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God and Consciousness in
INDIAN TRADITIONS

Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Worcester College, University of Oxford, UK

May 15-17, 2024

 

Click here to watch the recorded sessions

Click here to download the program of the conference

Divinity in some theistic (or theistically inclined) Indian religions is often conceived monotheistically, as a supreme OmniGod (much like in Western accounts of God). Monotheistic conceptions of God occur in Śaivism, Śaktism, Vaiṣṇavism, Sikhism as well as Indian reiterations of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. There are also arguably monotheistic concepts of God given by the Indian philosophical schools (darṣanas), such as Vedānta, Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā, and Yoga.

Despite the evidence for a general Indian religious disposition towards monotheism, Indian concepts of God can exhibit certain peculiarities that distance them from the traditional idea of monotheism. For example, some Indian conceptions of God revolve around God’s being united with the world and finite conscious beings in various ways. This is the heart of the famous Vedānta debate about the relationship between Brahman - the ultimate conscious reality - and the rest of existence, and of a wide variety of theistic views on the relation between ultimate conscious reality and the world. Interpretations range through idealism, qualified monism, dualism, and a mixture of monism and dualism (as in the different theories of bhedābheda, or difference and non-difference).

The reference to consciousness (in the expressions “conscious beings” and “ultimate conscious reality”) is not gratuitous. Philosophical Indian traditions such as Vedānta and Sāṅkhya have developed sophisticated ontological views on consciousness. These views have strongly influenced and been influenced by Indian theistic traditions. For example, in the Bhavagad Gītā - a key Vedānta text strongly informed by Sāṅkhya (or proto-Sāṅkhya) thought - matter is seemingly given a cognitive aspect that somehow intermediates the conscious experience of ordinary living beings. But the Gītā also says that God is the source (prabhava) of consciousness and matter. While matter and consciousness are fundamental aspects of reality, in God they have a common ontological ground. Depending on how a specific theistic tradition interprets this, its concept of God might imply some kind of theory of consciousness.

Against this background, two sets of questions arise, which in current debates are often overlooked or are only partially addressed. The first relates to the nature and tenability of concepts of God; the second concerns the nature of consciousness. On the first set of questions, one might ask:

 

  • Can concepts of God in Indian traditions be regarded monotheistic in the Western sense of the term? Or are they closer to panentheism, theistic pantheism, henotheism or polytheism? 

  • What divine properties do the traditions ascribe to their respective divinity or sets of divinity? 

  • Can the corresponding concepts of God be described in a consistent way? And Is it sensible to presuppose that they should be describable in such a way? 

  • Do any of these concepts of God possess an advantage over Western philosophical accounts of God?

On the second set of questions, it could be asked:

  • Which views on consciousness are presupposed by Indian concepts of God? 

  • How can these views be philosophically articulated? 

  • What are their advantages and disadvantages compared to standard accounts of consciousness found in Western analytical philosophy? 

  • Furthermore, are these accounts compatible with a scientific worldview? Can the concept of God contribute to a scientifically consistent theory of consciousness?

Call for Complete Papers

 

We are pleased to announce that the Call for Papers for our post-event publications is now open. There will be two publications:

  1. A philosophy journal special issue on God and Consciousness in Indian Traditions: Analytic Perspectives, guest-edited by Benedikt Göcke and Medhanada Swami, and

  2. A volume on Concepts of God in Indian Religious Traditions, co-edited by Ricardo Silvestre, Alan Herbert, and Purushottama Bilimoria, to be published in the Springer book series Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures

Papers addressing issues of consciousness will be considered for publication in (1), while papers focusing exclusively on concepts of God will be considered for publication in (2). All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process. Please submit a PDF version of your paper to god.and.consciousness@gmail.com by June 2025. Early submissions will be considered. Papers should be anonymized and should not exceed 10,000 words. Notification of acceptance will be sent by December 2025.

Plenary Talks

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Gavin Flood

 University of Oxford, UK

   

Is God Conscious? Reflections on Śākta-Śaiva Ideas of Transcendence and Immanence

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Anand Jayprakash Vaidya

 San Jose State University, USA

    

Does and Could Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta concern itself with the Hard Problem of Consciousness?

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Benedikt Paul Göcke

Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

    

Karl Christian Friedrich Krause’s Panentheism and the Vedic Traditions

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Timothy O'Connor

Indiana University, USA

God, Consciousness, and Cosmos: Prospects for a Non-illusory Theistic Monism

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Amit Chaturvedi

 University of Hong Kong, China

    

Of Micropsychism, Memory, and Maheśvara: Utpaladeva on God as the Unifier of Consciousness

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Joanna Leidenhag

University of Leeds, UK

    

Panpsychism and Divine Embodiment

Contributed Talks

  • A Bare Theism for a Fully General Comparative Philosophy of Religion, Ravi M. Gupta and Mike Ashfield (Utah State University, USA) 

  • A Comparative Analysis of Brahman and the Anselmian Being: Exploring Divine Concepts through the Bhagavad Gita, Saheba Saxena (University of Lincoln, UK)

  • Advaita Vedānta and the God-World Relation, Thomas Oberle (University of Alberta, Canada)

  • Ascending Concepts of God in the Bhagavad-gītā, Ithamar Theodor (Zefat Academic Colege, Israel)

  • Between Theism and Atheism: A Jain Paradigm of God, Jinesh R. Sheth (University of Birmingham, UK)

  • Can the Bhagavad Gītā Explain the Existence of Consciousness? Akshay Gupta (Independent scholar)

  • Consciousness, Agency, and Moral Responsibility in Vedānta, Brett Parris (Balliol College, University of Oxford, UK)

  • Decombining Perspectives: A Kashmiri Śaivist View of Cosmopsychism, Munema Moiz (University of Toronto, Canada)

  • Divine Consciousness as Linguistic Consciousness: The Trika Śaiva adaptation of Bhartṛhari’s levels of language as they relate to divine potency, union, and revelationVeronica Benjamin (Independent scholar affiliated with Ishvar Parvat Samvidālaya Library, India)

  • Gauḍīya Vaisnavism and Personal Identity: A Reductionist Approach, Alan Herberth (Oxford Centre fo Hindu Studies, UK)

  • Looking at the Prakṛti-Puruṣa dichotomy through the lens of Feminist Materialism: A Critique of Western Hegemonic Dichotomies and a New Perspective on Dualism, Sarnali Chatterjee (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)

  • Panentheism and the Contradictory God in a Bhedābheda Vedānta Tradition, Ricardo Sousa Silvestre (Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil)

  • Śiva's Creative Pulsation: A Theistic Understanding of Consciousness and Matter, Klara Margareta Agnes Hedling (University of New Mexico, USA)

  • The universe as aṁśa of Brahman: Towards a Viśiṣṭādvaitic existence-cosmopsychism, S Siddharth (Sai University, India)

  • The Vaiṣṇava Vedānta approach to subjective awareness, Shivanand Sharma (University of Birmingham, UK)

Venue

Organization

The conference is hosted by the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

 

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITTEE

  • Alan Herbert, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, UK (chair)

  • Gabriel Reis de Oliveira, Saint Louis University, USA

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

  • Ricardo Sousa Silvestre, Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil (chair)

  • Yujin Nagasawa, University of Oklahoma, USA

  • Monima Chadha, Monash University, Australia

  • Swami Medhananda, UCLA and University of Southern California, USA

  • Ananya Barua, University of Delhi, India

  • Dilip Loundo, University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil

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Submission (closed)

We invite submissions of contributed papers that address the above questions in relation to specific Indian traditions. Abstracts must have a maximum of 3000 characters and be written in English. They must be submitted by March 1, 2024, through the e-mail god.and.consciousness@gmail.com, with the subject “Submission to the Oxford Conference”. In the body of the message, the author should state whether the paper will be presented in-person or online (preference will be given to in-person presentations). Notification of acceptance will be released on March 11, 2024.

Selected papers presented at the conference will be published in one of the publications of the project, including the journal special issue on “Indian Theistic Traditions and the Philosophical Debate on Consciousness” which is being edited by Benedikt Paul Göcke (Ruhr University Bochum) and Swami Medhananda (UCLA and University of Southern California).

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Sponsorship

This is the first conference of the project Concepts of God and the Variety of Theisms in Indian Traditions: Towards a Theistic Theory of Consciousness, hosted by the Brazilian Association for the Philosophy of Religion and supported by funding totaling $260,000 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in its talks are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

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