Category: Self and Persistence

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Somatology

by Louis Komjathy 康思奇

Somatology refers to discourse on, study of, and theories about the (human) body. While more conventionally used to refer to a branch of anthropology (a.k.a. “physical anthropology”) primarily concerned with the physical nature and characteristics of people or to a branch of biology concerned with the structure and function of the human body, the term may be used as a comparative and cross-cultural interpretive category. Etymologically speaking, “somatology” derives from the Greek sôma (“body”) and lógos (“study”). Thus, it may be applied to consider the embodied, enacted, and enfleshed dimensions of human being and experience, especially in terms of corporeality, embodiment, physicality, somatics, and the like. From an interdisciplinary perspective, some especially relevant—if under-consulted—disciplines include body work, dance, disability studies, feminist studies, kinesthetics, movement studies, physical education, ritual studies, “sports science,” theater, and so forth.

In terms of the Philosophy of Religion, especially as envisioned in its current “global-critical” trajectory, with an additional concern for embodiment, personhood, and subjectivity, somatology inspires deeper exploration and reflection on “the body” as a lived, phenomenological site of human being and experiencing. Here we must recognize that, while accepting certain shared, recurring morphological and structural features, there is no such thing as “the body,” especially when we engage culture-specific views, “corporeal phenomenology,” transformative body-techniques, and socio-political dimensions (see, e.g., Komjathy 2007). Thus, there is only my body and your body, and other bodies, both historical and contemporaneous. This is not to mention the assumptions often involved with categories like “embodiment.” Are consciousness and identity distinguishable from “the body?” We may consider the ways in which the mind is in the body, including the possibility of “philosophy in the flesh” (see, e.g., Lakoff and Johnson 1999) and perhaps an accompanying “philosophy of skin and touch” (see, e.g., Vasseleu 1998). Additional somatological trajectories include investigation of associated human (and “non-human”) vulnerability and the centrality of pain in the human condition (see, e.g., Scarry 1985; Good et al. 1992). We may, in turn, think of this as the “somatic turn” in scholarship and perhaps in pedagogy, and it may open up more radical possibilities with respect to organic and ecological being-in-the-world.

As herein employed, that is, as a proposed comparative and cross-cultural category, there is no known “historical usage” of somatology, so here we will focus on intersection-points and additional possibilities. In addition to more straightforward investigation of culture- and tradition-specific views and enactments, including from comparative and cross-cultural perspectives (see bibliography herein), somatology inspires consideration of the body as such. Here we may consider actual posture and movement patterns (see, e.g., Hewes 1955, 1957) as well as the anatomy of movement (see Calais-Germain 2007). One possible “thought-experiment” (“body-experiment”?) in this regard involves deeper reflection on and perhaps subversive interaction with the academic vogue of neuroimaging technology. While neuroimages are often presented as providing maps of consciousness (brain physiology), with accompanying legitimation narratives, once again mediated by technology (see, e.g., Heidegger 1977; also Komjathy 2015, 2018), a more direct engagement with human being and expression, here through the “lived/living body,” is possible. One radical counterpoint centers on mapping movement patterns. For this, we may engage and potentially employ “movement notation systems,” including Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). This includes consideration of the four dimensions of body, effort, shape, and space (see, e.g., Bradley 2008; also Komjathy 2018). Hypothetically, we can create notations of any activity or event that may become a historio-cultural record, including for potential future reconstructions (see, e.g., Goodman 1990).

Along these lines, somatology brings our attention to the ways in which human beings have transformed and can transform themselves/ourselves through “body-techniques” (see Mauss 1935, 1979; Martin et al. 1988; Murphy 1992; Hadot 1995; Komjathy 2007). While this occurs all of the time in various ways, including through cultural conditioning and architecture as mandated movement, there are intentional undertakings, whether through specific activities or larger training regimens, that result in specific, self-directed transformative effects. This may include latent and even anomalous capacities, including “paranormal” or “extraordinary” ones (e.g., extreme sports). While Philosophy and Religious Studies have tended to (over)emphasize “beliefs,” “doctrine,” and “thought,” worldview is only one dimension of religious systems and traditions. A shift towards “experience” and even “embodiment” are welcome modifications, but these should ideally be combined with “practice” (see, e.g., Komjathy 2015, 2018). This involves attention to the technical specifics of said techniques and regimens, including transformative effects. In Contemplative Studies, the latter are often discussed in terms of “states” (temporary psychological shifts) and “traits” (permanent character changes).

Another noteworthy, related dimension of somatology involves the unique ways that lived, embodied experience may inform one’s perspective and even writing. Here I am specifically thinking of Écriture féminine (“women’s writing”), which is usually traced to the article “Le Rire de la Méduse”/“The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975) by the French feminist and literary theorist Hélène Cixous. This “movement,” which involves writing in/as/through female embodiment and a more radical “femininity/feminism,” also includes Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva as key members (see, e.g., Marks and de Courtivron 1981). Interestingly, and perhaps adding another layer of gender complexity, Cixous’ writing is highly influenced by the German philosopher and culture critic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and by her lifelong friendship with the French philosopher and post-structuralist Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Comparatively speaking, one might consider nǚshū 女書 (“women’s script”), which apparently was first developed between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as a pre-modern Chinese precedent (see, e.g., Foster 2019). Like the late imperial Ruist (“Confucian”) influence on the European enlightenment via Jesuit Catholic Latin translation, one also wonders about indirect influence on this modern French movement.

The scholarship on “the body” and “embodiment” is vast (see bibliography herein). Partially drawing upon Michel Foucault’s (1926-1984) “archaeology of knowledge” via Nietzsche’s “genealogy of morals,” Michel Feher and his collaborators have published the three-volume Fragments for a History of the Human Body (1989). For individuals interested in “body-techniques” and associated “transformative practice” there are a number of relevant publications (see above; bibliography herein). Summaries and syncretic theories appear in Louis Komjathy’s various publications (2007, 2015, 2018). Komjathy also has advanced a theory of embodiment and transmission, wherein different communities and traditions become manifest as unique presences and movement patterns in the world. This relates to his larger theory of (religious) praxis, involving the interrelationship among views, methods, experiences, and goals. Finally, just as there is a need for deeper engagement with “neurodiversity” in Consciousness Studies and philosophy of mind, my proposed Somatic Studies needs to consider assumptions about and claims rooted in “able-bodiedness,” especially in concert with perspectives from Disability Studies. 

Related terms: anthropology, embodiment, experience, personhood, pneumatology, psychology, qì 氣 (“subtle breath/energy”; Chinese), shēn 身 (“body/self”; Chinese), subjectivity, xīn 心 (“heart-mind”; Chinese)

References

Bermúdez, José Luis, Anthony Marcel, and Naomi Eilan, eds. The Body and the Self. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.

Bradley, Karen. Rudolf Laban. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.

Calais-Germain, Blandine. 2007. Anatomy of Movement. Rev. ed. Seattle: Eastland Press.

Coakley, Sarah, ed. Religion and the Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Cottai, Thomas, and June McDaniel, eds. Perceiving the Divine through the Human Body: Mystical Sensuality. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011.

Csordas, Thomas J., ed. Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Feher, Michel, with Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi, eds. Fragments for a History of the Human Body. 3 vols. New York: Zone Books, 1989.

Foster, Nicola. “Translating Nüshu: Drawing Nüshu, Dancing Nüshu.” Art in Translation 11:4 (2019): 393-416.

Good, Mary-Jo, Paul Brodwin, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman, eds. Pain as Human Experience: An Anthropological Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Goodman, Felicitas. Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.

Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 1995.

Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. Translated by William Levitt. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977.

Hewes, Gordon. “World Distribution of Certain Postural Habits.” American Anthropologist 57 (1955): 231-44.

_____. “The Anthropology of Posture.” Scientific American 196 (1957): 123-32.

Ingold, Tim. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New York, Routledge, 2000.

Johnson, Don Hanlon. Bone, Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1995.

Kasulis, Thomas P., with Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake, eds. Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Komjathy, Louis. Cultivating Perfection: Mysticism and Self-transformation in Early Quanzhen Daoism. Leiden: Brill.

_____, ed. Contemplative Literature: A Comparative Sourcebook on Meditation and Contemplative Prayer. New York: State University of New York Press.

_____. Introducing Contemplative Studies. West Sussex, England and Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018.

Laing, R.D. 1967. The Politics of Experience. New York: Pantheon Books.

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Law, Jane Marie, ed. Religious Reflections on the Human Body. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Marks, Elaine, and Isabelle de Courtivron, eds. New French Feminisms. New York: Schocken, 1981.

Martin, Luther, Huck Gutman, and Patrick Hutton, eds. Techniques of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.

Mauss, Marcel. “Les techniques du corps.” Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique 35 (1935): 271-93.

_____. “Body Techniques.” In Sociology and Psychology, translated by Ben Brewster, 95-123. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.

Murphy, Michael. The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1992.

Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Un-Making of the World. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Vasseleu, Cathryn. Textures of Light: Vision and Touch in Irigaray, Levinas and Merleau Ponty. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

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Shēn 身

by Louis Komjathy 康思奇

Shēn 身 is a Chinese character that may refer to “body,” “person,” and/or “self,” depending on context. Etymologically speaking, the earliest forms (Shape Description automatically generated with low confidence/Shape Description automatically generated with low confidence) are pictographs, most likely depicting a pregnant woman. Under one reading, this suggests the capacity for birth and life as a biological organism in the world. As received, the character probably depicts the human torso viewed from the side. This is one’s personal embodied personhood, and it in turn relates to a larger lexicon of Chinese and Daoist psychological and somatological terms.

Shēn 身 is a Chinese character that may refer to “body,” “person,” and/or “self,” depending on context. Etymologically speaking, the earliest forms  are pictographs, most likely depicting a pregnant woman. Under one reading, this suggests the capacity for birth and life as a biological organism in the world. As received, the character probably depicts the human torso viewed from the side. This is one’s personal embodied personhood, and it in turn relates to a larger lexicon of Chinese and Daoist psychological and somatological terms.

In terms of the Philosophy of Religion, especially as envisioned in its current “global-critical” trajectory, with an additional concern for embodiment, personhood, and subjectivity, shēn brings our attention to culture-specific and tradition-specific technical terms related to embodiment, personhood, subjectivity, and the like. Such cultural, linguistic and philosophical sensitivity also encourages, and in fact requires, accompanying engagement with contextual meanings and applications. In addition, shēn inspires reflection on human being as embodied, enacted, and lived. We may inquire into the various dimensions of self from a comparative and cross-cultural perspective with attention associated indigenous terminology beyond Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism. Thus, terms like shēn may result in critical investigation of unquestioned assumptions and received views.

The Chinese character shēn 身 became a key religio-philosophical concept in the classical period of Chinese culture and literature, specifically from the Warring States period (480-222 BCE) to the Early Han dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE). However, it appears in earlier ancient literature, such as the Shījīng 詩經 (Classic of Poetry), as well. Again, we must be attentive to context-specific meaning. The character, in turn, relates to a larger repertoire of Chinese “body characters” and “self characters” (see Kohn 1991; Ames 1993; Komjathy 2011, 2013). Chinese and Daoist views of embodiment tend to be psychosomatic, with energetic and psychospiritual being equally important characterizations. There are three primary Chinese and Daoist terms related to “body,” namely, shēn 身, xíng 形, and tǐ 體. First, shēn, probably a pictograph of the human physique, seems to be used most frequently to refer to one’s entire psychosomatic process. In passages where shēn as “self” refers to the physical body, it is one’s “lived body” seen from within rather than “body as corpse” seen from without. The second character relating to Chinese notions of “body” is xíng, which is the “form” or “shape,” the three-dimensional disposition or configuration of the human process. Xíng-form has a morphological rather than genetic or schematic nuance. Finally, the third character designating “body” is tǐ, which relates to “physical structure” said to be a “combination of twelve groups” or parts. Tǐ-physical structure relates to the scalp, face, chin, shoulders, spine, abdomen, upper arms, lower arms, hands, thighs, legs, and feet. In addition to clarifying Chinese conceptions of body/self, these terms reveal that concern over “self” is not foreign to Chinese culture, contra to facile and conventional feminist or post-modern critiques. In addition, shēn may be used to refer to “person” and “self,” so it may be further connected to other, related characters. These include wǒ 我/wú 吾 (“I-ness”), jǐ 己 (“self”), míng 名 (“name/fame”), and zì 自 (“self”). Here míng is particularly interesting, as it technically refers to one’s given personal name, bestowed by one’s parents. It thus has the added connotations of “fame” and “reputation,” and social identity by extension. In any case, shēn brings our attention to the complexity of both indigenous terms and context-specific meaning. For example, chapter thirteen of the anonymous fourth-second century BCE Dàodé jīng 道德經 (Scripture on the Dao and Inner Power), a key classical Daoist text, contains the following line: 「及吾無身，吾有何患？」. It has been mistranslated as “if I did not have a body, what calamities would I have?” when here shēn refers to a personal self, resulting in “if I did not have a self, what calamities would I have?” This relates to the Daoist aspiration to become “formless” (wúxíng 無形), “nameless” (wúmíng 無名), “selfless” (wúsī 無私), and the (un)like. Thus, we must be constantly attentive to not only contextual nuance, but also unrecognized assumptions and possible unintended consequences in translation work.

Daoist adherents and communities in turn developed some of the most sophisticated indigenous Chinese discussions of embodiment (see Schipper 1978, 1993; Kohn 1991; Despeux 1994; Komjathy 2008, 2009, 2011, 2020), which might be beneficially compared to the contemplative psychological cartographies utilized in Buddhist meditation systems. Daoist discussions include what it is referred to as the “Daoist body” and associated “Daoist body-maps” (shēntú 身圖). This is the human body actualized, cultivated, and explored in Daoist practice, and it may result in a different type of being-in-the-world. One noteworthy dimension of Daoist views centers on the body as sacred, the body itself as a manifestation of the Dao 道 (Tao/Way), the sacred and ultimate concern of Daoists. This emanationist and immanence “somatology” may challenge assumed mind-body dualism, or even calcified distinctions. While beyond the present entry, there are various, related technical terms, including jīng 精 (“vital essence”), mìng 命 (“life-destiny”), qì 氣 (“subtle breath/energy”), shén 神 (“spirit”), xīn 心 (“heart-mind”), and xìng 性 (“innate nature”). These may be further connected with what may be understood as the Daoist “alchemical body” and “mystical body” (see Komjathy 2011, 2020), which relates to the Daoist meditation practice of internal alchemy (nèidān 內丹). Specifically, the associated Daoist practitioners engage the “physical body” as containing a “subtle body,” which consists of subtle corporeal locations and energy channels. The former are often designated with the technical term dāntián 丹田 (“elixir fields”), while the latter correspond to “meridians” (mài 脈). In more standardized accounts, the meridians include the twelve primary organ-meridians and the so-called Eight Extraordinary Channels, with the latter being especially important in Daoist practice.

A more general philosophical discussion of shēn and related termsin traditional Chinese culture has been published by Roger Ames (1993). Like Ames’ work more generally, there are problematic categorizations centering on “philosophy,” but the article nonetheless represents foundational reading. In terms of the “Daoist body,” key scholars include Catherine Despeux, Livia Kohn, Louis Komjathy, Joseph Needham (1990-1995), and Kristofer Schipper (1934-2021). Komjathy’s articles (2011, 2008, 2009, 2020) include summaries and critical analysis. This may be thought of as part of a larger “fragments for a history of the human body” (see Feher 1989; also Murphy 1992), a lived and living history that might include greater attentiveness to religion as manifesting as embodied movement in the world.

Related terms

Anthropology, body, embodiment, míng 名 (“name/fame”; Chinese), personhood, pneumatology, qì 氣 (“subtle breath/energy”; Chinese), somatology, xīn 心 (“heart-mind”; Chinese)

References

Ames, Roger. “The Meaning of Body in Classical Chinese Philosophy.” In Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, edited by Thomas Kasulis, 157-77. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Despeux, Catherine. Taoïsme et corps humain. Le Xiuzhen tu. Paris: Guy Trédaniel, 1994.

Feher, Michel, with Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi, eds. Fragments for a History of the Human Body. 3 vols. New York: Zone Books, 1989.

Kohn, Livia. “Taoist Visions of the Body.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 18 (1991): 227–52.

Komjathy, Louis. “Mapping the Daoist Body: Part I: The Neijing tu in History.” Journal of Daoist Studies 1 (2008): 67-92.

_____. “Mapping the Daoist Body: Part II: The Text of the Neijing tu.” Journal of Daoist Studies 2 (2009): 64-108.

_____. “The Daoist Mystical Body.” In Thomas Cottai and June McDaniel (eds.), Perceiving the Divine through the Human Body: Mystical Sensuality, 67-103. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011.

_____. The Daoist Tradition: An Introduction. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

_____. “Daoist Body-Maps and Meditative Praxis.” In Transformational Embodiment in Asian Religions: Subtle Bodies, Spatial Bodies, edited by George Pati and Katherine Zubko, 36-64. London and New York: Routledge, 2020.

Murphy, Michael. The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1992.

Schipper, Kristofer. “The Taoist Body.” History of Religions 17.3/4 (1978): 355-86.

_____. The Taoist Body. Translated by Karen Duval. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 (1982).

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Pneumatology

by Louis Komjathy 康思奇

Pneumatology refers to discourse on, study of, and theories about pneuma, a Greek term that may indicate “breath,” “life,” “soul,” “spirit,” “wind,” and so forth. In this way, it has some overlap with psukhḗ (Latin: psychē) and, by extension, psychology. In a more technical sense, pneuma connects with energeia (Latin: energia; “activity”) (see, e.g., Smil 2017). While “pneumatology” is often used in modern Christian theological contexts to refer the study of the Holy Spirit (see, e.g., Kärkkäinen 2002), here I want to propose employing it as a comparative and cross-cultural term for exploring culture-specific and tradition-specific terms and views related to vital breath and energy. Such a reframing extends the topic beyond Christocentric frameworks, although Christian views would be included. The comparative framework is particularly relevant for the study of Asian and Chinese philosophies/religions in general and Daoism in particular, although more recent cross-cultural encounters suggest wide application and relevance.

In terms of the Philosophy of Religion, especially as envisioned in its current “global-critical” trajectory, with an additional concern for embodiment, personhood, and subjectivity, pneumatology enables us to avoid certain common (Eurocentric/Christocentric) assumptions and to consider larger, tradition-specific and perhaps trans-cultural insights. Specifically, it inspires us to investigate dimensions of self beyond or within the more conventional “body,” “mind,” and/or “soul” frameworks. It raises the possibility of subtle, underlying, and perhaps mutually infusing influences and presences. While it is presumably uncontroversial to draw attention to breath/breathing/respiration, and perhaps to bone, gesture, movement, skin, and the like, “subtle breath” and “subtle anatomy and physiology” are often taboo topics in mainstream academic discourse, perhaps invoking pre-modern and presumably “unscientific” ideas associated with “vitalism” (see Normandin and Wolfe 2016). So, while one might hear invocations of topics like “quantum physics” or “dark matter,” such views are not necessarily extended to human identity and personhood. How does something like mass-energy equivalence (E=mc2) or the so-called “observer effect” relate to subjectivity on a lived, phenomenological level? The possibility (actuality?) of energy moving in/as/through space and bodies inspires a variety of other questions, further investigation, and perhaps deeper or at least “alternative” modes of being and experiencing.

Pneuma was a central concept and concern among the ancient Hellenistic Stoics, for whom it generally designated the active, generative principle that organizes both the individual and the cosmos. In its highest form, pneuma constitutes psychē (“soul”). The latter, in turn, was regarded as a fragment of the pneuma that is the soul of the Divine (see Sellars 2006; also Hadot 1995). In this way, it may be further connected to eudaimoníā, or flourishing in/as/through virtue. The Hellenistic concept in turn flowed into and influenced early Christianity, including in the form of Gnosticism, and specifically its Hellenized views regarding khristós as logos (cf. Hebrew: messiah) and accompanying paráklētos (cf. Hebrew: ruach; also kavod; shekhinah), usually taken to refer to the Holy Spirit. For present purposes, one area where pneuma enters into the comparative and cross-cultural study of religion is in the work of the Sinologist Edward Schafer (1913–1991) and his intellectual heirs. Like many scholars of his generation, Schafer drew on Classical Studies for his translation methodology, specifically choosing to translate the Chinese and Daoist concept of qì 氣 (ch’i; Japanese: ki; Korean: gi) as “pneuma” (see, e.g., Schafer 1966). This translation and interpretive trajectory influenced the current entry, although the presentation of qì-as-pneuma is problematic on multiple grounds (see Komjathy 2013). Briefly, it uses a foreign (Greek) concept to translate another foreign (Chinese) concept (qì), which obfuscates the matter. Like translating shén 神 as “daimon,” it also invokes the accompanying ancient Hellenistic views and values to represent radically different ones. The term is thus better left untranslated as “qì,” although it may refer to physical breath and a more subtle presence depending on context. If translation is required, “subtle breath” or “vital breath” are perhaps most viable. Drawing upon the indigenous Chinese tradition, we may, in turn, think of “pneumatology” as qìxué 氣學 (“Qì Studies”), and vice versa.

As received, the character qì 氣 consists of qì 气 (“steam”) over mǐ 米 (“rice”), thus suggesting that it is somewhat analogous to vapor. The esoteric Daoist variant 炁 consists of jì 旡 (“collect”) and huǒ 火/灬 (“fire”), thus suggesting subtle warmth. Along with yin-yang 陰陽, qì is one of the key dimensions of traditional Chinese cosmology, including as utilized in both Chinese medicine and Daoism. Perhaps somewhat surprising to non-specialist readers, like the emphasis on ritual (lǐ 禮) as being human (rén 人), qì also has played a role in Ruist (“Confucian”) views and practices. In any case, Daoism is particularly relevant for present purposes. As part of a classical and foundational Daoist worldview and lifeway, qì refers to a subtle, even numinous presence that underlies and infuses all of existence and every individual being, at times including “non-sentient” ones. While part of one’s original and inherent constitution, qì may be more or less present, and one may be more or less sensitive to it. For Daoists, there are specific contemplative practices, including apophatic (emptiness-/stillness-based) meditation and internal alchemy (nèidān 內丹), that activate and strengthen this enlivening energetic presence. Qì, in turn, relates to other dimensions of human personhood from a Daoist perspective, including xīn 心 (“heart-mind”) and “body” (shēn 身). Like everything in existence, these may be understood and mapped as manifestations of qì. From a Daoist alchemical perspective, qì also is located in an entire “theosomatics” centering on the “subtle body,” which consists of subtle corporeal locations and energy channels (mài 脈). While qì flows throughout this network, the navel region, referred to as the “Elixir Field” (dāntián 丹田) and “Ocean of Qì” (qìhǎi 氣海), is considered the primary storehouse of qì in the body. In addition, Daoists distinguish different types of qì. The most important is dàoqì 道炁, the “qì of the Dao” or “Way-Energy” for short, which also is referred to as língqì 靈氣 (“numinous qì”). This refers to a more primordial and less differentiated form of “energy,” a sacred presence, associated with the Dao 道 (Tao/Way), the sacred and ultimate concern of Daoists, which Daoists attempt to connect with and live through. Such views and orientations further connect with Yǎngshēng 養生 (Nourishing Life) and modern Qìgōng 氣功 (Energy Work/Qì Exercise), which usually refer to health and longevity practice and which may or may not be Daoist (see Komjathy 2013).

As herein proposed, the Chinese and Daoist concept of qì thus represents a culture-specific and sometimes tradition-specific term related to “pneumatology.” It may, in turn, be connected to parallel, cross-cultural terms like àṣẹ (Yoruba), energeia (Greece), ki 氣 (Japan), mana (Melanesia and Polynesia), nilch’i (Navajo), pneuma (Greece), and prāṇa (India), to name some.

The literature on pneumatology, broadly conceived, is vast, especially if one engages tradition-specific materials and studies. On the East Asian side, some works may have broader appeal as well as inspire deeper reflection and application. Yasuo Yuasa (1987, 1993) and Nagatomo Shigenori (1992) have attempted to advance a ki-centered theory and approach, with specific attention to the so-called (imagined/projected?) “mind-body problem.” Shigehisa Kuriyama (1999) discusses issues of embodiment in Chinese and Greek medical traditions, including consideration of the central importance of qì in the former. Finally, Zhang Yu Huan, and Ken Rose (2001) offer a “brief history of qì,” with a specific focus on Chinese medicine.

Related terms: anthropology, embodiment, energy, mana (Proto-Oceanic), qì 氣 (Chinese), pneuma (Greek), prāṇa (Sanskrit), psychology, shēn 身 (“body/self”; Chinese), somatology, xīn 心 (“heart-mind”; Chinese)

References

Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 1995.

Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.

Komjathy, Louis. The Daoist Tradition: An Introduction. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.

Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. New York: Zone Books, 1999.

Nagatomo Shigenori. Attunement through the Body. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.

Normandin, Sebastian and Charles Wolfe, eds. Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800–2010. New York: Springer, 2016.

Schafer, Edward. “Thoughts about a Students’ Dictionary of Classical Chinese.” Monumenta Serica 25, no. 1 (1966): 197–206. https://doi.org/10.1080/02549948.1966.11744946.

Sellars, John. Stoicism. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.

Smil, Vaclav. Energy and Civilization: A History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017.

Yuasa Yasuo. The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory. Translated by Nagatomo Shigenori and T.P. Kasulis. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.

———. The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy. Translated by Nagatomo Shigenori and Monte Hull. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Zhang Yu Huan and Ken Rose. A Brief History of Qi. Brookline, MA: Paradigm Publications, 2001.

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Anthropology

by Louis Komjathy 康思奇

Anthropology refers to discourse on, study of, and theories about the human. While more conventionally used to designate the social scientific discipline and field dedicated to research on human culture, especially through ethnographic fieldwork, the term may be used as a comparative and cross-cultural interpretive category. Etymologically speaking, “anthropology” derives from the Greek ánthrōpos (“human”) and lógos (“study”). Thus, it may be applied to consider the multidimensional, psychosomatic identity and experience, the entire spectrum, of being human/human being, including embodiment, personhood, psychology, subjectivity, and so forth. In this way, there is some overlap with “Christian (theological) anthropology,” which concerns human relationality to divinity beyond the merely physical and social dimensions of humanity across times and places. Considered and applied holistically and comprehensively, anthropology raises questions about the “fullness” of human being, including with respect to the animal/human/divine ternary and the possibility of “something more.”

Anthropology refers to discourse on, study of, and theories about the human. While more conventionally used to designate the social scientific discipline and field dedicated to research on human culture, especially through ethnographic fieldwork, the term may be used as a comparative and cross-cultural interpretive category. Etymologically speaking, “anthropology” derives from the Greek ánthrōpos (“human”) and lógos (“study”). Thus, it may be applied to consider the multidimensional, psychosomatic identity and experience, the entire spectrum, of being human/human being, including embodiment, personhood, psychology, subjectivity, and so forth. In this way, there is some overlap with “Christian (theological) anthropology,” which concerns human relationality to divinity beyond the merely physical and social dimensions of humanity across times and places. Considered and applied holistically and comprehensively, anthropology raises questions about the “fullness” of human being, including with respect to the animal/human/divine ternary and the possibility of “something more.”

In terms of Philosophy of Religion, especially as envisioned in its current “global-critical” trajectory, anthropology inspires us to consider human being/being human in its (our) complex and multidimensional expressions and forms. The term thus has some overlap with the more familiar philosophical categories and approaches of existentialism and ontology. Comparatively speaking, it draws our attention to existence and being, including meaning and purpose. Although third-person discourse (“objectivity”), especially in the academic vogue of cultural relativism, secular materialism, and social constructivism, is usually assumed (and presumed) in mainstream academic discourse, this may represent a form of alienation and dissociation. “Anthropology” in turn makes space for the possibility of first-person discourse, or “critical subjectivity.” This involves a disciplined approach open to public investigation and debate. Nonetheless, as anthropology is not just about other people/selves, but about me and you, it inspires us to consider the embodied and lived dimensions of our beings, including communal and ecological relationality.

Historically speaking, there is a classical Hellenistic approximation of our current “anthropology” in the works of the Greek philosopher and polymath Aristotle (384–322 BCE), who of course advanced his own specific “theory of the human” defined by reason and agency in contrast to “animals” (see Keil and Kreft 2019). One of the earliest known usages of the term in the more technical sense of an academic discipline appears in 1647 in the writings of the Danish theologian-physician Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680) and his son Caspar Bartholin the Younger (1655–1738), who divided it into anatomy (“body”) and psychology (“soul”). The social scientific discipline as such is sometimes traced to the Spanish Catholic Franciscan friar and missionary-priest Bernardino de Sahagún (ca. 1499–1590), who conducted “ethnography” (evangelization) in “New Spain” (present-day Mexico) (see León-Portilla 2002). It expanded in Great Britain and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, eventually becoming one of the cornerstones of the “social sciences” as we know them today. If we were to follow this trajectory, an entire received corpus and key figures would be invoked. The same is true with respect to “theological anthropology” (see Cortez 2010).

However, this entry is not about the history of the term, the social scientific discipline, or the Christian theological application, so here we will focus on the use of “anthropology” as a comparative and cross-cultural—and possibly theological—category. As the academic discipline of Religious Studies, assuming there is such a discipline, has explicitly defined itself in contrast to (Christian) Theology, the invocation of “theology” here may be problematic and lead to dismissal. However, like “anthropology” herein, I propose using other categories like theology and soteriology as comparative and cross-cultural terms. These refer to discourse on the “sacred” and “ultimate purpose” of human existence, respectively (see Komjathy 2018). Along these lines, we cannot, or at least we should not, presume and thus artificially delimit “the question of the human,” and our humanity by extension. Are we simply biological organisms destined to decompose? Is my consciousness simply brain chemistry, a series of physiologically determined “synaptic firings?” Or is my being connected to something larger, infused with other presence, and capable of more? Is being-human also being-animal, and even being part of the human-primate collective? Do we have a choice in all of this?

If we are open to considering anthropology in its diverse dimensions and expressions, then, following Religious Studies, we need to engage an equally complex variety of disciplines, approaches, and perspectives. This relates to interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and even transdisciplinarity. More straightforwardly and perhaps expectedly, some contributing fields include anthropology (narrowly defined), biology, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and so forth. More radically, one thinks of Animal Studies, Consciousness Studies, Contemplative Studies, dance, movement studies, somatics, and the like (see Komjathy 2018), with many of these being interdisciplinary as well. Depending on the specific dimension of being human/human being that we are exploring, we will need to determine which of said disciplines are most relevant and applicable. The matter becomes even more complicated if we want a more complete account, and perhaps if we want a more enlivening form of being and experiencing.

As mentioned, “anthropology” as herein employed encompasses consciousness, embodiment, experience, movement, personhood, psychology, and the like. That is, we should not reduce human being to either “body-based” or “mind-based” views. This includes along the lines of contemporary attempts to reduce various dimensions of human being and expression (e.g., religion) to biology. While controversial, “theology” inspires us to ask deeper and larger questions, although these again may overlap with “non-theological” existentialism. There may be dimensions of humanity that require more complex, diverse, holistic, integrated, and sophisticated approaches. For example, there are religious adherents, communities, and traditions that emphasize other, perhaps hidden capacities. Here I am thinking specifically of the Chinese Daoist and larger traditional East Asian emphasis on qì 氣 (“subtle breath/energy”), which parallels other cultures as well, and of the traditional Indian and larger Asian emphasis on siddhi (lit., “accomplishment/fulfillment”), variously referred to as “numinous abilities,” “paranormal psychology,” and/or “psychic/supernatural powers.” Some commonly identified ones include clairaudience, clairvoyance, invincibility/invulnerability, knowledge of past lives, multivocality, and so forth. Regardless of what one personally thinks of such claims, they are, in fact, religious claims about human being and potential (see Young and Goulet 1994; Cardeña et al. 2000; Kripal 2017; cf. Martin and McCutcheon 2012). They make claims about us, about our own being and experiencing. If we take them seriously, in whatever manner, how will we explore them?

Related terms: Embodiment, experience, personhood, pneumatology, psychology, qì 氣 (“subtle breath/energy”; Chinese), shēn 身 (“body/self”; Chinese), somatology, subjectivity, xīn 心 (“heart-mind”; Chinese)

References

Cardeña, Etzel, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner, eds. Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000.

Cortez, Marc. Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2010.

Keil, Geert, and Nora Kreft, eds. Aristotle’s Anthropology. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Komjathy, Louis. Introducing Contemplative Studies. West Sussex, England and Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018.

Kripal, Jeffrey. Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

León-Portilla, Miguel. Bernardino de Sahagún: First Anthropologist. Translated by Mauricio Mixco. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.

Martin, Craig, and Russell McCutcheon, eds. Religious Experience: A Reader. Sheffield, England: Equinox Publishing, 2012.

Young, David, and Jean-Guy Goulet, eds. Being Changed by Cross-cultural Encounters: The Anthropology of Extraordinary Experience. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.

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Value

by Maki Sato

Conceptual definition

The concept of good and evil originates from being pure/clean (jo, 浄) or not (fujo, 不浄). As Shinto considers all spirits (tama, 霊) as being neutral, whether a phenomena or objects turn into good or evil depends on how the spirits are treated with purity and honesty (myojoshojiki, 明浄正直) by human beings. Because of their inherent value-neutrality, invisibility, and lack of bodies, spirits can also descend on words. In other words, it is believed that words also have their own inherent spiritual power, known as kotodama (言霊). The spirituality within words is believed since around the seventh-century Heian period. Such spirituality embedded in words are given value through spoken words, through norito (祝詞). Norito can be either yogoto (寿詞, words of happiness), haraenokotoba (祓詞, words for cleansing), or juso (呪詛, words for cursing).  

Philosophical significance

Individual human beings can also be objects upon which the spirit descends. Kuchiyose (口寄せ) is performed in order to listen to what the spirits have to say through language via a person, often a woman (miko, 巫女). Words that are from god spirits are called shinchoku (神勅) and such acts are called takusen (entrusted-words託宣). Moreover, there are no sacred texts in Shinto. Because non-visible and value-neutral of thinking grounds in Shinto, human individuals are supposed to be the ones who need to be clean and honest and lead lives of diligence and self-discipline.

Historical context

The concept of value-neutrality and such understandings that it is reflected in the act of words, kotodama, can be found in Kojiki (古事記, 712). The concept of Freedom is not explicitly written or explained in Shinto. Therefore, it is almost impossible to identify when the term appeared. However, the concept of kami as freed from a) ontic object (the spirits can descend on anything, or it can appear itself through natural phenomena), b) sacred text (sacred texts do not exist in Shinto), c) the notion of good and evil, exists from the establishment of Shinto through Japanese encounters with Buddhism around the eighth century.

Related terms in historical context

Body/Embodiment and Body-Value-freed-Spirit (tama): the idea of body/embodiment in relation to invisibility and value-neutrality,the idea of tama strongly relates to kotodama.

Marebito(稀人): originally means “guest.” Origuchi Shinobu (折口信夫, 1887–1953) call the ancestral spirits as marebito that peridoically brings luck and good when the ancestral spirits are treated well. Origuchi, as an anthropologist, analysed that matsuri (festival, 祭)

References

Kasulis, T. P., 1948-. 2004. Shinto. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʿi Press.

伊藤, 聡(1961-). 2012. 神道とは何か : 神と仏の日本史 / 伊藤聡著. 中公新書. 東京: 中央公論新社.

鎌田, 東二(1951-). 1999. 神道用語の基礎知識 / 鎌田東二編著. 角川選書. 東京: 角川書店.

國學院大學日本文化研究所. 1999. 神道事典 / 國學院大學日本文化研究所編集. 縮刷版 ed. 東京: 弘                                  文堂. An encyclopedia of Shinto = Shintô Jiten [神道事典]. Tokyo: Institute for                                  Japanese Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University.

佐藤, 弘夫(1953-). 2021. 日本人と神 / 佐藤弘夫著. 講談社現代新書. 東京: 講談社.

島薗, 進(1948-). 2010. 国家神道と日本人 / 島薗進著. 岩波新書. 東京: 岩波書店.

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Freedom/Liberty

by Maki Sato

Conceptual definition

The belief system of Shinto thinks highly of spirit[PDM1]  (tama, 御霊) that descend on any objects. The spirit is occasionally personified, sometimes with given names (e.g., Amaterasu oomikami, 天照大神), but unnamed spirits also exist that show and prove their existence through particular objects or natural phenomena. Because of kami’s inherent invisibility and the flexibility of not possessing substance as proof of its presence, kami is freed from ontic existentialism. In other words, kami is everywhere, and kami is nowhere. Such ambivalent existence enables kami to unite with nature per se, with living/posthumous human beings (arahitogami, 現人神), and with icons in other religions. For example, kami unites with the bodhisattvas of Buddhism (bosatsu, 菩薩) and with Indian-derived religious icons (e.g., Saraswati, benzaiten, 弁財天). The unification between Shinto and Buddhism is called honjisuijaku (本地垂迹), which was crystallized and sophisticated in the medieval era (chusei, 中世).

Additionally, because of kami’s inherent characteristics deriving from nature per se, there is no inherent evil or good attached to the concept of kami. The spirit of kami and human beings are thought to be made of one-soul-four-spirits (ichireishikon, 一霊四魂). One-soul is named naobi (直霊); four-spirits are aramitama (raging, fierce, 荒魂), nigimitama (harmonious, calm, 和魂), sakimitama (wealth, happiness, 幸魂), kusimitama (health, wonder, 奇魂). Depending on the environment and circumstances, a soul shows different facets in the form of spirits. For example, Sugawara-no-michizane (菅原道真, 845–903), who is worshipped as kami in the well-known shrine of Kita-no-tenmangu (北野天満宮), was first regarded as aramitama or more of a cursing god (tatarigami, 祟神). He was believed to have become a cursing god and punished his political opponents posthumously. However, because of the rituals to pray for his spirits to be in peace, he gradually became a kami for studies (gakumon, 学問) and is worshipped elsewhere in Japan.

Reflexive to such kami notion freed from ontic existence and freed from the static notion of good and evil requires human beings to self-discipline themselves and stay honest based on one’s decisions. In other words, kami shows various aspects of oneself dependent on the situation in requesting truth and righteousness (makoto, 真). Moreover, there are no sacred texts, such as sutras, that human beings or kami can refer to for the righteous justifiable judgment. Therefore, Shinto is freed from static judgement, but it is ever-changing, and all the righteous judges are dependent on one’s righteous work of the mind. Cleanliness is required to keep one’s mind right. Thus, misogi (cleansing of the body, 禊) and harae (cleansing via rituals and spoken words 祓) become essential.

Philosophical significance

The persistence of self through self-discipline and keeping a righteous mind (makoto-no-kokoro) was first argued by Motoori Norinaga (本居宣長, 1730–1801) through his establishment of kokugaku (study on Japanese classic literature, 国学). His initial intention was to quest for the ancient Japanese authentic mind. Through the careful reading of Kojiki (712, 古事記) and Nihonshoki (720, 日本書紀), Norinaga gradually attempted to find a pure Shinto in the classic Japanese texts. Before Norinaga, Hayashi Razan (林羅山, 1583–1657) argued about the similarity between Confucius and Shinto (jukashinto, 儒家神道). Norinaga’s works are a success by Hirata Atsutane (平田篤胤, 1776–1834).[PDM2]    

Historical context

The concept of Freedom is not explicitly written or explained in Shinto. Therefore, it is almost impossible to identify when the term appeared. However, the concept of kami as freed from a) ontic object (the spirits can descend on anything, or it can appear itself through natural phenomena), b) sacred text (sacred texts do not exist in Shinto), c) the notion of good and evil, exists from the establishment of Shinto through Japanese encounters with Buddhism around the eighth century.

Historical uses

Historically, there are various human beings who became kami in Japan (e.g., Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 豊臣秀吉 became Toyokunidaimyojin, 豊国大明神 and Tokugawa Ieyasu, 徳川家康became Toshodaigongen, 東照大権現). Human beings can become kami posthumously, freed from this-worldliness (gensei, 現世).

Relationships to other terms

Masuraoburi/Taoyameburi (ますらおぶり、たおやめぶり): The term identified by Motoori Norinaga through his careful study of ancient texts. There are kami with a given gender, but there are more neutral kami without a specified gender. Norinaga invented the term to explain an inclination to a certain gender from neutrality, becoming a man or a woman. Norinaga also used the term in explaining the culture of warriors as masurao in the twelfth century in contrast with taoyame, an aristocratic culture of Heian.

Related terms

Emic

Conscience: the idea of inner kami (uchinaru kami) and its emergence and refinement concerning the introduction of Confucius and Christianity to Japan, in contrast to Buddhism that polished somewhat an externality of conscience.

Value-neutral: since the notion of kami is freed from the sense of evil and good, kami may cause problems to humans (e.g., natural phenomena such as thunder, storms, and pandemics) when human beings and kami are not in a harmonious relationship. Kami requires purity and honesty (shojiki, 正直). Therefore, human beings are constantly required to question their daily life practices, which leads to developing a conscience.

Pantheism:kami could descend on any object, including the spoken words (kotodama). Therefore, everything in nature can do both good and evil to human beings, including languages. 

Truthfulness/Honesty: makoto no kokoro

Kokoro: heart-mind

Etic

Mergeable (自由、融合可能性), Syncretism (人神), Self-disciplined(自律)

References

Kasulis, T. P., 1948-. 2004. Shinto. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʿi Press.

伊藤, 聡(1961-). 2012. 神道とは何か : 神と仏の日本史 / 伊藤聡著. 中公新書. 東京: 中央公論新社.

鎌田, 東二(1951-). 1999. 神道用語の基礎知識 / 鎌田東二編著. 角川選書. 東京: 角川書店.

國學院大學日本文化研究所. 1999. 神道事典 / 國學院大學日本文化研究所編集. 縮刷版 ed. 東京: 弘                                  文堂. An encyclopedia of Shinto = Shintô Jiten [神道事典]. Tokyo: Institute for                                  Japanese Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University.

佐藤, 弘夫(1953-). 2021. 日本人と神 / 佐藤弘夫著. 講談社現代新書. 東京: 講談社.

島薗, 進(1948-). 2010. 国家神道と日本人 / 島薗進著. 岩波新書. 東京: 岩波書店.

 [PDM1]The use of singular spirit/plural spirits is inconsistent, but I was not sure how intentional that was or if it was a problem of translation.  

 [PDM2]I am not sure what this sentence means. Was Hirata Atsutane a champion of Norinaga? An intellectual heir?

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Tama

by Maki Sato

Tama – Body/Embodiment and Body-Value-freed-Spirit

Conceptual definition

Shinto believes that kami does not have its own body, but it is a pure spirit (tama, たま or mitama, 御霊). Therefore, the sacred spirits need to borrow or rely on objects so that they can appear and communicate with human beings. Most of the time, the sacred spirits use objects in nature as their object or place of descent (yorishiro, 依代 or mitamashiro, 御霊代). Other times, the sacred spirits may use (descend on, kourin, 降臨) human bodies or living bodies of animals to reveal themselves. In the shrines, something like a mirror, sword (tsurugi, 剣), jewel stone (gyoku, 玉), and column (hashira, 柱) is thought to be the object where kami arrives. Occasionally, a temporal shrine (himorogi,神籬), set up with bamboo and tree branches, is made to call for the spirit to descend. In nature, leaves, trees, waterfalls, mountains, capes, and rocks are believed to be where kami prefers to come down and settle (yadoru, 宿る). In other words, kami is not visible to us human beings, but it visualizes itself through the sacred objects and landscapes in nature. Because of its inherent invisibility, kami can be everywhere and in any being. Once the kami is thought to have descended, the object or the landscape it occupies becomes a sacred body (shintai, 神体).

Philosophical significance

The concept of spirit (tama,たま or mitama, 御霊) includes spirits’ given personhood (jinkaku, 人格). However, they are mostly thought of as sacred spirits deriving from a motif from the nature and natural phenomena (such as volcanic eruption), as can be read in the Kojiki (古事記, 712) and Nihonshoki (日本書紀, 720). Shinto’s concept of spirit is unique in that all the spirits have both good and evil aspects. Therefore, there is no rigid dualistic concept of good and evil in Shinto spiritualism (Kamata, 1999: 77), which allows the spirits to be free from the short-sightedness of human concepts of good and evil. In other words, there is no spirit which is purely good or purely evil. Moreover, among the spirits, there are no dualistic or antagonistic frictions (though they occasionally fight with each other for other reasons, such as irritation or jealousy). However, as seen by human beings, phenomena happen within the spirits’ relationship of relativity, generation (creation), and change because of the moving and changing process of the spirits.

In short, because of the inherent concept of invisibleness and its freedom from the dualism of good/evil, tama descends as a terror to human beings using natural phenomena such as earthquakes, pandemics, and famine. There will be fertility and prosperity when the tama is peaceful and harmonious among themselves and with human beings. Thus, the liberty of Shinto spirits to embody themselves in objects and phenomena that are contingently regarded as good and evil in human society becomes the grounding reason for human beings to both fear and revere them[PDM1] . The contingent moods of the spirits force human beings to make a continuous effort to apprehend the spirits, which becomes the key to staying in harmony with Japanese spirits.

Historical context

The concept of the spirits (mitama) descending to objects and the descended object becoming a kami-embodied object (shintai, 神体) first appears in the Kojiki (古事記, 712) and Nihonshoki (日本書紀, 720). In both Kojiki and Nihonshoki, it is written that Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess) gave her grandson, Niniginomikoto (the ancestor of the emperor), the mirror, sword, and stone jewel as signifiers of spirituality at the time of his earthly descent. However, the word itself, kami-embodied object (shintai, 神体), appears around the mid-Heian period.  

Figures, texts or sources that established the term

The word shintai (神体) appears in the first Japanese dictionary, Irohajiruishou (色葉字類抄)1144–1165, Tachibana Tadakane (橘忠兼). [PDM2] As explained above, the term used is an object where the spirit descents.

Historical uses

The word shintai itself is not commonly used. However, the kami-embodied object concept is still commonly accepted in the twenty-first century. The object where the spirit descends is called yorishiro (依代). When spirits descend upon trees, they become shinboku (神木). Rocks upon which spirits descend are called iwakura (磐座) or iwasaka (磐境). Such kami-embodied objects (shintai, 神体) become objects of worship.

Relationships to other terms

Kotodama (言霊): relates to words and phrases (koto, 言) having their spirit (tama, 霊).

Significant references/uses

It is not easy to trace the exact influences of Shinto on Japanese thoughts in general. Because of historical complexity and the interrelationship between Buddhist thoughts and Shinto, one can only assume that there are influences from Shinto ideology even still among contemporary scholars of philosophy.

Japanese contemporary phenomenologist Omori Shozo (大森荘蔵, 1921–1997) discusses the relationship between phenomenology (a bodily sensation that is only detected by the subject) and emotion (ujou, 有情) from a phenomenological viewpoint. Yuasa Yasuo (湯浅泰男, 1925–2005), known as a philosopher who first discussed qi in the Japanese context, focuses mainly on the problem of the body in contrast to mind and reason. In later years, Yuasa also discussed the relationship between qi and body.

Related terms

Emic

Conscience: the idea of inner kami (uchinaru kami) and its emergence and refinement concerning the introduction of Confucianism and Christianity to Japan, in contrast to Buddhism that polished somewhat an externality of conscience.

Value-neutral: since the notion of kami is freed from the sense of evil and good, kami may cause problems to humans (e.g., natural phenomena such as thunder, storms, and pandemics) when human beings and kami are not in a harmonious relationship. Kami requires purity and honesty (shojiki, 正直). Therefore, human beings are constantly required to question their daily life practices, which leads to developing a conscience.

Pantheism:kami could descend on any object, including spoken words (kotodama). Therefore, everything in nature can do both good and evil to human beings, including languages. 

Etic

Yuru-chara (ゆるキャラ): Hiroo Sato (佐藤弘夫) argues that the Japanese affection and passion for inventing new characters may derive from the internalized idea of kami. For example, to provide a visual body to the prefecture as a prefectural character. See, e.g., Kumamon, Bally-san, Funasshi.

References

Kasulis, T. P., 1948-. 2004. Shinto. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʿi Press.

伊藤, 聡(1961-). 2012. 神道とは何か : 神と仏の日本史 / 伊藤聡著. 中公新書. 東京: 中央公論新社.

鎌田, 東二(1951-). 1999. 神道用語の基礎知識 / 鎌田東二編著. 角川選書. 東京: 角川書店.

國學院大學日本文化研究所. 1999. 神道事典 / 國學院大學日本文化研究所編集. 縮刷版 ed. 東京: 弘                                  文堂. An encyclopedia of Shinto = Shintô Jiten [神道事典]. Tokyo: Institute for                                  Japanese Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University.

佐藤, 弘夫(1953-). 2021. 日本人と神 / 佐藤弘夫著. 講談社現代新書. 東京: 講談社.

島薗, 進(1948-). 2010. 国家神道と日本人 / 島薗進著. 岩波新書. 東京: 岩波書店.

 [PDM1]I would consult the author to make sure that this edit does not interfere with her intended meaning.

 [PDM2]I am not sure what is happening here, so I don’t want to mess with it. My guess is that Irohajiruishou is the title of the dictionary and Tachibana Tadakane is its writer/compiler/creator? It seems likely that 1144-1165 are the years he was alive, but they could also maybe be page numbers? I would consult the author.

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Upayoga

by Marie-Helene Gorisse

Conceptual definition

At the heart of Jainism is the belief that every living being is the transitory embodiment of a permanent Self (jīva) and individuals are meant to progress until they reach a state at which their Self is no longer embodied again. Embodied, the Self is co-extensive with the body it occupies, like light in a room, and this is what explains why we have sensations from the top of our head to the tips of our toes. However, the innate cognitive powers of the Self are obstructed by this entanglement, especially when it comes to karmic matter. While liberated, the Self is essentially unobstructed consciousness whose experience (upayoga, uvaoga) consists of cognition (jñāna) and intuition (darśana).

Furthermore, not only Jainism is the teaching of those worshiped beings who are unobstructed cognition and unobstructed intuition, but we too are, in principle, similar omniscient Selves. Consequently, we can know what is beyond the mundane, human epistemic range, either thanks to an openness to this higher order of being within ourselves through meditative practices; or by relying on the Scriptures—the teaching of the liberated beings—which, in turn, can be fully understood only by beings with a similar mind.

Philosophical significance

An important theme in mainstream Western philosophy of religion is the tension that exists between faith, belief, and reason. In fact, a prevalent number of discussions are articulated around this tension and on what counts as good evidence to support a given worldview. For instance, should one entrust the regulated use of the epistemic abilities of human beings within their inherent limitations, or should one rather entrust the transformative experience ensured by religious practices, the testimony of miracle, or the shared observation that good, morality, and harmony exist in the world, etc.? In this dynamic, does science discredit religion? And what about the epistemic status of intuitions? In these discussions, theistic arguments usually tend to show that faith is only seemingly, but not in truth, contrary to reason.

An interesting feature of Jainism is that its religious practices aim at the practitioner’s liberation from wrong beliefs (mithyātva), which is the final step before her liberation from the infinite circle of rebirths. In such a perspective, the exercise of consciousness as cognition has a central position, while intuition—which includes the closest equivalent to faith (śraddhā)—is a preliminary requisite meant to ensure that one has the correct mindset thanks to which the transformative practices of Self-realization can happen, hence shifting the complementarity and tension between faith, belief, and knowledge.

Historical context

In South Asian philosophico-religious traditions, the divine, the absolute, is usually, primarily consciousness (cit), cognition/knowledge (jñāna), insight (prajñā), the subject of experience (puruṣa), or the Seer (draṣṭṛ). Jain conceptions of the Self (ātman, jīva) as unobstructed cognition, unobstructed intuition, unobstructed bliss, and unobstructed energy, which focus on the cognitive part of these items, are no exception to this state of affairs. Nor is the fact that our spiritual progress consists of a path that is both virtuous and epistemic up to omniscience. In fact, even though the oldest Jain texts say very little on the Self, they already agree on characterizing it in terms of consciousness. For example, in the canonical On Behaviour, Āyāraṃga Sutta (ĀS, written in early Ardhamāgadhī in 3-2 BCE), even though an apophatism according to which the Self is not long, nor small, nor round, etc. is developed, even there, it is said “that which is the Self is that which knows, that which is the knower is the Self, that by which one knows is the Self” (ĀS 171) and “while having knowledge and intuition, there is no condition of (this) unconditioned (Self)” (ĀS 176).

Umāsvāmin and Kundakunda are the two authors who systematize a classical Jain epistemology and ontology out of these canonical texts. To begin with, the first chapter of the seminal Treatise on What there is, Tattvārthasūtra (TS, written in Sanskrit in 350–400, allegedly by someone called Umāsvāmin, probably by an unknown author), is devoted to the seven categories of reality and describes the many ways of knowing them. The following chapters are then dedicated to a detailed analysis of each category, starting with the Self (jīva). There, the defining characteristic (lakṣaṇa) of the Self is experience [of consciousness] (upayoga) (TS 2.8). Further on, the Commentary on the treatise on what there is, Tattvārthasūtrabhāṣya (TSBh, written in Sanskrit by Umāsvāti in 400–450) divides this cognitive operation into cognition (jñāna) and intuition (darśana) (TSBh 2.9.1). This gives rise to two lengthy classifications. First, a taxonomy within which all living beings are classified depending on the number of sense faculties they possess and can use when experiencing the world around them, and on whether or not they have a mind, from one-sensed beings like an earth-being to five-sensed beings like humans. Second, a full-fledged epistemology which will be the basis of a tradition of systematic inquiry on our knowledge faculties, from the functioning of inferential reasoning, to that of perception or of verbal testimony. Most of what is called “Jain philosophy” actually consists in these treatises of epistemology.

The second major author is Kundakunda. Kundakunda is actually not a single author, but the name that stands for the collective authorship of a Jain textual tradition (composed in Prakrit, more precisely in Jain Śaurasenī, between the third and ninth centuries around Karnataka). This tradition includes the Essence of the self, Samayasāra (SSā), which presents the Self in similar lines: “The essential characteristic of the Self as seen by the omniscient is permanently exercise [of consciousness] (uvaoga)” (SSā 1.24). However, this tradition differs from canonical and classical Jainism, and will be the basis for a mystical branch in Jainism. There, it is considered that the Self is never genuinely bound with karmic matter. Therefore, the practices which aim at a gradual dissociation between the Self and karmic matter and which are traditionally associated with Jainism, like endurance of hardships, restrained and careful acts towards all living beings, penances, or the study of the Scriptures, are dismissed as “worldly practices.” Indeed, since the Self is bound with karmic matter only from a conventional perspective, then the one who knows from the ultimate perspective realizes that in fact, the Self has never been genuinely bound. Henceforth, the direct inward experience that is Self-knowledge is the only practice that matters. Kundakunda wants us to realise that this is actually the core message of Mahāvīra, since Mahāvīra advocated meditative practices on the Self as the culmination of rigorous asceticism.

Significant references/uses

First, Jain views on what the exercise of consciousness consists of and how this defines the Self and distinguishes it from every unconscious thing are likely to give new perspectives of the hard problem of consciousness. Especially since there is the belief that a concrete change within the substance of the Self has to happen for it to be disassociated from the body and karmic matter. There is not much done on these subjects currently, but one should investigate the precise karmic associations, types of bodies and many metaphors (alloy between gold and silver) with this in mind. This will also help scholars to understand the intricate relationship between the ontological and the epistemological in Jainism.

Second, this splitting of the exercise of consciousness into cognition and intuition is also most likely to shed new light on the epistemological status of diverse faculties.

Related emic terms

Self (ātman, jīva), cognition (jñāna), intuition (darśana), obstructed and unobstructed by karmic matter, sense faculties of living beings, faculties of knowledge, wrong beliefs (mithyātva), faith (śraddhā), Self-knowledge, meditation

Related etic terms

Faith, belief, reason, intuitions, hard problem of consciousness

List of references

ĀS = Āyāraṃgasutta. In Kumar, Muni Mahendra (tr.): Āyāro (Ācārāṅga Sūtra). Jain Canonical Text Series 1. New Delhi: Today and tomorrow’s Printers & Publishers, 1981.

Bajželj, Ana. “Kundakunda on Modal Modifications of Omniscient Jīvas.” In N.Balbir and P.Flügel (eds.): Jaina Studies. Selected Papers presented in the ‘Jaina Studies’ Section at the 16th World Sanskrit Conference, Bangkok Thailand and the 14th World Sanskrit Conference, Kyoto Japan. DK Publishers, New Delhi 2018: 97–111.

Bajželj, Ana. “The Jain Ontological Model according to Kundakunda and Umāsvāti.” Asian Studies 1.17, 2013: 3–16.

Balcerowicz, Piotr. “The philosophy of mind of Kundakunda and Umāsvāti,” in: Jonardon Ganeri (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2017: 190–208.

Bronkhorst, Johannes. “Kundakunda and Sāṃkhya on the soul.” In N. Balbir (ed.): Svasti. Essays in honour of Prof. Hampa Nagarajaiah for his 75th Birthday. Muddushree Granthamala Series 75. K. S. Muddappa Smaraka Trust, Bangalore 2010: 215–226.

Den Boer, Lucas. Early Jaina Epistemology. A Study of the Philosophical Chapters of the Tattvārthādhigama with an English Translation of the Tattvārthādhigamabhāṣya I, II.8-25, and V, PhD dissertation, not yet published, defended in April 2020.

Gorisse, Marie-Hélène. “Characterising the Self: Knowledge and liberation in the Samayasāra“. In Cāruśrī. Essays in honour of Svastiśrī Carukīrti Bhaṭṭāraka Paṭṭācārya, Hampasandra Naganarajaiah and Jayandra Soni (eds.), Sapna Book House, Bangalore, 2019: pp. 95-107

Jaini, Padmanabh S. The Jaina Path of Purification. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979.

Johnson, William J. “Kundakunda. Two standpoints and the socio-religious function of Anekāntavāda.” In N.K.Wagle and O.Qvarnström (eds.): Approaches to Jain Studies, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Toronto, 1999: 101–112.

. Harmless souls: Karmic bondage and change in early Jainism with special reference to Umāsvāti and Kundakunda. In: Lala Sundar Lal Jain Research Series 9. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1995.

SSā = Samayasāra of Kundakunda. (1) Chakravarti, A (ed., tr. and comm.): Ācārya Kundakunda’s Samayasāra. Benares 1950 (5th ed. Bharatiya Jnanpith, New Delhi 2008). (2) Jaini, J. L. (ed., tr. and comm.): Samayasara by Shri Kunda Kunda Acharya. Sacred Books of the Jainas 8, The Central Jaina Publishing House, Lucknow 1930. (3) Zaveri, Jethalal, (ed., tr. and comm.): Samayasāra by Ācārya Kundakunda. Jain Vishva Bharati University, Ladnun 2009.

Soni, Jayandra. “Upayoga according to Kundakunda and Umāsvāti.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 35.4, 2007: 299–311.

Tatia, Nathmal. Studies in Jaina Philosophy. In Sanmati Publication 6. Calcutta: The Modern Art Press, 1951.

TS = Tattvārthasūtra of Umāsvāmin. In Tatia, Nathmal (tr.): That which is. Tattvārthasūtra. A Classic Jain Manual for Understanding the True Nature of Reality. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.

TSBh = Tattvārthasūtrabhāṣya of Umāsvāti, ibid.

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Mokṣa

Conceptual definition

Liberation (designated by Sanskrit terms including mokṣa, mukti, nirvāṇa, kaivalya, apavarga, and others) is release from the cycle of life and death fueled by karma, i.e., actions and their results. A variety of South Asian philosophies that disagree on many other fundamental issues agree on this much: that since life intrinsically involves suffering—since birth necessarily brings in its train old age, sickness, and death—liberation from the same is the summum bonum. Karma not only fuels the cycle (saṃsāra) but is fueled by it too. It is thus usually considered to require immense time and effort, not to mention great good fortune, to break the cycle and be released from the bondage (bandha) of suffering, ignorance, and finitude generally.

Philosophical significance

Freedom has been a central concern of philosophers in far-flung places and times, but takes very different shapes depending on the conditions from which one seeks to be free and the goods that one hopes to be free to attain. Although set in culturally-specific cosmological frameworks, the basic South Asian concept of liberation captures certain elements that should be acceptable to any theorist of freedom, namely: the conditions from which liberation is sought are characterized by limitation and suffering; the limitations in question are imposed upon our actions and their results; but our actions, with the help of knowledge, may transcend these conditions to attain ultimate satisfaction. Such a view of liberation can be placed in fruitful dialogue with accounts of the metaphysics and ethics of free will, the philosophy of intentional action, and political discourses of emancipation.

Historical context

As far as we can tell from the Rig Veda—the oldest South Asian liturgies known—liberation did not much figure into the early Vedic religion, which focused instead on the rewards of ritual in this world and in the next. In the middle of the 1st millennium B.C.E., however, the cyclic view of life appeared and a great shift occurred in which endless births and deaths came to appear rather tiresome and painful. In the Upaniṣads are found some of the earliest mentions of karma as an ethically-charged determinant of one’s worldly fate and the importance of transcending its bondage. In the canonical Buddhist diagnosis from around the same time, the source of this bondage and suffering is ultimately desire and its solution is detachment.

Beginning in the same period, the Jains—followers of the Jinas, literally “conquerers” of the afflictions of life—draw the contours of liberation into particularly sharp relief. From the earliest Jain scriptures, karma is a material substance that binds the spirit to the world, obstructing and distorting one’s vision and knowledge in the process. Through moral and yogic practices that quell the passions and minimize the negative impact of one’s actions upon other sentient beings, the Jain path of purification seeks to expurgate karma and stop any further influx into the soul.

Thus one develops right vision, knowledge, and conduct, which consummate in omniscience (kevala/kaivalya), as described by the authoritative Sanskrit catechism That Which Is (Tattvārthasūtra) of Umāsvāti/Umāsvāmi around the middle of the first millennium C.E. Some benign karma may remain after the most deleterious kind is removed, allowing a omniscient master to remain embodied in the world and teach for a period. Ultimately, though, a soul that has attained such a level will be perfected (siddha), having transcended all karmic action and now experiencing its eternally pure nature of consciousness and bliss at the roof of the universe where it has arisen after jettisoning its karmic burden. Purged of adventitious baggage, the soul is now pure and thus essentially identical to every other perfected soul. It does not, however, lose its individuality as imagined in Vedantic monism or Buddhist idealism: it maintains its particular identity and differentiation according place, time, state, and even shape, as well as various more arcane parameters.

Such temporary persistence of karma and ultimate retention of elements of individuality may seem to compromise the degree of transcendence offered by the Jain notion of liberation. But it serves the important function of maintaining the coherence and salience of the very notion of karma and the yogic practices meant to eliminate it. These practices seem fruitless in the most gnoseological forms of Vedānta and Buddhism: if liberation solely requires dissociation from the gratuitious aspects of one’s personality and the insight that one truly is not who one usually takes oneself to be, karma turns out to be an illusion and one can apparently dispense with the physical ascetic practices that target it.

This tension between asceticism and a purely gnoseological approach to liberation is felt acutely in the eminent Jain philosopher Kundakunda during the period of Umāsvāmi. Many philosophers in the ensuing millennium wrestle with this tension and resolve it in their own ways; but it is not until the rather heterodox Adhyātma movement at the dawn of modernity that Jain thinkers inspired by Kundakunda boldly disclaim the importance of all external practices, favoring the liberating power of inner faith.

Overview of significant references/uses

Jaini’s is the classic work on the purificatory path of asceticism seeking liberation, although it is surprisingly silent on the nature and achievement of liberation itself. Potter’s rather idiosyncratic reading of the basic concerns of Indian philosophy centers liberation and provides an unusual treatment of the Jain theory of relations. Tatia reviews Jain criticisms of other philosophical attempts to reconcile gnoseological liberation with the metaphysics of the soul and karma. Johnson reads Kundakunda’s ambivalence between asceticism and gnoseology sociologically as a capitulation to the laity’s need for opportunities to pursue liberation without having to go in for the full renunciation required of mendicant specialists.

Related terms

Emic

mokṣa, mukti, nirvāṇa, kevala, kaivalya, apavarga, saṃsāra, karma, bandha, tapas, siddha

Etic

Liberation, freedom, bondage, renunciation, ascesis, asceticism, identity

References

Jaini, Padmanabh S. The Jaina Path of Purification. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

Johnson, W. J. Harmless Souls: Karmic Bondage and Religious Change in Early Jainism with Special Reference to Umāsvāti and Kundakunda. 1st ed. Lala Sunder Lal Jain Research Series, vol. 9. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1995.

Potter, Karl H. Presuppositions of India’s Philosophies. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1991.

Tatia, Nathmal. Studies in Jaina Philosophy. Sanmati Publication 6. Banaras: Jain Cultural Research Society, 1951.

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Identity

by Anil Mundra

Conceptual definition

Most generally, identity is what any thing is. In South Asian philosophy of religion, a most pressing question has always been the question of personal identity: what a person really is. This is usually phrased as the problem of the nature of the self (ātman) in Sanskritic contexts; but these discussions very often involve the more general issues of ontological identification, especially in Jain and Buddhist discussions. What makes something the thing that it is, in contradistinction to other things? Does it possess a stable nature (svabhāva) that defines it? If it does, what is the connection between tokens of a type (sāmānya) of things with the same nature? How to understand a thing’s persistence through time, particularly if it is observed to change—is it the self-same thing after the change, or has the original thing passed out of existence to be replaced by something else?

Philosophical significance

These are questions that have vexed philosophers of various stripes. Many have doubted whether there can be any rigorous concept of identity generalizable across the various contexts in which it is customarily called upon, and whether it is even possible to stipulate the concept without either circularity or incoherence. Part of the problem is that there are at least two basic acceptations of the term: most contemporary metaphysicians prioritize what they call “numerical identity” or “self-sameness”—a thing’s simply being itself—over what is currently the more colloquial sense that classifies an individual in a class with others of its own kind on the basis of some quality, such that an individual can be said to “have” an identity, or even have various identities. This disjunction between what we can call “numerical identity” and “qualitative identity” coheres with an Aristotelian metaphysic that tends to cleave self-subsisting substance from the attributes that it possesses. Some South Asian philosophers, however, resist this presumption of the priority of substance to quality.

Historical context

The earliest Vedic Upanishads are famous for their inquiries into the self and their various grand pronouncements about who and what we really are. They often tend to identify oneself with one’s consciousness, not unlike some early modern Western philosophers, although they do not always equate consciousness with intellection and emotion. The Sāṃkhya philosophy is a radical instance of identifying the person (puruṣa) with consciousness as distinguished from all mental functions and even ego, which are placed along with material objects on the side of heterogeneous nature. The Jain philosophical tradition agrees that consciousness is an essential characteristic of the soul; but this may not exhaust the Jain view of the self.

One of the standard criteria of personal identity is the presupposition, shared amongst all Indian philosophers, that anything deserving to be called one’s true identity must be in some way permanent. Something flitting in and out of existence can hardly be said to count as oneself. But according to scholastic Buddhist metaphysics, everything is in constant flux from moment to moment  and there is nothing at all having a stable nature.

The Jains, as is their wont, countenance both the permanence and impermanence of identity without acquiescing in either one-sided view scouted above. The most authoritative Jain doctrinal handbook—the Sanskrit That Which Is (Tattvārthasūtra) of Umāsvāti/Umāsvāmi—defines an entity as that which is subject to origination, perdurance, and dissolution, thus giving equal place to the stability emphasized by Brahminical philosophers and the momentariness of Buddhists. As Jain philosophers of non-one-sidedness say, indeed, it is just this conjunction of contraries like permanence and impermanence that singles out any thing as the particular thing it is, persisting in its identity through its various states of empirical change.

One of the ways Jain philosophy accomplishes this ostensibly oxymoronic ontology is through a particular view of substance as precisely that which persists amidst change, as well as that in which change is seen to occur—that is, it is both the substrate of change as well as the substratum of attributes, both the basis of numerical identity and of qualitative identity. Moreover, according to Siddhasena’s classic Essay on the Dialectic of Proper Thinking (Sanmatitarkaprakaraṇa), substance and the qualities that it possesses are equally real and inseparable. Haribhadra’s Victory-Flag of Non-One-Sidedness (Anekāntajayapatākā) furthermore suggests that both are equally necessary for the constitution of a thing’s identity. The basic, intuitive thesis of this work is that any real thing is what it is, and is not what it is not—a statement of the meaning of identity if ever there were one. What is at stake in this ostensibly trivial proposition is a certain view of the determinacy of identity: that to be is to exist as something—articulated in terms of attributes determined along various dimensions of predication—and not to exist as something else. To be self-identical, on this analysis, is to possess a certain configuration of qualitative identities.

The distinction between self and other is fundamental for Jain ontology; and it bears also on the more sociological issues involved in the qualitative identities that are most commonly at stake in the discourses of religious studies, namely, religious identities. A non-one-sided view of individuals is partially definitive of what it is to be Jain and not other than Jain. One-sided approaches tend to overemphasize certain kinds of praxis, such as purely gnoseological epiphanies, at the expense of more gradualistic negotiations between body and mind. Part of the way that Jains assert and maintain their religious identity is by philosophizing about identity itself.

Significant references/uses

Cort takes the kernel of Jain ontology to be the relationship of self and other—that is, soul and what is adventitious to it—but also means for this opposition to extend to the social identities of Jains in relation to non-Jains. Johnson has explicated how contestation over Jain views of the soul challenge and maintain the asceticism that is part of Jain social identity, and has suggested that the metaphysics of non-one-sidedness can serve as a bulwark against radical views threatening to obviate the physical rituals that make Jains who they are.

Related terms

Emic

ātman, jīva, puruṣa, svabhāva, śūnyatā, anekāntavāda, kṣaṇikavāda

Etic

Personal identity, qualitative identity, self, soul, momentariness, substance, attribute

References

Barbato, Melanie. Jain Approaches to Plurality: Identity As Dialogue. Leiden ; Boston: Rodopi Bv Editions, 2017.

Cort, John E. “Introduction.” In Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History, edited by John E. Cort, 1–14. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1998.

Ganeri, Jonardon. Identity as Reasoned Choice: A South Asian Perspective on the Reach and Resources of Public and Practical Reason in Shaping Individual Identities. New York: Continuum, 2012.

Johnson, W. J. Harmless Souls: Karmic Bondage and Religious Change in Early Jainism with Special Reference to Umāsvāti and Kundakunda. 1st ed. Lala Sunder Lal Jain Research Series, vol. 9. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1995.

Kapstein, Matthew T. Reason’s Traces: Identity and Interpretation in Indian & Tibetan Buddhist Thought. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001.

Matilal, B. K. “A Note on the Jaina Concept of Substance.” Sambodhi 5, no. 2–3 (1976): 3–12.