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SUMMARY:Conceptual Metaphors and Soteriology in early Hindu and Buddhist M
 editation Text
DTSTART:20261116T150000Z
DTEND:20261116T163000Z
DTSTAMP:20261003T033600Z
UID:metaphor-talk-16-11-2026-14109@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Guest lecture by Karen O'Brien-Kop (King’s College London)T
 his talk examines paths to liberation in early Hindu and Buddhist Sanskrit
  meditation treatises\, such as the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and Pātañja
 layogaśāstra\, through the lens of conceptual metaphor theory (e.g. Lako
 ff and Johnson 1980\; Fauconnier and Turner 2003\; Gibbs 2017\; Kövecses 
 2020\; Rodríguez 2025). It argues that soteriological goals such as mok
 ṣa or nirvāṇa are complex systems of conceptual metaphors that are de
 rived from bodily experiences of the material world. We will analyse prima
 ry metaphors of mind and meditation in early Indic soteriology and then cr
 itically inspect them to show how such metaphors were constructed within r
 eal-world agrarian and urban economies in the early first millennium. The 
 lecture explores how these and other basic conceptual metaphors arise from
  sensory experience in physical environments and from preconceptual struct
 ures (e.g. up/down) derived from visceral human practices and embodiment. 
 Drawing on the framework of conceptual metaphor theory\, the talk employs 
 tools such as image-schema (pre-linguistic or pre-verbal)\, domain-mapping
 \, root metaphors\, metaphor networks and blended metaphors to understand 
 simple and complex variations such as ‘seeds of karma’\, ‘clouds of 
 dharma’\, or ‘ladders of liberation’\, giving us access to the deep 
 semantic field of these common images. Using metaphor theory to analyse me
 ditation texts enriches understanding of both text and embodied world-maki
 ng. On the one hand\, we see that meditation was materially determined\, a
 nd textual metaphors tell us about the material world in which they were p
 roduced. On the other hand\, it is only through conceptual metaphors that 
 the abstractions of soteriology can sustain meaning. The resulting structu
 ral and functional analysis is to ‘denaturalise’ certain assumptions a
 bout meditation\, including ‘mystical’ foundations.
LOCATION:GB 5/150–152 “Ruhrpott”
URL:https://sfb1475.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/event/metaphor-talk-16-11-2026/
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