Maria Heim

A richly diverse collection of classical Indian terms for expressing the many moods and subtleties of emotional experience Words for the Heart is a captivating treasury of emotion terms drawn from some of India’s earliest classical languages. Inspired by the traditional Indian genre of a “treasury”—a wordbook or anthology of short texts or poems—this collection features 177 jewel-like entries evoking the kinds of phenomena English speakers have variously referred to as emotions, passions, sentiments, moods, affects, and dispositions. These entries serve as beautiful literary and philosophical vignettes that convey the delightful texture of Indian thought and the sheer multiplicity of conversations about emotions in Indian texts. An indispensable reference, Words for the Heart reveals how Indian ways of interpreting human experience can challenge our assumptions about emotions and enrich our lives. Brings to light a rich lexicon of emotion from ancient IndiaUses the Indian genre of a “treasury,” or wordbook, to explore the contours of classical Indian thought in three of the subcontinent’s earliest languages—Sanskrit, Pali, and PrakritFeatures 177 alphabetical entries, from abhaya (“fearlessness”) to yoga (“the discipline of calm”)Draws on a wealth of literary, religious, and philosophical writings from classical IndiaIncludes synonyms, antonyms, related words, and suggestions for further readingInvites readers to engage in the cross-cultural study of emotionsReveals the many different ways of naming and interpreting human experience

A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India

Words for the Heart

What would a Buddhist theory of texts look like through the lens of the 5th-century thinker Buddhaghosa? In Voice of the Buddha, Maria Heim reads from the principal commentator, editor, and translator of the Theravada intellectual tradition, yielding fresh insight into all three collections of the early Pali texts: Vinaya, the Suttas, and the Abhidhamma. Buddhaghosa considered the Buddha to be omniscient, the Buddha's words to be "oceanic." Every word, passage, book--indeed the corpus as a whole--is taken to be "endless and immeasurable" in Buddhaghosa's view. Commentarial practice thus requires disciplined methods of expansion, drawing out the endless possibilities for meaning and application. Heim considers Buddhaghosa's theories of texts, and follows his practices of exegesis to discover how he explored scripture's infinity. By examining the significance of the immeasurability of scripture in commentarial practice and as a general principle, this book offers new tools to understand the huge scriptural and commentarial literature of the Pali tradition. And by taking seriously a traditional commentator's theory of texts, it beckons us to learn from commentaries themselves how we might read and interpret them and the texts on which they comment.

Buddhaghosa on the Immeasurable Words

Voice of the Buddha

Sor-hoon Tan

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

Roy Tzohar

Drawing on a rich variety of Indian texts across multiple traditions, including Vedanta, Buddhist, Yoga and Jain, this collection explores how emotional experience is framed, evoked and theorized in order to offer compelling insights into human subjectivity. Rather than approaching emotion through the prism of Western theory, a team of leading Indian philosophers showcase the unique literary texture, philosophical reflections and theoretical paradigms that classical Indian sources provide in their own right. From solitude in the Saundarananda and psychosomatic theories of disease in the Yogavasistha to female lament in Greek, Sinhala Buddhist and Sanskrit epic tales, their chapters reveal the range and diversity of the phenomena encompassing the English term 'emotion'. In doing so, they contribute towards a more cosmopolitan, comparative and pluralistic conception of human experience. Adopting a broad phenomenological methodology, this handbook reframes debates on emotion within classical Indian thought and is an invaluable resource for researchers and students seeking to understand the field beyond the Western tradition

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Emotions in Classical Indian Philosophy

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Reflections on Dāna

Theories of the Gift in South Asia

Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.

Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency

The Forerunner of All Things

A richly diverse collection of classical Indian terms for expressing the many moods and subtleties of emotional experience Words for the Heart is a captivating treasury of emotion terms drawn from some of India’s earliest classical languages. Inspired by the traditional Indian genre of a “treasury”—a wordbook or anthology of short texts or poems—this collection features 177 jewel-like entries evoking the kinds of phenomena English speakers have variously referred to as emotions, passions, sentiments, moods, affects, and dispositions. These entries serve as beautiful literary and philosophical vignettes that convey the delightful texture of Indian thought and the sheer multiplicity of conversations about emotions in Indian texts. An indispensable reference, Words for the Heart reveals how Indian ways of interpreting human experience can challenge our assumptions about emotions and enrich our lives. Brings to light a rich lexicon of emotion from ancient India Uses the Indian genre of a “treasury,” or wordbook, to explore the contours of classical Indian thought in three of the subcontinent’s earliest languages—Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit Features 177 alphabetical entries, from abhaya (“fearlessness”) to yoga (“the discipline of calm”) Draws on a wealth of literary, religious, and philosophical writings from classical India Includes synonyms, antonyms, related words, and suggestions for further reading Invites readers to engage in the cross-cultural study of emotions Reveals the many different ways of naming and interpreting human experience

Drawing on a rich variety of premodern Indian texts across multiple traditions, genres, and languages, this collection explores how emotional experience is framed, evoked, and theorized in order to offer compelling insights into human subjectivity. Rather than approaching emotion through the prism of Western theory, a team of leading scholars of Indian traditions showcases the literary texture, philosophical reflections, and theoretical paradigms that classical Indian sources provide in their own right. The focus is on how the texts themselves approach those dimensions of the human condition we may intuitively think of as being about emotion, without pre-judging what that might be. The result is a collection that reveals the range and diversity of phenomena that benefit from being gathered under the formal term “emotion”, but which in fact open up what such theorisation, representation, and expression might contribute to a cross-cultural understanding of this term. In doing so, these chapters contribute to a cosmopolitan, comparative, and pluralistic conception of human experience. Adopting a broad phenomenological methodology, this handbook reframes debates on emotion within classical Indian thought and is an invaluable resource for researchers and students seeking to understand the field beyond the Western tradition.

This book explores the ethical and social implications of unilateral gifts of esteem, offering a perceptive guide to the uniquely South Asian contributors to theoretical work on the gift.

Maria Heim

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