John Nemec
Biographic Data
| ID | 484705 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Nemec |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Nemec |
| SIGNATURE | NEMEC J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Virginia |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi as an Argument against Dharmakīrti
It is well known that the philosophy of the Buddhist epistemologist Dharmakīrti pervasively influenced the Kashmirian Pratyabhijñā philosopher Utpaladeva (fl. ca. 925–975 CE) and, through him, his grand-disciple Abhinavagupta (fl. ca. 975–1025 CE). This chapter will demonstrate the centrality of the same in the thinking of Utpaladeva’s teacher, Somānanda (fl. ca. 900–950 CE), the founding author of the Pratyabhijñā. Somānanda’s magnum opus, the Ś…
What is Religion: Debating the Academic Study of Religion, Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Russell T. McCutcheon
Journal Article What is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion, Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Russell T. McCutcheon Get access What is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion. Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Russell T. McCutcheon. Oxford University Press, 2021. xii + 365 pages. $110.00 (hardcover), $37.99 (paperback), $34.00 (e-book). John Nemec John Nemec University of Virginia [email protected] Search for other works by th…
Daṇḍin’s paspaśa: The influence of the Sanskrit Grammatical Tradition on Sanskrit Poetics
The thesis of this essay is straightforward, even if its implications are reaching: Daṇḍin knew Pāṇinian grammatical works, in particular Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya, and he wished conceptually to mirror and emulate the Sanskrit grammatical tradition in his own analysis of language while simultaneously opening a new dimension of linguistic analysis. Most simply put: Pāṇini and in particular Patañjali offered a model for Daṇḍin’s treatment of language,…
Mapping the Pāśupata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the Śaiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India, by Elizabeth A. Cecil
An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy: The Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta with the Commentary of Yogarāja. Translated by Lyne Bansat-Boudon and Kamaleshadatta Tripathi. Introduction, notes, criticall…
An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy: The Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta with the Commentary of Yogarāja. Translated by Lyne Bansat-Boudon and Kamaleshadatta Tripathi. Introduction, notes, critically revised Sanskrit text, appendix, indices by Lyne Bansat-Boudon. Routledge Studies in Tantric Traditions, vol. 3. London: Routledge, 2011. Pp. 462 + xiv. $150 (paperback rpt., 2013, $42.95
Dying to Redress the Grievance of Another: On prāya / prāyopaveśa(na) in Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī
In this essay, I examine selected narratives in the Rājataraṅgiṇī that invoke a specific practice of suicide by starvation, what is referred to as prāya, prāyopaveśa, and/or prāyopaveśana. Commonly attested in the legal literature as well as in the epics, prāya is normally deployed there to redress financial grievances, to force debtors to pay their due. The use of the practice in the Rājataraṅgiṇī is often quite different from this, however: Kal…
Brahmā's Curse: Facets of Political and Social Violence in Premodern Kashmi. By Walter Slaje
Brahmā's Curse: Facets of Political and Social Violence in Premodern Kashmir. By Walter Slaje. Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis, vol. 13. Halle an der Saale: Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg, 2019. Pp . viii + 53. €48
Hindu Law and Society
Hindu Law is the first comprehensive study of the Sanskrit-language literatures on dharma since the publication of P. V. Kane's five-volume History of Dharmaśāstra. The present essay offers a detailed review of this significant new work's contents and its contributions to the study of the Dharmaśāstras. Particular attention is paid to the various places where Hindu Law revises the historical record or furnishes new insight into religious and othe…
“Translating Texts, Transmitting Tradition: Continuity and Change in Hindu Traditions”
It is well known that religious practitioners have engaged heavily (though of course not exclusively) with written and oral texts across the history of South Asian religions. How, precisely, textual lives-the histories of texts in their production and use and their transformation or translation across linguistic, geographic, sectarian, and temporal spaces-have served to define and shape South Asian religious traditions and Hinduism1 in particular…
Innovation and Social Change in the Vale of Kashmir, circa 900–1250 C.E
Toward a Volitional Definition of Religion
This article advocates for the production of stipulative definitions of religion, a type of nominal definition that articulates new ways of applying a word to a thing. I propose that scholars look to sites where phenomena historically have been labeled “religion” on lexical or real understandings of the term, this to query how religious agents there chose, implicitly or explicitly, to systematize thought, speech, emotion, and action. Such self-co…
Somānanda on the Meaningfulness of Language
The present article examines Somānanda’s understanding of the denotative capacity of speech ( śabda ) as presented in his Śivadṛṣṭi , āhnika four. Somānanda argues that this denotative capacity is innate in words because based in a real sāmānya or universal; that a permanent connection links śabda and its object ( artha ), not convention ( saṃketa ); and that the referent of speech is an object innately imbued with linguistic capacity in the form…
On the contributions of the Śivadṛṣṭi of Somānanda to the Intellectual History of the Pratyabhijñā
In a series of four lectures and in my research program of the last twelve months, I examined the history of Pratyabhijñā thought, primarily through an examination of the philosophical contributions of Somānanda, the founding author of the school. A study of Pratyabhijñā engagement with the realist Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika was followed by an examination of Somānanda's particular contributions to the Pratyabhijñā arguments against the Buddhist Epistemologi…
The Evidence for Somānanda’s Pantheism
Legal Consciousness in Medieval Indian Narratives
In this essay, we make a case for reading narratives from the great story collections of medieval India as evidence of legal consciousness. We attempt to redirect the largely empirical approach of legal consciousness studies toward the literary and historical analysis of Sanskrit texts. In so doing, we move beyond a legal history of India that focuses too narrowly on the texts of Sanskrit jurisprudence. We conclude that such analysis provides ins…
The Two Pratyabhijñā Theories of Error
Translation and the Study of Indian Religions
In this essay, I argue that scholars of Indian religions should produce unbroken translations of heretofore lesser-known texts in order to inform the academy’s understanding of Indian religions. Granting high priority to such a translation agenda is ironic, however, given the Orientalist origins of the scholarly practice in question. Doing so is nevertheless justified by observing the following: (1) the vast majority of Indian religious texts rem…
The Yoga of the Mālin?vijayottaratantra: Chapters 1‐4, 7, 12‐17 – By Somadeva Vasudeva
The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock
Journal Article The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock Get access The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock. University of California Press, 2006. 684 pages. $75.00. John Nemec John Nemec University of Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Amer…
The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple – C. J. Fuller
The Two Pratyabhijñā Theories of Error
The Evidence for Somānanda’s Pantheism
Translation and the Study of Indian Religions
In this essay, I argue that scholars of Indian religions should produce unbroken translations of heretofore lesser-known texts in order to inform the academy’s understanding of Indian religions. Granting high priority to such a translation agenda is ironic, however, given the Orientalist origins of the scholarly practice in question. Doing so is nevertheless justified by observing the following: (1) the vast majority of Indian religious texts rem…
Toward a Volitional Definition of Religion
This article advocates for the production of stipulative definitions of religion, a type of nominal definition that articulates new ways of applying a word to a thing. I propose that scholars look to sites where phenomena historically have been labeled “religion” on lexical or real understandings of the term, this to query how religious agents there chose, implicitly or explicitly, to systematize thought, speech, emotion, and action. Such self-co…
The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock
Journal Article The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock Get access The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock. University of California Press, 2006. 684 pages. $75.00. John Nemec John Nemec University of Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Amer…
The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple – C. J. Fuller
The Yoga of the Mālin?vijayottaratantra: Chapters 1‐4, 7, 12‐17 – By Somadeva Vasudeva
The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock
Journal Article The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock Get access The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. By Sheldon Pollock. University of California Press, 2006. 684 pages. $75.00. John Nemec John Nemec University of Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Amer…
Translation and the Study of Indian Religions
In this essay, I argue that scholars of Indian religions should produce unbroken translations of heretofore lesser-known texts in order to inform the academy’s understanding of Indian religions. Granting high priority to such a translation agenda is ironic, however, given the Orientalist origins of the scholarly practice in question. Doing so is nevertheless justified by observing the following: (1) the vast majority of Indian religious texts rem…
The Two Pratyabhijñā Theories of Error
Legal Consciousness in Medieval Indian Narratives
In this essay, we make a case for reading narratives from the great story collections of medieval India as evidence of legal consciousness. We attempt to redirect the largely empirical approach of legal consciousness studies toward the literary and historical analysis of Sanskrit texts. In so doing, we move beyond a legal history of India that focuses too narrowly on the texts of Sanskrit jurisprudence. We conclude that such analysis provides ins…
The Evidence for Somānanda’s Pantheism
On the contributions of the Śivadṛṣṭi of Somānanda to the Intellectual History of the Pratyabhijñā
In a series of four lectures and in my research program of the last twelve months, I examined the history of Pratyabhijñā thought, primarily through an examination of the philosophical contributions of Somānanda, the founding author of the school. A study of Pratyabhijñā engagement with the realist Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika was followed by an examination of Somānanda's particular contributions to the Pratyabhijñā arguments against the Buddhist Epistemologi…
Somānanda on the Meaningfulness of Language
The present article examines Somānanda’s understanding of the denotative capacity of speech ( śabda ) as presented in his Śivadṛṣṭi , āhnika four. Somānanda argues that this denotative capacity is innate in words because based in a real sāmānya or universal; that a permanent connection links śabda and its object ( artha ), not convention ( saṃketa ); and that the referent of speech is an object innately imbued with linguistic capacity in the form…
“Translating Texts, Transmitting Tradition: Continuity and Change in Hindu Traditions”
It is well known that religious practitioners have engaged heavily (though of course not exclusively) with written and oral texts across the history of South Asian religions. How, precisely, textual lives-the histories of texts in their production and use and their transformation or translation across linguistic, geographic, sectarian, and temporal spaces-have served to define and shape South Asian religious traditions and Hinduism1 in particular…
Innovation and Social Change in the Vale of Kashmir, circa 900–1250 C.E
Toward a Volitional Definition of Religion
This article advocates for the production of stipulative definitions of religion, a type of nominal definition that articulates new ways of applying a word to a thing. I propose that scholars look to sites where phenomena historically have been labeled “religion” on lexical or real understandings of the term, this to query how religious agents there chose, implicitly or explicitly, to systematize thought, speech, emotion, and action. Such self-co…
An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy: The Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta with the Commentary of Yogarāja. Translated by Lyne Bansat-Boudon and Kamaleshadatta Tripathi. Introduction, notes, criticall…
An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy: The Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta with the Commentary of Yogarāja. Translated by Lyne Bansat-Boudon and Kamaleshadatta Tripathi. Introduction, notes, critically revised Sanskrit text, appendix, indices by Lyne Bansat-Boudon. Routledge Studies in Tantric Traditions, vol. 3. London: Routledge, 2011. Pp. 462 + xiv. $150 (paperback rpt., 2013, $42.95
Dying to Redress the Grievance of Another: On prāya / prāyopaveśa(na) in Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī
In this essay, I examine selected narratives in the Rājataraṅgiṇī that invoke a specific practice of suicide by starvation, what is referred to as prāya, prāyopaveśa, and/or prāyopaveśana. Commonly attested in the legal literature as well as in the epics, prāya is normally deployed there to redress financial grievances, to force debtors to pay their due. The use of the practice in the Rājataraṅgiṇī is often quite different from this, however: Kal…
Brahmā's Curse: Facets of Political and Social Violence in Premodern Kashmi. By Walter Slaje
Brahmā's Curse: Facets of Political and Social Violence in Premodern Kashmir. By Walter Slaje. Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis, vol. 13. Halle an der Saale: Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg, 2019. Pp . viii + 53. €48
Hindu Law and Society
Hindu Law is the first comprehensive study of the Sanskrit-language literatures on dharma since the publication of P. V. Kane's five-volume History of Dharmaśāstra. The present essay offers a detailed review of this significant new work's contents and its contributions to the study of the Dharmaśāstras. Particular attention is paid to the various places where Hindu Law revises the historical record or furnishes new insight into religious and othe…
Daṇḍin’s paspaśa: The influence of the Sanskrit Grammatical Tradition on Sanskrit Poetics
The thesis of this essay is straightforward, even if its implications are reaching: Daṇḍin knew Pāṇinian grammatical works, in particular Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya, and he wished conceptually to mirror and emulate the Sanskrit grammatical tradition in his own analysis of language while simultaneously opening a new dimension of linguistic analysis. Most simply put: Pāṇini and in particular Patañjali offered a model for Daṇḍin’s treatment of language,…
Mapping the Pāśupata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the Śaiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India, by Elizabeth A. Cecil
Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi as an Argument against Dharmakīrti
It is well known that the philosophy of the Buddhist epistemologist Dharmakīrti pervasively influenced the Kashmirian Pratyabhijñā philosopher Utpaladeva (fl. ca. 925–975 CE) and, through him, his grand-disciple Abhinavagupta (fl. ca. 975–1025 CE). This chapter will demonstrate the centrality of the same in the thinking of Utpaladeva’s teacher, Somānanda (fl. ca. 900–950 CE), the founding author of the Pratyabhijñā. Somānanda’s magnum opus, the Ś…
What is Religion: Debating the Academic Study of Religion, Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Russell T. McCutcheon
Journal Article What is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion, Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Russell T. McCutcheon Get access What is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion. Edited by Aaron W. Hughes and Russell T. McCutcheon. Oxford University Press, 2021. xii + 365 pages. $110.00 (hardcover), $37.99 (paperback), $34.00 (e-book). John Nemec John Nemec University of Virginia [email protected] Search for other works by th…
Philosophy (16 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (15 works) · Sociology (12 works) · History (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Religious studies (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Literature (6 works)