Monday, November 30th, 2009 A Buddhist Anthropology of Newar religion: Gaṇeśa, His Mount, and Their Landscape

Description

A recurring problem in trying to understand Newar Buddhism is the nature, more generally, of Newar religion: how do Hinduism and Buddhism interact? If we approach the problem through Newar Buddhist philosophy, or through Newar narratives, practices and iconography it becomes clear that the very notion of religious tradition, embedded in Western theories of syncretism, is itself the stumbling block. The Newar Gaṇeśa (or Ināya) — necessary to Newar daily rituals, life cycle rituals, and the organization of urban space — holds the key to an anti-essentialist, relational understanding of ‘religion’. In this talk I will show not just how the study of Gaṇeśa frees us from the chains of syncretism, but also that a small but significant difference—between a shrew and a rat—in the iconography of the regional ‘Hindu’ Gaṇeśa and the Newar Ināya allows us to trace Newar awareness of their distinctive inclusive ritual praxis back at least to the 15th century.

Will Tuladhar-Douglas teaches anthropology of religion and the environment and Buddhism at the University of Aberdeen and ethnoecology at the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. He also directs the Scottish Centre for Himalayan Research. His first book, Remaking Buddhism for Medieval Nepal, was a historical study of the emergence of Newar Buddhism as a distinct tradition in the 15th century. He is presently working on his second book, Ecology, Ethnicity and Religion: social relations among human and nonhuman persons in Central Nepal.