Signless Signification in Ancient India and Beyond - Cultural, Historical and Textual Studies of South Asian Religions

Marc Notes: Originally published: 2013.; Includes bibliographical references.; The collection of interdisciplinary essays in this book examines the speculative, linguistic, literary and artistic theories on signless ways of expressing meanings in the context of traditional Indian language and culture. Biographical Note: Tiziana Pontillo is a teacher and research fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Maria Piera Candotti is privat-docent of Sanskrit at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Table of Contents: Preface / Giuliano Boccali -- Part I. Technical and Speculative Reflections on Signless Signification -- Much Ado about Nothing: Unsystematic Notes on sunya / Alberto Pelissero -- Wien One Thing Applies More than Once: tantra and prasanga in Srautasutra, Mimamsa, Grammar / Elisa Freschi, Tiziana Pontillo -- The Earlier Paninian Tradition on the Imperceptible Sign / Maria Piera Candotti, Tiziana Pontillo -- The Infinite Possibilities of Life: Interpretations of the sunyata in the Thinking of Daisaku Ikeda / Paolo Corda -- Part II. Reflections on Signless Signification in Literature and Arts -- Presences and Absences in Indian Visual Arts: Ideologies and Events / Cinzia Pieruccini -- Rethinking the Question of Images (Aniconism vs. Iconism) in the Indian History of Art / Mimma Congedo, Paola M. Rossi -- Denotation in absentia in Literary Language: The Case of Aristophanic Comedy / Patrizia Mureddu -- The Birth of the Buddha in the Early Buddhist Art Schools / Ruben Fais -- Untranslatable Denotations: Notes on Music Meaning Through Cultures / Prema Bhat, Paolo Bravi, Ignazio Macchiarella -- Summary of Papers. Publisher Marketing: The collected essays in this book are the result of a series of workshops held at the University of Cagliari in Italy; this work charts the evolution of key concepts on signless signification of traditional Indian grammar and deals with powerful mechanisms of meaning extension, including rituals and speculative patterns. This collection brings an interdisciplinary approach to the examination of possible relationships between different cultural and linguistic systems of signification.