Articles by Westin Harris
Hanūmānḍhokā Smārikā 2080, 2023
Just beneath the waterspout of an ornate stepwell in the spectacular Mohan Chowk courtyard of Nep... more Just beneath the waterspout of an ornate stepwell in the spectacular Mohan Chowk courtyard of Nepal's Hanumandhoka Palace sits an enigmatic ascetic figure. According to local customs, the position beneath a waterspout is virtually always reserved for an image of the sage Bhagīratha whose penance is said to have brought the goddess Gangā to earth in the form of a river. However, the ascetic figure beneath the Mohan Chowk waterspout is unique, for he wears the accoutrements of an initiated Nāth siddha. In this paper, I marshal art historical and literary evidence to suggest that the Mohan Chowk ascetic could be the beloved siddha par excellence, Gorakṣanāth.
Hanūmānḍhokā Smārikā 2078, 2022
In this paper, I examine Nepalese images from Hanuman Dhoka and Patan Darbar Squares to illuminat... more In this paper, I examine Nepalese images from Hanuman Dhoka and Patan Darbar Squares to illuminate a seventeenth-century phase of innovation in the representation of the eight śmaśānas and eight siddhas, typified by a synthesis of Buddhist and Nāth iconography and the appearance of the eight sages and cemeteries in Śaiva contexts. Notably, I will draw attention to a unique collection of stone reliefs at Hanuman Dhoka Palace that depict Buddhist siddhas wearing siṅgnād janeū, a thread and whistle worn by initiates of the Nāth sampradāya. Collectively, these sites reveal that the appearance of the eight śmaśānas and siddhas in Nepalese Śaiva spaces is more common than scholars have previously suggested.
Conference Papers by Westin Harris
RYI International Conference on Buddhism, Creativity, and Art, 2023
VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/nVto5XaQH-E?t=3945
These are the images from paper presented at t... more VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/nVto5XaQH-E?t=3945
These are the images from paper presented at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute’s International Conference in Buddhism, Creativity, and Art, help April 28-30, 2023 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The corresponding paper will be published in a forthcoming proceedings volume.
Research for this paper was supported by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, the Khyentse Foundation, and the University of California.
Lectures by Westin Harris
Rangjung Yeshe Institute, 2021
Oxford Tibetan Graduate Studies Seminar Lecture Series, 2021
VIDEO AND AUDIO LINK: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/virupa-virupaksa-towards-indo-tibetan-siddha-corp... more VIDEO AND AUDIO LINK: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/virupa-virupaksa-towards-indo-tibetan-siddha-corpus
Lecture slides from my talk @ Oxford Tibetan Graduate Studies.
A previous version of these slides stated that Virūpa(kṣa) was the attributed author of the Amṛtasiddhi. While a number of Tibetan and South Asian texts do attribute authorship of that text to Virūpa, the extent Amṛtasiddhi is actually attributed to one Avadhūtacandra. Therefore, it would be more precise to say Virūpa is the attributed "source" of the Amṛtasiddhi teachings, rather than "author." Thank you to Péter-Dániel Szántó for pointing out this imprecision.
Research for this lecture was funded by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, the Khyentse Foundation, and the University of California.
SOAS Buddhism Inside/Out Lecture Series, 2020
This is the slideshow from my lecture, "Death(lessness) in Tibetan Mahāsiddha Hagiographies," pre... more This is the slideshow from my lecture, "Death(lessness) in Tibetan Mahāsiddha Hagiographies," presented on 11 January 2020 at the Buddhism Inside/Out: Engaging the Dead in Buddhism event at SOAS University of London.
Book Reviews by Westin Harris
Nidan : International Journal for Indian Studies, 2023
In The Archaeology of the Nātha Sampradāya in Western India, 12th to 15th Century, Vijay Sarde ma... more In The Archaeology of the Nātha Sampradāya in Western India, 12th to 15th Century, Vijay Sarde maps sites, images, and texts to clarify our understanding of early Natha history in West India. While the book's title classifies it as a work of archaeology, this timely monograph is impressively interdisciplinary, employing the model of 'cultural landscape' to make sense of what is a vast archive of archaeological, architectural, art historical, epigraphical, and textual sources. Whereas earlier estimates have dated the emergence of the Natha Sampradaya to the early modern period, Sarde marshals letters and stones to argue for a much earlier date, as early as the 12th century CE, largely coinciding with the rise of the Yadava dynasty in the Deccan.
Nidan : International Journal for Indian Studies, 2022
In An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian History and Religions, James McHugh presents “a detailed sur... more In An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian History and Religions, James McHugh presents “a detailed survey of drinks, drinking, and ideas about drinking in premodern India” (2), making it the first monography devoted to this significant lacuna in scholarship. In so doing, the author offers a novel vision of premodern India—one that acknowledges the enormous diversity of Indian approaches to making, consuming, and representing alcoholic drinks. In constructing this vision, McHugh analyses an extensive range of Sanskrit sources dating from the Vedic era to the colonial period.
The Journal of Asian Studies, 2021
It is in this context that Bhatia makes a brief but striking point about the spatiality and its s... more It is in this context that Bhatia makes a brief but striking point about the spatiality and its significance for the ambiguation of Vaishnava identity: "For one of the most remarkable features of precolonial Vaishnavism in Bengal was the lack of a central governing authority-monastery or church-to which the laity could turn to in periods of uncertainty. Instead, Bengali Vaishnavism weaved together charismatic gurus, sacred sites such as the shripat, and a willing population" (p. 72). While Bhatia's presentation focuses on the human authorities in the shripats, this reviewer was struck by the importance of the place itself. Indeed, throughout the book, we find that authority was often claimed through association with some place, particularly Chaitanya's birthplace of Navadwip. So, it begs a question unanswered in the book about the significance of proximity and space in the construction of premodern Vaishnava identities in Bengal and how this prepares the groundwork from a broader Bengali Vaishnava and national identity in the colonial period. This would have been particularly helpful in foreshadowing the discussion of Navadwip as a recovered sacred place in chapter 5, "Utopia and a Birthplace." Bengali national identity is the subject of the third chapter. In this chapter, the idea of space is again elided in favor of the "territorial belonging" (p. 92) and "mapping" (p. 113) of identity onto the vernacular literary history of Bengali/Bangla, specifically through the writings of Dinesh Chandra Sen. In this chapter, Bhatia effectively constructs a global context of romanticism in which folk culture is viewed as a return to purer forms of production and expression. It is in this context that Sen articulates a literary history of Bangla and Bengali identity, from which Chaitanya emerges as an icon of Bengali national and historical identity. Through this process, the reputations of Chaitanya and Bengali Vaishnavism, more generally, underwent radical transformations from their association with the uneducated masses to becoming an integral foundation of Bengali Swadeshi history and culture. This transformation is central to chapter 4, which discusses the journal Shri Bishnupriya Patrika, edited by Kedarnath Datta, its associated collective the Gauranga Samaj, and the formation of a salaried middle-class Bengali Vaishnavism. In line with many of the themes in the previous chapter, Bhatia demonstrates that the emergent presentation of Vaishnavism romantically clings to the idea of the rural, ascetic ideal while using that to reconstruct the popular conception of Vaishnavism for the babu, the educated literate bureaucrats who made up its readership. Unforgetting Chaitanya is well written and researched, and it is a significant contribution to scholarship on religion in Bengal and the reception history of bhakti figures. Because of its pointed focus, it is in-class use might be limited, but it would be extremely useful in graduate courses on religion and colonialism in India, modern Bengali history, or bhakti.
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Articles by Westin Harris
Conference Papers by Westin Harris
These are the images from paper presented at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute’s International Conference in Buddhism, Creativity, and Art, help April 28-30, 2023 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The corresponding paper will be published in a forthcoming proceedings volume.
Research for this paper was supported by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, the Khyentse Foundation, and the University of California.
Lectures by Westin Harris
Lecture slides from my public lecture @ the Rangjung Yeshe Institute
Research for this lecture was funded by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studied, the Khyentse Foundation, and the University of California.
Lecture slides from my talk @ Oxford Tibetan Graduate Studies.
A previous version of these slides stated that Virūpa(kṣa) was the attributed author of the Amṛtasiddhi. While a number of Tibetan and South Asian texts do attribute authorship of that text to Virūpa, the extent Amṛtasiddhi is actually attributed to one Avadhūtacandra. Therefore, it would be more precise to say Virūpa is the attributed "source" of the Amṛtasiddhi teachings, rather than "author." Thank you to Péter-Dániel Szántó for pointing out this imprecision.
Research for this lecture was funded by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, the Khyentse Foundation, and the University of California.
Book Reviews by Westin Harris