【Date】
July 21 (Thu), 5:00-6:00 p.m.

【Venue】
1st Meeting Room (3F), Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo

【Speaker】
Nicholas Witkowski (Visiting Fellow, IASA, The University of Tokyo)

【Title】
Utilizing Narrative Elements from a Normative Textual Tradition to Develop an Anthropology of the Ascetic Practice in the Earliest Indian Buddhist Monastery

【Commentator】
Katsuo Nawa (Professor, IASA, The University of Tokyo)

【Abstract】
The methodological challenge of extracting historical data from a normative text emerges as a topic of concern over and over again for scholars of Indian Buddhism. The difficulty of locating Buddhist scriptures either geographically or temporally, (with the lack of references within these documents to historically datable figures), has led many scholars to disqualify much of the information found in the Buddhist scriptures from the category of historical data. In this paper, I will present a new methodological approach (employing an anthropological framework), focusing on one aspect of monastic life mentioned in Indian Buddhist scriptures (ascetic practice) in order to further the social history of the early Buddhist monastery.

※ Seminar will be held in English.