Monday 2nd May

Lecture Room XXIII, Balliol College

6.15pm (PLEASE NOTE THE DIFFERENT START TIME)

Dr. Marie-Hélène Gorisse (SOAS)

Who can infer the existence of God from the concept of ‘product’? Genealogy of a Buddhist refutation.

In his Īśvarasādhanadūṣaṇam, Ratnakīrti (11th c.) attacks the thesis according to which God exists as the creator of the world. Ratnakīrti’s multi-layered refutation is a witness of the history of debate in classical India, because it displays changes of focus and of technical terminology, which are indicators of the fact that specific philosophical problems were overcome thanks to the development of new theories concerning the art of debating. This lecture aims at showing the impact of these philosophical transitions on the main argumentation over God, especially in relation to the conception of probative inferential evidence.

Thursday 19 May

Wolfson College

5.30pm

Mr Alex Wrona (University of Vienna)

An Arabic Dhamma? – On Sri Lankan Theravadins in the Sultanate of Oman

There are currently around 14,000 Sri Lankan expatriates in Oman, at least half of which settled in Muscat, the Sultanate’s capitol. Most of them follow Theravāda Buddhism. Only little research has been done on the modern phenomenon of Asian migrant workers in the Gulf, and nearly exclusively from a social or legal perspective. In this lecture, the focus is on Theravāda Buddhism as constituted in the Sultanate of Oman, namely in the community of the Sri Lankan expatriates. It would appear that this community has not been studied in such a way before.

Mr Wrona will present parts of the results of his ethnographic research in the Sri Lankan community in Muscat, carried out from September 2015 to December 2015. He will try to explain the major aspects of the situation the Sri Lankan community in Oman finds itself in and investigate how the Theravāda Buddhists within this community experience and develop their religious identity, being a religious and ethnic minority in an Arab-muslim majority country. It will thereby become clear that this process of religious identity building can at least partly be understood as a result of mechanisms of transnationalism.

Lingyin Lectures in Buddhist Studies – Trinity Term 2016

May 16th and May 30th 2016, h. 5.15pm

The Oriental Institute, Pusey Lane, Oxford OX1 2LE

Lecture Room no. 1

PLEASE NOTE:

Unfortunately, Prof. Nicoletta Celli’s lecture (“The Dawn of Buddhist Art in China: Reflections on the Image of the Buddha in Meditation”), originally scheduled for Monday May 16th, has been cancelled.

Monday, May 30th 2016:

“Mahāyāna in Gandhāra”.

Prof. Dr. Ingo Strauch (Université de Lausanne)

All are welcome to attend.

For information, please contact: stefano.zacchetti@orinst.ox.ac.uk