This lecture aims at presenting a holistic picture of Laksmi covering the earliest and later phases of the development of this concept. She, known by another popular name Sri, is the embodiment of all the powers which make the Lord her consort, a veritable ruler of the world. She, as the repository of benign love, plays the role of mother of all living beings. She plays a vital role in the redemption of the erring humanity by interceding on their behalf and mitigating the rightful wrath of the Lord in which act her motherly nature gets fully manifested.
The contemporary academic study of religion, dominated by both a call for the abandonment of the category ‘Religion’ and the dismantling of the discipline of Religious Studies, is thus faced with an impasse. In this paper, I explore the conditions that have brought about this impasse and argue that Aurobindo’s integralism offers a way forward.
Brainerd Prince is completing his PhD on Sri Aurobindo's Integral Philosophy under Professor Gavin Flood. He has interests in phenomenology and hermeneutics and in reconceiving the academic study of religion.
While the differences between Sankara's and Ramanuja's systems as found in their respective commentaries on the Brahmasutras are relatively well-known, much commented on and highly influential in the living traditions, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to a comparative understanding of their Bhagavad Gita commentaries. Yet, in those works, they offer interpretations particular to the nature and structure of the Gita that do not map directly onto their other standard works.
To introduce students to systematic philosophical and theological thinking in Hindu theistic traditions, this term's lectures examine the Srimad Rahasyatrayasara (The Essence of the Three Holy Mysteries) of the 14th century south Indian Vaisnava theologian Vedanta Desika, in the context of earlier south Indian Vaisnavism. Some comparison and contrast will be made with another great classic, the Saiva Civananacittiyar (The Perfection of the Knowledge of Siva) of the 14th century Saiva theologian Arulnanti.
This is a course of four lectures on the Nondualist (Advaita) Vedanta theological system as propounded by Sri Sankara, the 8th century CE Hindu theologian. The aim is to focus on the contribution of Sankara to Vedanta theology in general and to Nondualist Vedanta in particular. Theistic Vedanta, articulated by later Vedanta theologians such as Ramanuja, Madhva, and Vallabha, cannot be fully understood without a proper understanding of the works of Sankara.
