BIOGRAPHIES AND ABSTRACTS FOR INVITED INTERNATIONAL, INDIAN AND AUSTRALIAN SPEAKERS TO THE VIVEKANANDA CONFERENCE AT MONASH UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE

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1 BIOGRAPHIES AND ABSTRACTS FOR INVITED INTERNATIONAL, INDIAN AND AUSTRALIAN SPEAKERS TO THE VIVEKANANDA CONFERENCE AT MONASH UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE FEBRUARY 2014 INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS Short biographies Dr Yohanan Grinshpon is a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His main interest is in the experience and thought of "Classical Hinduism" as is manifested in Patanjala yoga, the Upanishads, Buddhist philosophy, Advaita-Vedanta and other schools of thought and experience. Grinshpon is the author Silence Unheard; Deathly Silence in Patanjala-Yoga, Suny Press, 2001; Crisis and Knowledge; the Upanishadic Experience and Story-Telling, Oxford, 2003; The Secret Sankara; Multivocality and Truth in Sankara's Teaching, Brill, 2011 all in English. He is also the author of the following books in Hebrew: Silence and Freedom in Classical Yoga, 1998; On power and Non-Violence; Life and Teaching of Mahatma Gandhi, 2000; Hinduism; a Short Introduction, His forthcoming works include: Philosophical Plays of Sankaracarya; 25 Dialogues of the Brahmasutrabhasya; and Meeting with One God and Nine Great Indians. Professor Knut A. Jacobsen is the Professor of History of Religions at AHKR (IKRR) University of Bergen. Among his recent publications in English are: Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space and Kapila: Founder of Sāṃkhya and Avatāra of Viṣṇu. His recent edited books are five volumes of Brill s Encyclopedia of Hinduism and four volumes of Routledge s Modern Indian Culture and Society. Professor Knut A. Jacobsen has published extensively in English and Norwegian languages on themes including Sāṃkhya-Yoga Traditions, Hindu Sacred Space in Contemporary India, South Asian Diasporas in Norway, religious processions in South Asia, religion, history, and nonviolence in Jainism and in Sikhism. Professor Viktoria Lysenko is the Head of the Department of Oriental Philosophies, Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences and Professor at the Russian State University for Humanities (Moscow). Her researches focus on the history of Indian philosophy and comparative philosophy. She has translated from Sanskrit into Russian a number of philosophical texts, especially of the Vaisheshika and Buddhist schools. Recent books in English include Classical Indian Philosophy Reintepreted and in Russian, Immediate and Mediated Perception: Controversy between Buddhist and Brahmanic Philosophers. Professor Viktoria Lysenko has published about 200 papers in Russian, English and French on a wide range of themes including a body composition in Ayurveda and the philosophical schools of Vaisheshika and Sаmkhya, Aristotle's Mean and the Buddha's Middle Path, knowledge and faith in Early Buddhism, the mind-body problem in Early Buddhism, Shankara s criticism of the Vaisheshika, Word and Being in the teaching of Bhartrhari on Action, Orientalism and the problem of the alien, etc. 1

2 Professor Anantanand Rambachan is Professor of Religion at Saint Olaf College, Minnesota, USA. His books include, Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in Śaṅkara, The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda s Reinterpretation of the Authority of the Vedas, The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity and A Hindu Theology of Liberation: Not-Two is Not One (forthcoming). Professor Rambachan has published extensively on Swami Vivekananda focusing on his spirituality, theology of religions, science and religion, religion and reason, the meaning of Hindu identity, and his engagement with Christianity. Professor Rambachan has a special interest in the dialogue between religions and especially between the Hindu and Christian traditions. Abstracts Dr Yohanan Grinshpon: Vivekananda's Sankara- a Note on a Fateful Inner Dialogue In his search for authority and self-confidence Swami Vivekananda sustained throughout his life an inner dialogue with India's greatest authority of Advaita-Vedanta, Sankaracarya. However, given the striking differences between the two spiritual personalities, a question arises: how indeed could such an inner dialogue be sustained? And how valuable could it be with respect to our understanding of Vivekananda's search for meaning and identity (as well as perhaps towards our view of Sankara's teaching!)? For indeed, the difference between the two (Sankara and Vivekananda) seems to be allegedly abysmal, impossible of bridging. Above all, Vivekananda advocated "practical Vedanta" which strikes one as the very opposite of Sankara's innermost conviction, as it were, namely, the negation of any type of action as inherently infected by adhyasa (projection of the self on non-self and vice versa). In his introduction to his definitive work (the Brahmasutrabhasya) Sankara goes as far as asserting that no bodily action is possible without a (mistaken) projection of the self on the body. And yet - and this is our primary presupposition - Vivekananda did sustain an inner dialogue with Sankaracarya. Thus, our preliminary question of the nature of such an inner dialogue is not unjustifiable; how could such an inner dialogue be possible and what does it mean with respect to Vivekananda's version of Hinduism and self-understanding? Professor Knut Jacobson: Vivekananda and Hariharānanda Āraṇya - comparison a Vivekānanda s book Rāja-yoga, a commentary on the Yogasūtra, is said to mark the beginning of modern yoga. In this paper I make some comparisons between the interpretations of yoga in Rājayoga and in the Sanskrit and Bengali commentaries by a contemporary of Vivekānanda, the Bengali Sāṃkhya-yogin Hariharānanda Āraṇya. Their practices as well as interpretations of yoga differ markedly. There seems to have been an interest in Yogasūtra and the Sāṃkhya-Yoga philosophy in Kolkata and Bengal at the time, and Vivekānanda s work and mission probably did much to increase that interest. Vivekānanda responded to a number of challenges, from colonialism, Christianity, nationalism, and modernity and engaged with the needs of the society at large and transformed 2

3 yoga, while Āraṇya s response seems to have been to withdraw into orthodoxy and finally isolation in a cave. Professor Viktoria Lysenko: Vivekananda's challenge to the World Congress of Religions: universalism or/and inclusivism I will try to compare the 'universalist' stance of the American organisers of this Congress, on the one hand, with that of Vivekananda in his famous speech to the Congress, on the other Professor Anantanand Rambachan: But Who Do You Say I Am? A Critical Evaluation of Swami Vivekananda s Answer to Jesus Question In the Gospel according to Mark (8:29) Jesus asks his disciples the question that is at the centre of Christology, or disciplined reflection on his nature and significance. Christology, from the earliest times, has offered a diversity of answers to his fundamental question. What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that such reflection is not limited to the world of the Christian tradition. Swami Vivekananda constructs a distinctive Christology, drawing from the resources of the Advaita tradition to offer a unique answer to Jesus question. My paper will describe Vivekananda s Christology and its sources in the tradition of Advaita, while critically appraising its contribution in the context of his theology of religious diversity and the Christian theological tradition. INDIAN SPEAKERS Short biographies Prof. Samaresh Bandyopadhyay is a renowned academician, historian and writer, deeply interested in the study of Indian Philosophy especially Swami Vivekananda. He is a celebrated researcher in Numismatics He is former professor in the University of Calcutta. He received the award Gnana Nidhi from Melkote Sanskrit University. He is currently the principal adviser to the American Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies. Ms. Nivedita Bhide is the All India Vice-President of Vivekananda Kendra at Kanyakumari and of All India Swami Vivekananda Shakti Samaroh Samiti. She is in charge of the training of the full time workers of Vivekananda Kendra. She is also the organizer for the in service training of all the teachers of Vivekananda Kendra schools spread throughout India. She represented India in the International conference of educational experts in Australia. She is also the founder member of the Indian forum for international heritage. She is author of fourteen books and several monographs. Ms. Nivedita is a renowned speaker on Indian culture and philosophy, especially on Swami Vivekananda s concept of universal religion and yoga. She has also acted as guide for aspiring youth and guided several seminars. 3

4 Dr. Sampadananda Mishra is the renowned Sanskrit scholar and the director of the Sri Aurobindo foundation for Indian culture at Puducherry. He has presented papers and spoke at various conferences both in India and abroad on Indology and Sanskrit. The Government of India has conferred the President s award (Maharishi Badarayana Vyasa Samman 2011) on Dr Mishra for his outstanding contribution to culture. He has written an impressive array of books; some of the famous ones are The Wonder that is Sanskrit; Sanskrit and the Evolution of Human Speech; Sri Aurobindo and Sanskrit; and Hasyamanjari, A book of humorous stories in Sanskrit. He has also produced audio CDs and multimedia CD-Roms which have made a great contribution to the spreading of Indian culture. He has also given several talks on Swami Vivekananda s man-making message to youth. Dr Ram Mohan is the academic co-ordinator for the Swami Vivekananda conference at Melbourne. He is the editor of two journals devoted to Indian Philosophy and culture, Mountain Path and Ramanodayam. He had a distinguished service in the Government of India and retired as Special Secretary to the government. Dr Ram Mohan is a renowned speaker on Indian Philosophy and culture, comparative religions and consciousness studies. He was conferred the award Prachya Vidya Parangata (expert in oriental wisdom) by the WAVES organization of scholars in USA and Saraswati Puraskar by the Itihasa Samiti in India. Author of books on Indian Philosophy, religion and aspects of Indology, he is a director of the Saraswati Research Center, Chennai, India. He has also edited proceedings of the Consciousness organized by the National brain research institute and others. He is a Seminars contributor to the 100 volume projects on Indian philosophy, culture, science and religion. He is also a regular contributor on Swami Vivekananda s teachings published by Sri Ramakrishna Mission. He co-ordinated the Awakening India to Indians quiz in which over students participated. Dr. H.R.Nagendra is a former space scientist at NASA, returned to his native India, as he says, from mechanical engineering to human engineering in search of truth. Dr. Nagendra is at present the President of VYASA organization and Chancellor of S-VYASA University, Bangalore. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 books on yoga, nearly 35 research papers in engineering and more than 100 in yoga. He has awards from the Ministry of Health, a Yoga Sri award from BKS Iyengar and a senior Citizens award from New Delhi. He is consultant in Yoga to many Universities in Australia and USA, and a member of several bodies in the Government of India. His aim is to combine the Best of East with the Best of West by using modern scientific research to examine the efficacy of yoga to solve the challenges of the modern era. Apart from this he has guided around more than 120 Ph.D., 5 M.D. and 20 M. Sc. students. Swami Shantatmananda is a senior monk of the Ramakrishna order. He is presently the head of the Sri Ramanakrishna Mission in Delhi. Known for his missionary zeal in welfare activities, he is the pioneer in setting up an NGO for service in the Kolkata suburbs (Sarada 4

5 Seva Sangha) which now has more than 100 women volunteers for women-empowerment. He is closely associated with value education programs and character building based n the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. He has been a member of many high power committees of the Government of India. A powerful orator, Swamiji has lectured at several academic institutions and other places in many countries of the world and has been instrumental in devising programs on the message of Swami Vivekananda for the young in the electronic and print media. He organised the world peace conference in Delhi recently. He has also published extensively on Swami Vivekananda. Abstracts Prof. Samaresh Bandopadhyay: Jainism and Swami Vivekananda The object of Swami Vivekananda as regards India is indeed clear from one of his private conversations with Sister Nevedita. As he would often say, it was to make Hinduism aggressive. The Eternal Faith, according to the Swamiji, must become active and proselytizing, capable of sending out special missions, of making converts, of taking back into her roomy fold those of her own children who had been perverted from her, and of the conscious and deliberate assimilation of new elements. It is well known that the Swamiji was extremely jealous of any attempt to exclude from Hinduism any of her numerous branches and offshoots. How, therefore, Jainism was held by the Swamiji is indeed interesting to consider. Valuable observations on Jainism by Swami Vivekananda are noticeable in lectures delivered by him at different places in and outside India. What is, however, worth noting in this connection is that exceedingly interesting material on the subject under discussion is found in his conversation with Sister Nivedita. The present presentation brings to the notice of scholars all the available information and highlights their importance in forming an idea of the splendid eclectic attitude of the great exponent of aggressive Hinduism, Swami Vivekananda. Ms Nivedita Bhide: Oneness: The Message of India This presentation addresses the question of how and why Vivekananda sought to create a spiritual oneness of the world universe and why he claimed that this was India s special gift to the world (Halbfass, 1990, p.231). Dr. Sampadananda Mishra: Character-building and Service to the Humanity (In the light of Swami Vivekananda s Practical Vedanta) Swami Vivekananda is probably the first among Indian thinkers to give a psychological and spiritual orientation to education and nation-building. According to Swamiji the true and lasting foundation 5

6 of nation-building is or has to be not economics or politics but man-making education with a predominant emphasis on building character, will-power and the power of concentration. Character, according to Swamiji, is the sum total of the impressions of our thoughts, feelings and actions. In this paper I address the questions raised by Vivekananda in the content of the needs of contemporary India. Prof. S. Ram Mohan: Swami Vivekananda and Living Vedanta the perspective of practical philosophy and the symbiosis of the spiritual and the temporal Swami Vivekananda, after an intensive and extensive study of humanity came to the conclusion that in order to transform man to be a better being, religion should become a dynamic force in peoples day-to-day lives: the sacred must permeate the secular. The Vedanta of forest must be carried to everybody's door-step - to every butcher, baker and candle-stick maker, so that everyone evolves to be a better person. In his lecture on Practical Vedanta (complete works of Swami Vivekananda Vol.4 P.292) Swamiji says "In various Upanishads, we find that this Vedanta philosophy is not the outcome of meditation in the forest only but that the very best parts of it were thought out and expressed by the brains which were busiest in the everyday affairs of the life. Everywhere we see today the mad chasing of material goals, the passionate activity to earn and excel, with its attendant problems of stress and disease. While Practical Vedanta does not decry activity per se, it teaches us how to pursue our goals without losing our balance, as well as performing our role as enlightened members of society, through self-less service. These are the issues that I address in my presentation. Dr H.R. Nagendra: New Dimensions in Modern Education This paper addresses the weaknesses of the modern, scientific based educational systems of the industrial and proto-industrial world and argues that yoga has the capacity to encourage the development of a person s physical, mental, emotional and intellectual life in a manner that enhances the quality of civic life, character building and nation building. For this reason, thousands of teachers in India are being trained to teach yoga throughout the school system. Swami Shantatmananda: Swami Vivekananda s Practical Vedanta A Path Breaking Discovery Swami Vivekananda is often hailed as the redeemer of the glory of Hinduism in the West. But, his contribution in redefining some of the ancient ideas of Hinduism, in India, is equally praiseworthy. One may even say that his new interpretation of the age old Karma Yoga of the Hindu Shastras is revolutionary and path-breaking. It contains a recipe for the whole of mankind which is seemingly caught in the whirlpool of unending activity. The ancient Hindu scriptures glorify the virtues of Karma Yoga in the path of spiritual striving. But, some Acharyas, particularly the Advaita Vedantins, while accepting it as an indispensable component in the struggle for moksha, do not admit that it is capable of leading the aspirant all the way up to the final destination. One of the remarkable contributions of Swami Vivekananda is to elevate karma yoga to the position of sadhana capable of taking the aspirant to the highest goal. In this presentation I address the significance of this aspect of Vivekananda s thought. 6

7 AUSTRALIAN SPEAKERS Short biographies Dr Greg Bailey is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Program in Asian Studies, La Trobe University, Melbourne, where he was previously Reader in Sanskrit. He has published translations and studies of the Gaṇes a Purāṇa, Bhartr hari s Śatakatrayam and books on the god Brahmā, early Buddhism, contemporary Australia, and many articles on Sanskrit literature. At present he is developing a hypothesis that the Mahābhārata was composed in part as a response to the social and economic success of the early Buddhist saṅgha. Dr Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat holds doctorates in Organic Chemistry and Social Anthropology and has been an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Melbourne since His current research interests are Indology, Hinduism, Jainism and sociology of religion. He has published research papers on temple priests, the fisher community of Mumbai and goddess cults and has contributed to encyclopaedias of anthropology, sociology and culture. He is co-editor of The Iconic Female: Goddesses of India, Nepal and Tibet (Monash University Press, 2008 ) and co-author of The Indian Disapora: 150 Years of Hindus and Sikhs in Australia (in press). For his work in education and for the Indian community, he was recently awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM). Dr Adam Bowles is Senior Lecturer in Asian Religions at The University of Queensland in Australia. He has published three volumes concerning the Mahābhārata. Two of these are translations of the Karṇaparvan published with the Clay Sanskrit Library. The other, entitled Dharma, disorder and the political in Ancient India: The Āpaddharmaparvan of the Mahābhārata (Leiden: Brill, 2007), is a study of one of the didactic corpora belonging to the Śāntiparvan. While continuing to work on aspects of the Mahābhārata and early South Asian cultural history, more recently his research has concerned aspects of governance and religion in the Maratha polity of the 17 th and 18 th centuries, components of which appeared in the co-authored monograph A History of State and Religion in India published by Routledge in Dr Peter Friedlander lived in India from where he learned Hindi in Varanasi. He then studied at SOAS (London University) and completed his PhD on the life and works of the medieval Hindi poet-saint Ravidas in He has taught Hindi, Buddhist Studies and Indian studies for Antioch University abroad (Bodhgaya), La Trobe University (Melbourne), National University of Singapore and since 2013 has been Senior Lecturer in Hindi-Urdu at the Australian National University in Canberra. In 2012 Peter was the recipient of the World Hindi Conference Award for his contributions to the teaching of Hindi Language and Literature. Recent publications 7

8 include, Vivekananda and Chicago 1893: Bridging East and West in Asian Currents, October 2013, and Muni Ratnacandra s Nine Jain Questions for Christians in International Journal of Jaina Studies, Vol. 9, No. 6 (2013). Dr Gidi Ifergan completed his MA in Religious Studies at the School of Philosophy, Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Ifergan s major studies were in Indian philosophy, including Advaita Vedānta, yoga philosophy, Buddhism and advanced Sanskrit studies. He completed his PhD studies at the Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, and his PhD thesis was written about one of Tibet s greatest thinkers, Longchen Rabjam ( ). Ifergan s book, which is entitled The Man from Samyé: Longchenpa on Praxis, its Negation and Liberation, is forthcoming. Currently, Ifergan is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology, Monash University. His current research concerns subliminal impressions (Saṃskāras) in the Philosophy of Yoga, the Dzogchen stream of Tibetan Buddhism and Psychology. Abstracts Dr Greg Bailey: How Influential was the Mahābhārata in Vivekananda s Teachings In many of his writings Vivekananda alludes to the Mahābhārata (MBh) as a source of some of his ideas, and not just because it contains the Bhagavadgītā. The aim of the present paper is to analyse the allusions he makes to passages in the MBh and to see how influential these have been used in supporting his principal teachings. Vivekananda would have had access to two Bengali translations of the MBh and Ganguli-Roy s English translation. Whilst we may not be able to determine which of these he used, or whether he used the Sanskrit text, his very choice of the MBh is significant in demonstrating it was still a highly popular text in late nineteenth century Bengal. Dr Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat: The Relevance of Vivekananda's Teachings for Australian Hindus In 2013, the world celebrated the 150th birth anniversary of the great Hindu mystic, Swami Vivekananda, whose visit to the USA resulted in putting Hinduism on the world religious map. Coincidentally, it was also 150 years ago that the very first Indians, albeit in a very small number, set foot on the Australian soil along with the white settlers. Since the late 1970's, the growth in Indian migration to Australia has been nothing short of spectacular and Hinduism is now the fastest growing religion on the Australian landscape. As a lay Hindu priest and an early settler who arrived 47 years ago, I have seen the development of Hinduism since the 1960's. Sketching this, my scholarly investigations into this issue asks how relevant Vivekananda's teachings have been and are for the Hindus in the present day Australia. 8

9 Dr Adam Bowles: The debate about Vivekananda This presentation will reflect on the extensive debate about the thought and influence of Vivekananda and how the presentations at this conference affect the paradigms of that debate. Dr Peter Friedlander: Vivekananda and Science This paper explores the interaction between Vivekananda and Western science. I examine how Vivekananda s ideas about science developed over time and his encounter with the West on his visit to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in The context for this is also considered and I examine how Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions also responded to their encounters with Western science. The paper then explores Vivekananda s meetings with the Western Scientist Nikola Tesla ( ) and with leading Indian industrialist Jamsetji N Tata. Taken together I argue that these facets of Vivekananda s engagement with science are a witness to his involvement in a pivotal era in India s engagement with Western science and Western engagement with Indian ideas and traditions. Dr Gidi Ifergan: Vivekānanda, Vedānta and Buddhism In a lecture that Swami Vivekānanda delivered in London in 1896, he asserted that Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism are identical systems that are presented in different forms. Philosophically, such an assertion seems erroneous and in contrast with the views of both modern scholars and Śaṅkara (8th century), the Indian Vedāntin who was a harsh critic of Buddhism. Further, Vivekānanda claimed that the salvation of Europe depends on a rationalistic religion: the Advaita Vedānta. Presenting Advaita Vedānta, in seemingly superior terms without having a deep and comprehensive knowledge of other religions, contrasts with the interfaith tolerant dialogue, which is commonly attributed to Swami Vivekānanda. This paper is a critical attempt to clarify the tensions and contrasts contained in Vivekānanda s assertions and to examine the motives behind such statements of his. 9