There will be two talks on the intellectual history of ancient India to be given at the Institute for the Liberal Arts on the Karasuma Campus of Doshisha University near Imadegawa Station.

https://ila.doshisha.ac.jp/en/access_map/access_map.html


All are welcome; no reservations needed.


Thursday, May 30, 5:00~6:00pm, Room SK113
"'Occasions both Worldly and Transcendent': Sacred Trees in Buddha's India"
Nearly all of the key moments and teachings of the Buddha's life occur in the presence of specific, named trees or groves. This talk provides a map of the "treescape" of early Buddhism and explores particular, named trees in the Pali canon and commentaries to understand how they structure the Buddha's life and teachings. Exploring specific sacred trees in the Buddha's life story puts us on the ground in the localized physical geography of Buddha's India even as they serve as vectors of transcendent meaning and power.


Wednesday, June 5, 6:30-7:30pm, Room SK121
"The Landscape of Remorse"
This talk discusses ways of studying the phenomenology of emotions in ancient texts. As a case study it tracks remorse and similar emotions of self-assessment across several different classical Indian textual traditions, to consider whether remorse is a valuable moral sentiment.


Dr. Maria Heim (BA Reed, PhD Harvard), Professor of Religion, Amherst College
Dr. Heim is an expert on the intellectual, philosophical, religious, and literary history of ancient India and teaches courses in these areas, with a particular emphasis on Buddhism. She works in two classical Indian languages, Sanskrit and Pali. Dr. Heim's current projects are focused on emotions in classical Indian thought across many genres.


Selected Publications:
The Voice of the Buddha: Buddhaghosa on the Immeasurable Words. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Theories of the Gift in South Asia: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Reflections on Dāna. New York: Routledge, 2004.