Veranstaltungen
The Dharma of Giving and the Giving of the Dharma: Social and Soteriological Implications of Teachings on Dāna from a Buddhist Heaven
A Lecture by Prof. Dr. Daniel Stuart, University of South Carolina
November 19, 2025, 4:14 pm, Asia-Africa-Institute, East Wing (ESA O 120) and online, for online participation please register via eventbrite
This talk explores a narrative episode in a middle period Buddhist sūtra, the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra to explore implications of teachings on giving (dāna). The narrative presents readers with the motif of the karma mirror, utilized in this instance by the king of the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods, Śakra/Indra, to teach the inhabitants of his realm about low, middling, and high forms of giving and their karmic effects. By elucidating how these teachings are articulated in the text, this talk shows how internal Buddhist debates on giving involved tensions between different kinds of Dharma teachers and around the goals of Dharma teaching at social and soteriological levels of concern.
Daniel M. Stuart is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Carolina. He holds an MA in Sanskrit Literature and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. His research examines the history and transformation of Buddhist contemplative practices from premodern South Asia to the global present. He is the author of Thinking about Cessation (2013), A Less Traveled Path (2015), The Stream of Deathless Nectar (2017), S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight (2020), and Insight in Perspective (2024). Daniel M. Stuart is currently a fellow of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Stiftung at Hamburg University.
The Sacred Groves of Awakening: A Study of the Bodhi Trees of the Buddhas
A Lecture by Prof. Dr. Ujjwal Kumar, University of Calcutta
October 29, 2025, 4:15 pm, online only - please register via eventbrite
In the Theravāda tradition, various enumerations exist regarding the number of Buddhas, yet there is broad consensus on twenty-eight. Each of these Buddhas is described as having attained Awakening beneath a distinct Bodhi Tree. In this paper, I will examine the Bodhi Trees of the twenty-eight Buddhas, situating them within their ritual, cosmological, and textual contexts. Further, the discussion will highlight how Buddhism transformed ordinary trees into enduring sacred symbols, bridging the terrestrial and the divine, the ecological and the soteriological, in the pursuit of Awakening.
Ujjwal Kumar is Professor in the Department of Buddhist Studies at the University of Calcutta. He began his academic career in 2006 as Assistant Professor at Savitribai Phule Pune University and has been with the University of Calcutta since 2016. He holds M.A. degrees in Pali (BHU, Vranasi) and Buddhist Studies (HKU, Hong Kong), and a Ph.D. in Pali (SPPU, Pune). Dr. Kumar’s research focuses on post-10th century Pali literature. At present, he is engaged in an English translation of the Aṅguttaranikāya, supported by the Ministry of Culture, Government of Thailand. In addition, he has developed a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Mental Healing for Fo Guang University, Taiwan.