Dr Jack Beaulieu: Udayana on Familiar Epistemic Situations
The notion of familiar epistemic situations (abhyāsadaśā) serves an important set of theoretical roles in Nyāya. Authors such as Vācaspati appeal to the notion of familiarity to solve a regress problem that traces back to Nāgārjuna, while authors like Udayana and Gaṅgeśa understand unfamiliar epistemic situations (anabhyāsadaśā) to constitute cases in which, intuitively, one is not in a position to learn that one learned. This talk explores Udayana's remarks on this distinction in his Pariśuddhi, one of the few systematic Nyāya accounts available.
Jacob Parkinson: Relishing In-Itself and For-Itself: A Problem of Interpretation in Abhinavagupta
In his monumental Abhinavabhāratī, Abhinavagupta adopts, from Bhaṭṭa‐Nāyaka, a crucial distinction between two modes of relishing (āsvāda): the relishing of aestheticized emotions (rasāsvāda) and the relishing of the Absolute (brahmāsvāda). Rasāsvāda denotes a transfigured emotional experience elicited through poetry, theatre, and the arts—a form of enjoyment mediated by the objects of an artistic presentation. In contrast, brahmāsvāda refers to an unmediated, immediate relishing of brahman, the ultimate ground of being. The distinction continues to pose interpretive challenges regarding the relationship between Abhinavagupta’s aesthetics and his Tantric philosophy; exploring how these two forms of relishing converge and diverge, this presentation highlights broader implications for Abhinavagupta's work as a whole.
