21. Philipp Maas | What is Sāṅkhya Philosophy?

In this episode we speak with return guest Dr. Philipp Maas about
the ancient school of Sāṅkhya—which he describes as India's
philosophy par excellence for its wide and enduring influence on
Indian culture. Giving us a taste of his upcoming course: YS 204
| The Sāṅkhyakārikā: Stanzas on All-Embracing Insight,  Maas
discusses Sāṅkhya‘s relationship with the Yoga of Patañjali, and
dives into the Kārikā—the oldest surviving text of the tradition.
We discuss what little we know about the work's author
Īśvarakṛṣṇa, its roots in the lost treatise, the ancient
Śaṣṭitantra, and much more.

Speaker Bio
Philipp Maas is currently a research associate at the
Institute for Indology and Central Asian Studies, University of
Leipzig in Germany, where he works on a digital critical edition
of the Nyāyabhāṣya, a Sanskrit work on spiritual liberation
through proper reasoning. Previously he had served as an
assistant professor and postdoc researcher at the Department of
South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of
Vienna, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of
Bonn Germany.


He received his M.A. (1997) and Dr. phil. (2004) degrees from the
University of Bonn, where he had completed studies in Indology,
Comparative Religious Studies, Tibetology and Philosophy. His
first book (originally his PhD thesis) is the first critical
edition of the first chapter (Samādhipāda) of the Pātañjala
Yogaśāstra, i.e. the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali together with the
commentary called Yoga Bhāṣya. He has published extensively on
classical Yoga and Sāṅkhya philosophy and meditation, Āyurveda,
the relationship of Pātañjalayoga to Buddhism as well as on the
textual tradition of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra. He is a member of
the “Historical Sourcebooks on Classical Indian Thought” project,
convened by Prof. Sheldon Pollock, to which he contributes with a
monograph on the development of Yoga-related ideas in pre-modern
South Asian intellectual history.  


Links


YS 204 | The Sāṅkhyakārikā: Stanzas on All-Embracing Insight

https://uni-leipzig.academia.edu/PhilippMaas