Guest For
Thursday April 21,
2005
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due to a mishap the program with Dr.
DAVID MELLINS WAS NOT AIRED as
originally scheduled on Wednesday
April 20. It WILL be Aired Thursday April 21.
We apologize to the viewers & the
GUESTS & will also attempt to reschedule the
programs in the time ahead. HHC
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAVID MELLINS Ph.D
Adjunct
Professor of Sanskrit Poetics
Columbia University
drm8@columbia.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More About: DAVID MELLINS Ph.D
Résumé
DAVID MELLINS Ph.D
drm8@columbia.edu
EDUCATION
Columbia University
Ph.D. - Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures
(MEALAC). Sanskrit Poetry and Poetics. Dissertation: The Cool Rays
of Aesthetics and Reasoning: Jayadeva's Candraloka and its its role
in the Evolution of Alamkarasastra. Advised by Dr. Gary Tubb and
Dr. Indira Peterson.
M.Phil. - MEALAC. Sanskrit Poetry and Poetics.
M.A. - MEALAC. South Asian Literature.
B.A. - Religion.
EXPERIENCE
Columbia University - Full Time Lecturer, Department of Middle East
and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC). Courses Instructed:
Intermediate Sanskrit; Classical Indian Literary Theory; Great
Indian Epics.
Lecturer, MEALAC.
Elementary Sanskrit.
Rutgers University - Lecturer, Department of Religion.
Courses Instructed: World Buddhist Traditions;
Introduction to Religions of the Eastern World.
Columbia University - Preceptor, Asian Humanities.
Asian Humanities: Major Texts.
Barnard College - Teaching Assistant, Asian Humanities.
Introduction to Indian Civilizations.
United Nations Development Program - Consultant.
LANGUAGES
Sanskrit; reading ability in Classical Tibetan and Pali;
conversational Nepali; French; Spanish; reading ability in German.
PUBLICATIONS
The Cool Rays of Aesthetics and Reasoning: Candraloka and its its
role in the Evolution of Alamkarasastra (Pratibha Prakashan;
forthcoming).
WORKS IN PROGRESS
"Phoneme as Signifier: Nirdesa and Reflexive Designation In
Jayadeva's Candraloka." Journal Article.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
"A Heatless Fire: Jayadeva Piyusavarsa's Censure of Poetry lacking
Ornamentation." American Oriental Society
RESEARCH ABROAD
Varanasi, India
Kathmandu, Nepal
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABSTRACT (Dissertation)
The Cool Rays of Aesthetics and Reasoning:
Jayadeva’s Candrāloka and its Role in the
Evolution of Ālaükàra÷àstra
This dissertation is an intensive study of Jayadeva’s Candrāloka, a medieval
Indian treatise on poetics, accompanied by a partial translation of the work
and its three principal commentaries from the original Sanskrit. The
dissertation is divided into two parts, the first devoted to the critical
analysis of the text, and the second, the translations and explanations of
selected portions of the treatise and translations of the commentaries to
these portions. The analytical section shows how misleading approaches toward
the history of alakāraśāstra have led modern scholars to neglect the more
innovative contributions of the Candrāloka to Indian poetic theory. It
elucidates Jayadeva’s critique of Mammaa’s Kāvyaprakāśa, one of the more
revered treatises in Sanskrit poetic tradition, and explains how the
Candrāloka restructures the prominent topics in alakāraśāstra in order to
accommodate the evolving analytical dimension within Sanskrit literary
culture. While semantic theory emerges as an essential topic in Sanskrit
poetics in treatises composed at the turn of the first millennium and
thereafter, in the majority of these works, the execution of semantic analysis
occurs at the beginning of works and provides a necessary context for the
authors’ aesthetic positions. In the Candràloka, Jayadeva performs his
semantic investigation subsequently to his technical and aesthetic evaluation
of poetry. Through such a sequence, Jayadeva demonstrates that aesthetic
theory significantly informs the epistemological evaluation of language. This
dissertation argues that by reformulating the relationship between aesthetics
and logic, Jayadeva’s Candràloka serves an important theoretical bridge
between the canonical
posture observed in alaükàra÷àstra works of the early second millennium, such
as the Kàvyaprakà÷a, and the more analytically vigorous theory of poetics
found in the seventeenth century work of Jagannātha Paitarāja.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Heatless Fire: Jayadeva Pīyåùavarùa’s Censure
of Poetry Lacking Figures of Speech
David Mellins,
Ph.D., Lecturer, Columbia University
This paper examines the controversy within Sanskrit literary circles
concerning the requirement of figures of speech in poetry. The investigation
centers around Jayadeva Pīyåùavarùa’s critique in his Candràloka that those
who allow for poetry lacking figures of speech should also allow for fire
lacking heat. While this sarcasm appears to be directed at Mammaña, who in his
Kàvyaprakà÷a states “speech and meaning that is flawless and possesses poetic
qualities (guõa) is poetry, even if it sometimes lacks figures of speech,”
Mammaña in part insulates himself from such criticism, qualifying that when
poetry lacks figures of speech, the figures must still exist in an unmanifest
(asphuña) state. Vaidyanàtha Pàyaguõóa and Gàgàbhatta the two most important
commentators to the Candràloka, present opposing interpretations. Vaidyanàtha
states that Jayadeva’s criticism is only provisional, and that ultimately
Jayadeva intends to affirm Mammaña’s view. Gàgàbhañña, on the other hand,
holds Jayadeva’s critique to be categorical and proceeds to refute Mammaña’s
notion that the presence of ‘unmanifest' figures of speech qualifies speech
and meaning as poetry. While P. V. Kane and Narayana Shastri Khiste have both
identified Jayadeva’s criticism of Mammaña, no one has investigated this
controversy in the light of the commentaries to the Candràloka and those to
the Kàvyaprakà÷a; nor has anyone evaluated Mammaña’s definition of poetry
according to the standards of dhvani formulated by Ānandavardhana in the
Dhvanyàloka. In consideration of these sources, this study concludes that
Jayadeva’s critique points to Mammaña’s deviation from Ānandavardhana’s
interpretation of the relationship between suggestion (dhvani) and figure of
speech (alaükàra) in poetry.
________________________________________________________________________
Thursday
April 21, 2005
/ 10:30 - 11:30 AM / (NYC Time)
Channel 34 of the Time/Warner &Channel 107 of the RCN
Cable Television Systems in Manhattan, New York.
The Program can now be viewed on the internet at the
time of cable casting at:
www.mnn.org
NOTE: You must adjust
viewing to reflect NYC time & click on channel 34 at site
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
