Lectures on Panini and the Indian grammarians

Between 24th and 28th April 2023, in the framework of the Erasmus+ mobility programme, the Department of Indian Studies will host Andrey Klebanov (University of Vienna), who will deliver three seminars and a lecture on the Indian grammarians in the seminar room of the Department (Ifjúsági ép. I. em. 101).

The topic of the seminars: Syntactic relations in ancient India. An introduction to the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini and its kāraka system

Dates:
24th April 2023, 10:45‒12:15
26th April 2023, 13:00‒14:30
27th April 2023, 10:00‒11:30

The title of the lecture: Write words with two meanings. Indian theories of semantic processing of puns

Abstract of the lecture: Pun, or “double entendre” (śleṣa in Sanskrit), is among the most popular figures of speech employed in Classical Sanskrit belles lettres, allowing poets to exhibit their extraordinary command of language. Difficult to compose, this figure proved similarly challenging to the theoreticians trying to provide its formal description and analyze the mental processes involved in its understanding. In my talk, I will give a general overview of the various categories developed by Indian rhetoricians to examine the figure and focus specifically on their description of semantic processing involved in its understanding. In doing so, I will introduce the influential interpretation proposed by Mammaṭa (11th cent.) in his canonical Kāvyaprakāśa and contrast it with a rather controversial analysis put forward by a later scholar Appayya Dīkṣita (16th cent.) in his largely popular works on poetic theory.

Date:
28th April 2023, 13:00‒14:00

All interested are warmly welcome!