Lecture | VVIK
The dohada Motif in Ancient Biographies of the Buddha
- Date
- Monday 26 February 2024
- Time
- Location
-
- Room
- Verbarium (1.04)
The Vereniging 'Vrienden van het Instituut Kern' is pleased to invite you to the lecture of
Dr. Dmitry Komissarov, (Gonda Fellow at the IIAS), entitled "The dohada Motif in Ancient Biographies of the Buddha".
The dohada Motif in Ancient Biographies of the Buddha
Dohada is a Sanskrit and Prakrit term for unusual desires of a pregnant woman. Such desires were a popular motif in ancient Indian narrative literature. It can also be found in ancient biographies of the Buddha. Queen Māyā, pregnant with a Bodhisattva, suddenly expressed a desire to go to the park, and there she gave birth to her son. In different texts, this motive takes on different forms. The whims of the pregnant queen are sometimes presented in the form of a list in which the desire to take a walk in the park is mentioned side by side with the intention to perform dharmic deeds. In this lecture I will try to show how the motif developed in the Buddha’s biographies and how the desire to go to the park can be associated with the intention to follow the Dharma.
The lecture will be followed by drinks in the basement of Matthias de Vrieshof 3.
About the speaker
Dmitry Komissarov graduated from the Russian State Humanitarian University in Moscow in 2008 with a master degree in Indian Philology. At the same university in 2012, he defended his dissertation on “Lalitavistara as an example of Buddhist hagiography.” Currently he teaches Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist literature at the Higher School of Economics (Moscow); he is also the head of the bachelor’s programme “Languages and Literatures of India”. His research interests include Buddhist hagiography, Buddhist canonical and narrative literature, and Sanskrit medieval comedies. For the last few months, Dmitrii has been working in Leiden as a J. Gonda fellow, researching the influence of the medieval Indian comedy tradition on the biographies of Buddha.