NSW: Buddhist Studies June Seminar

Australian Association of Buddhist StudiesThe Australasian Association of Buddhist Studies notifies that its next seminar will take place on the evening Thursday 6 June in the Rogers Room (N397), John Wooley Building (A20), University of Sydney. The topic will be Nothing is pure enough for the pure. A note on the ‘Purification of the view’ (diṭṭhi-visuddhi).


 

Nothing is pure enough for the pure. A note on the ‘Purification of the view’ (diṭṭhi-visuddhi)

The structure of the Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga is based on the description of the seven purifications. One of these, the purification of view (diṭṭhi-visuddhi, Vism 587-579), is defined as “correct seeing of name and form” (nāmarūpānaṃ yāthāvadassanaṃ diṭṭhivisuddhi nāma). On the base of understanding Buddhaghosa’s hermeneutic use of nāmarūpa we can interpret his definition of the purification of the view. 

In this paper I will investigate from an historical, linguistic and philosophical point of view how and why Buddhaghosa’s description of the purification of view has been conserved in a medieval Singhalese Pali compendium of the Buddhist teaching, namely, the Sārasaṅgaha. Taking into consideration previous scholars’ understanding of the purification of view section of the Visuddhimagga (e.g. Hamilton 1996, Endo 2015, Heim and Ram-Prasad 2018), I will analyse the original Pali texts and discuss the value of the concept of purity for Buddhaghosa and its evolution in later Medieval Sri Lanka. 

Chiara Neri is Honorary Associate in Sanskrit language and literature in the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics at the University of Cagliari, Italy. She also currently holds a Robert H. No Ho Family Foundation Grants for Critical Editions and Scholarly Translations (An Annotated English and Italian Translation of Select Chapters of the Pali Sārasaṅgaha) and is Visiting Researcher in the Department of Indian Subcontinental Studies at the University of Sydney. Her research predominantly focuses on the study of Pali canonical and commentarial literature from a linguistical, historical and philosophical point of view. She has published numerous research papers in conference proceedings and international journals. Since 2013 she has been engaged with the Prof. Tiziana Pontillo (University of Cagliari) in a research project aimed at tracing the conjunctive and disjunctive linguistic-cultural connections between Vedic and Pali canonical literature.

Details:

6:00-7:30pm on Thursday 6 June in the Rogers Room (N397), John Wooley Building (A20), University of Sydney.

 

Gold leaf covered schist reliquary

Gold leaf covered schist reliquary in the form of a stupa. Kusana period, North Western India. National Museum, Karachi, Pakistan. Copyright: Huntington, John C. and Susan L.Huntington Archive