Phyllis Granoff
Encyclopedia
Phyllis Emily Granoff is a specialist in Indic
religions. She is currently the Lex Hixon
Professor of World Religions at Yale University
. She also serves as the editor of the Journal of Indian Philosophy
.
, she earned her Ph.D. in Sanskrit
, India
n Studies and Fine Arts from the Harvard University
. She is fluent in numerous Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Prākrit
, Pāli
, Ardha Magadhi, Bengāli
, Hindi
, Āssamese
, Gujarāti
and Oriyā
. In addition, she has some degree of skill in Japanese
, Chinese
, French
and German
.
, University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University, Sorbonne
, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and Yale University. Professor Granoff's work has focused on Indian mythology
, cults, image worship, art, literature, poetry, and medieval Indian law codes. With her husband, Professor Koichi Shinohara, she has written, translated and edited several books, and has published more than 70 journal articles on various topics.
Over the years, Phyllis Granoff has inspired and worked closely with scholars who have revolutionized the study of Indic
religions. One such colleague has been Gregory Schopen
, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, who has been credited with "prompting significant revision to" and "overturning" many "cherished convictions that had long constituted the [core] of Buddhist studies." [1] While acknowledging Phyllis Granoff in one of his works, Professor Schopen writes that he is grateful to Professor Granoff, "who over the years has published my work and given me the consolation of good conversation and shared with me her observations and her always nimble wit." [2]
Images in Asian Religions (2004) is a work which work offers a challenge to any simple understanding of the role of images by looking at aspects of the reception of image worship that have only begun to be studied, including the many hesitations that Asian religious traditions expressed about image worship. Written by eminent scholars of anthropology, art history, and religion with interests in different regions (India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia), this volume takes a fresh look at the many ways in which images were defined and received in Asian religions. Areas addressed include the complex, fluid, and contested nature of the religious image; the reception of images within the intellectual culture of Hinduism and Buddhism; and the importance of historical and cultural context in the study of religious images. [4]
and on other occasions Prakrit
. [5]
The Journey: Stories by Kishor Charan Das (University of Michigan Press, 2000) is a collection of urban stories whose characters are mainly middle class. Kishor Charan Das is one of the more distinguished writers of the Oriyā language. His stories are often about differences between realities and imagination. These are stories about human weaknesses, the fallibility of human relationships, and the strategies we adopt to cope with our failures. They are about coming to terms with unpleasant, sometimes shocking truths about ourselves and others. [6]
: Śrī Harshā's Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya." This book deals with the work of Śrī Harshā, a twelfth century Indian philosopher, who is regarded as "one of the most important intellectual figures to rise within the mature Sanskrit tradition." [7] The Journal of the American Oriental Society reviewer of this work declared it to be "the first conceptually and textually responsible work dealing with Śrī Harshā." [7] In this work, Granoff is praised for providing a different perspective from that of "the Western and neo-Hindu readings of Vedānta," by showing it to be an "existentially earnest, logically sophisticated philosophical position." [7]
Professors Granoff and Shinohara also received praise for their 1992 work titled "Speaking of Monks: Religious Biography in India and China." The reviewer of this book described Granoff and Shinohara to be "experienced masters of the textual sources of the hagiographical traditions with which they deal" and credited them for their "ability to show the relevance of seemingly insignificant details" and their "obvious linguistic familiarity with a variety of literary genres." [8]
A reviewer described Granoff's 2005 translation of Bengali literary giant Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay to be "one of the most satisfying works of vernacular Indian fiction to appear in English translation in years" and commended Granoff on her "masterful translation." [9]
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
religions. She is currently the Lex Hixon
Lex Hixon
Lex Hixon was an accomplished author, poet, and spiritual teacher. He practiced and held membership in several of the world's major great religious traditions, and documented his spiritual explorations in nine books and many articles and teachings given to various groups...
Professor of World Religions at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. She also serves as the editor of the Journal of Indian Philosophy
Journal of Indian Philosophy
The Journal of Indian Philosophy is an academic journal on philosophy published by Springer. The editor in chief is Phyllis Granoff....
.
Academic credentials
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude) in Far Eastern Languages from Radcliffe CollegeRadcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
, she earned her Ph.D. in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n Studies and Fine Arts from the Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. She is fluent in numerous Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Prākrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
, Pāli
Páli
- External links :* *...
, Ardha Magadhi, Bengāli
Bengali
Bengali may refer to something of, from, or related to Bengal, the region roughly divided between West Bengal, Tripura and Bangladesh.* Bengali people, a major linguistic group in South Asia* Bengali Hindu people, the ethnic group native to eastern India....
, Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, Āssamese
Assamese
Assamese refers to "related/associated to or belonging to Assam or the people/culture of Assam". It could mean any of the following or more:* Assamese people, people of Assam* Assamese language...
, Gujarāti
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to anything of or relating to Gujarat, India and may refer directly to the following articles:* Gujarati people* Gujarati language* Gujarati script* Gujarati cuisine* Gujarati culture* Gujarati, a style of sari draping...
and Oriyā
Oriya
Oriya or Odia may refer to:*Oriya cuisine* Oriya people in India* Oriya language* Oriya script* Oriya literature* Oriya cinema...
. In addition, she has some degree of skill in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
Professional history
Professor Granoff has taught at numerous institutions, including the Austrian-American Institute, McMaster UniversityMcMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
, University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University, Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and Yale University. Professor Granoff's work has focused on Indian mythology
Indian mythology
Indian mythology may refer to:*Indian epic poetry*Vedic mythology*Hindu mythology*Buddhist mythology*Native American mythology...
, cults, image worship, art, literature, poetry, and medieval Indian law codes. With her husband, Professor Koichi Shinohara, she has written, translated and edited several books, and has published more than 70 journal articles on various topics.
Over the years, Phyllis Granoff has inspired and worked closely with scholars who have revolutionized the study of Indic
Indic
Indic can refer to:* Indo-Aryan languages* Indic scripts* Related to the Indian Subcontinent* of or related to India ; see Indica...
religions. One such colleague has been Gregory Schopen
Gregory Schopen
Gregory Schopen is a Buddhist historian, and Professor at University of California, Los Angeles, chair of the Department of Asian Languages & Cultures.He was born in Deadwood, South Dakota....
, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, who has been credited with "prompting significant revision to" and "overturning" many "cherished convictions that had long constituted the [core] of Buddhist studies." [1] While acknowledging Phyllis Granoff in one of his works, Professor Schopen writes that he is grateful to Professor Granoff, "who over the years has published my work and given me the consolation of good conversation and shared with me her observations and her always nimble wit." [2]
Anthologies
Pilgrims, Patrons and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions (2003) is a book which brings together essays by anthropologists, scholars of religion, and art historians on the subject of sacred place and sacred biography in Asia. The chapters span a broad geographical area that includes India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, and China, and explore issues from the classical and medieval period to the present. They show how sacred places have a plurality of meanings for all religious communities and how in their construction, secular politics, private religious experience, and sectarian rivalry can all intersect. The contributors explore some of the most fundamental challenges that religious groups face as they expand from their homeland or confront the demands of modernity. In every case the biography of a saint or founding figure proves to be central to the formation of religious identity. Sacred place becomes a means of concretizing the ever-expanding sphere of the saint’s influence. [3]Images in Asian Religions (2004) is a work which work offers a challenge to any simple understanding of the role of images by looking at aspects of the reception of image worship that have only begun to be studied, including the many hesitations that Asian religious traditions expressed about image worship. Written by eminent scholars of anthropology, art history, and religion with interests in different regions (India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia), this volume takes a fresh look at the many ways in which images were defined and received in Asian religions. Areas addressed include the complex, fluid, and contested nature of the religious image; the reception of images within the intellectual culture of Hinduism and Buddhism; and the importance of historical and cultural context in the study of religious images. [4]
Translations
The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval Jain Stories (Penguin, 1998) is a translation of numerous medieval Jain stories drawn from texts dating from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries CE, focusing on the Indic concept of renunciation. The stories translated in this book have been very carefully selected to explore numerous themes central to Jainism and medieval Indian culture. The original language for these stories is sometimes SanskritSanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
and on other occasions Prakrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
. [5]
The Journey: Stories by Kishor Charan Das (University of Michigan Press, 2000) is a collection of urban stories whose characters are mainly middle class. Kishor Charan Das is one of the more distinguished writers of the Oriyā language. His stories are often about differences between realities and imagination. These are stories about human weaknesses, the fallibility of human relationships, and the strategies we adopt to cope with our failures. They are about coming to terms with unpleasant, sometimes shocking truths about ourselves and others. [6]
Academic recognition
Phyllis Granoff first received academic recognition for her 1978 book titled "Philosophy and Argument in Late VedāntaVedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
: Śrī Harshā's Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya." This book deals with the work of Śrī Harshā, a twelfth century Indian philosopher, who is regarded as "one of the most important intellectual figures to rise within the mature Sanskrit tradition." [7] The Journal of the American Oriental Society reviewer of this work declared it to be "the first conceptually and textually responsible work dealing with Śrī Harshā." [7] In this work, Granoff is praised for providing a different perspective from that of "the Western and neo-Hindu readings of Vedānta," by showing it to be an "existentially earnest, logically sophisticated philosophical position." [7]
Professors Granoff and Shinohara also received praise for their 1992 work titled "Speaking of Monks: Religious Biography in India and China." The reviewer of this book described Granoff and Shinohara to be "experienced masters of the textual sources of the hagiographical traditions with which they deal" and credited them for their "ability to show the relevance of seemingly insignificant details" and their "obvious linguistic familiarity with a variety of literary genres." [8]
A reviewer described Granoff's 2005 translation of Bengali literary giant Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay to be "one of the most satisfying works of vernacular Indian fiction to appear in English translation in years" and commended Granoff on her "masterful translation." [9]
Works cited
- Dan, A. "A Review of Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks." http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew99061.htm
- Schopen, G. "Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks." Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2000 (pp. xii) http://books.google.com/books?id=rxdZ-BVNm_IC&pg=PR12&lpg=PR12&dq=gregory+schopen+phyllis+granoff&source=web&ots=TnVzk25HF_&sig=Lk2Y3zefAZvVtuv72-4oLmfghSQ#PPR8,M1
- University of British Columbia Press http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=3013
- University of British Columbia Press http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=3198
- Product Details & Reviews, Amazon.com http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0140437223
- Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan Press http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=19321
- Alper, H. "Journal of the American Oriental Society" JSTOR, 103:3 (1983) http://www.jstor.org/view/00030279/ap020255/02a00440/0?frame=noframe&userID=8024496e@yale.edu/01cce4405b00501ba4830&dpi=3&config=jstor
- Strong, J.S. "Journal of Asian Studies" JSTOR (1994) http://www.jstor.org/view/00219118/di973763/97p0025a/0
- Choudhury, C. "The World of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay." The Middle Stage (18-Sept-05) http://middlestage.blogspot.com/2005/09/world-of-bibhutibhushan-bandyopadhyay.html