- » Jacques Cloarec,
Alain Daniélou Foundation Honorary PresidentLetter to Readers and Friends of the Alain Daniélou Foundation
Dear Friends and Readers,
Four years ago, at the beginning of 2015, Alain Daniélou Foundation decided to change the name of its online publication from the Alain Daniélou Foundation Newsletter to Cahiers de la Fondation (the connecting thread remained “Indialogues”). This change, as Alain Daniélou Foundation’s Advisory Committee President Anne Prunet said in an explanatory letter included in the first issue of the Cahiers de la Fondation, was not a mere change of label, but indicated a considerable development in our activities. This development was reflected in the contents of the Cahiers de la Fondation and in the level of the texts available to readers in each of its issues
Read » - » Adrián Navigante,
Director Alain Daniélou Foundation Research and Intellectual DialogueALAIN DANIÉLOU AND KĀŚĪ: A PATH OF INTEGRATION
The present essay is a lecture that Adrián Navigante delivered at the Alice Boner Institute, Vārāṇasī, on March 5 in the context of the program “Lived Sanskrit Cultures in Vārāṇasī 2019”, organized by the universities of Heidelberg, Würzburg and Banaras. Since the text is published without any modifications, it should be borne in mind that the location of the speaker is Varanasi and all the deictic forms correspond to that location.
Read » - » Raja Pathak,
Banaras Hindu UniversityCONCEPT OF KÁLA IN HINDU ASTRONOMY
“Man lacked the enchanted hands of the unseen forces that created the universe brilliantly; but how he attempted to explore the mysteries with his limited talent and skill is no less splendid. The moment he opened his eyes he observed: on the one side lay stupendous beauty and on the other stood unyielding principles. Looking with curiosity into the laws that connect things in nature, he tried to grasp ideas from this. His ventures pass on from one generation to another and finally he has created an artificial world of his own”
- » Gioia Lussana,
Researcher at the University of La Sapienza and Yoga TeacherTHE ART OF YOGA: TO INCARNATE BEAUTY
This essay explores the relationship between aesthetic experience (rasāsvāda) and religious experience (brahmāsvāda) in the framework of non-dual tantric Yoga of Medieval Kaśmīr, especially the peculiar ‘aesthetic perspective’ of this kind of Yoga. The Śaivite initiate is simultaneously a yogin and a jñānin, but his approach to knowledge is specifically concrete: it is based on the senses. The quality of his perception can unleash not only a profound power of attention, but also a fine sensitivity that is generative, ever-new, a vehicle of fresh insight (pratibhā) and beauty.
- » Amanda Viana de Sousa,
University of Freiburg (Germany)TIn this essay Amanda Viana de Sousa traces the relationship between German philosopher Meister Eckhart and Tamil mystic Māṇikka Vāśagar in the work of the Indian theologian Hilko Wiardo Schomerus, an interpretation that in many ways challenges the famous one by Rudolf Otto in his well-known book West-östliche Mystik (in which he equates Meister Eckhart with the emblematic figure of the modern Western reception of India: Ādi Śaṅkaracārya). Schomerus’ work epitomizes the complex texture of transcultural reception and shows (perhaps unwillingly) that in matters of comparative metaphysics the difficulties lie in the rule rather than the exception.
Read » - » Alain Daniélou
MANTRA: THE PRINCIPLES OF LANGUAGE AND MUSIC ACCORDING TO HINDU COSMOLOGY
This essay appeared in the Cahiers d’Ethnomusicologie N°4, 1991. Alain Daniélou deals with the question of mantra from an integral viewpoint, bearing in mind metaphysics, cosmology, language, music and psychology. This is the first part of the rather long essay originally published in French.