratives

• Alchemical and Yogic schools– Rasavada

• Tantric practices– Antinomian culture

• Sahajiyas and Possession • Aesthetic philosophies