KARMA, FIVEFOLD YOGA, AND PUJA IN THE YOGABINDU

KARMA, FIVEFOLD YOGA, AND PUJA IN THE YOGABINDU

  • 31 Aug
    2019

    Yoga and Tantra

    Christopher Key Chapple

KARMA, FIVEFOLD YOGA, AND PUJA IN THE YOGABINDU

Image: Ladnun, Rajasthan

Haribhadra Virahanka (6th century C.E.) composed the Yogabindu as a time of great religious effervescence in the Gupta era. It espouses a simplified Jain interpretation of karma theory. It also advances a fivefold Yoga practice that begins with self-reflection (adhyatma, often translated today as spirituality), encourages cultivation of auspicious and ethical states of being (bhavana), leading to meditation (dhyana), culminating with an equanimity (samata) that cleanses and appeases life’s churning (vrittisankshaya). The text also presents an early Jain affirmation of the practices of ritual (puja) and chanting (japa).

Duration -

August 31, 2019

Timing: 6:30 - 8:30 PM

Registrations Closed

Christopher Key Chapple

Christopher Key Chapple

Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and Founding Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, USA. He earned his BA at Stony Brook University and the MA and PhD at Fordham University in New York City. He joined the faculty of LMU in 1985. He has published more than 20 books, including the following single author studies (all with State University of New York Press): Karma and Creativity (1986), Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions (1993), Reconciling Yogas: Haribhadra’s Array of Views on Yoga with a New Translation of the Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya (2003), Yoga and the Luminous: Patañjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom (2008), Living Landscapes: Meditation on the Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas (2020).
He has published many edited volumes on the topic of Religion and Ecology, including Jainism and Ecology (Harvard University Press and Motilal Banarsidass). Recent publications included an edited volume on Yoga in Jainism (Routledge, 2016) and Thinking with the Yoga Sutra: Translation and Interpretation (with Ana Funes Maderey, Routledge, 2019).
Chris serves on many advisory boards, including the South Asian Studies Association, the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale), the Ahimsa Center (Pomona), the Jain Studies Centre (SOAS, London), the Dharma Academy of North America (Berkeley), and the International School for Jain Studies (Delhi).