Table Of ContentTraversing the Heart
Studies in Religion
and the Arts
Editorial Board
James Najarian
Boston College
Eric Ziolkowski
Lafayette College
VOLUME 2
Traversing the Heart
Journeys of the Inter-religious Imagination
Edited by
Richard Kearney and Eileen Rizo-Patron
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2010
Cover Photograph: Vishvakarma (Cave 10, interior), c. 700 CE. Excavated basalt rock.
Ellora, India. Photograph: Mary M. Anderson.
Āis book is published before as the journal Religion and the Arts Volume 12 (1–3)
2008
Āis b ook is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Traversing the heart : journeys of the inter-religious imagination /
edited by Richard Kearney and Eileen Rizo-Patron.
p. cm. — (Studies in religion and the arts ; v. 2)
Chiefly proceedings of a conference held in June 2007 in Bangalore, India.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-18380-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Religions—Relations—Congresses. I. Kearney, Richard.
II. Rizo-Patron, Eileen. III. Title. IV. Series.
BL410.T74 2010
201’ .5—dc22
2010006586
ISSN 1877-3192
ISBN 978 90 04 18380 3
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Āe N etherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
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printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ............................................................................... ix
List of Color Plates ............................................................................. xi
List of Black/White Illustrations ...................................................... xiii
Introduction: A Pilgrimage to the Heart
Richard Kearney .............................................................................. 1
TRAVERSALS (I): HINDU-CHRISTIAN
1. Āe Bangalore Conference
Open-Source Hinduism ..................................................................... 35
Siddhartha
Yoga and the Wounded Heart ......................................................... 43
Jyoti Sahi
On Spirituality and Organized Religion: Conversations With .... 81
Raghu Ananthanarayanan
Empathy and Inter-Religious Imagination ..................................... 107
Catherine Cornille
Inclusive Imagination: A Comment on Religion and Culture
in India ............................................................................................. 123
Chandan Gowda
My Adventure with Inter-Religious Dialogue ............................... 127
Joseph A. Samarakone, O.M.I.
A Monk’s Journey in Search of God ............................................... 141
Simon Sleeman, O.S.B.
Embodied Consciousness in Tantric Yoga and the
Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty ............................................. 147
James Morley
Confessions of a Hindu-Catholic Artist ......................................... 167
Caroline Mackenzie
vi contents
2. In the Wake of Bangalore
Āe Heart Beyond Hearts .................................................................. 193
Swami Tyagananda
Childhood, Intuition, Vocation: Remembering Sara Grant ........ 197
Fanny Howe
Arunachala ........................................................................................... 203
Shirley du Boulay
Āe Lord of the Heart: Abhinavagupta’s Aesthetics and
Kashmir Śaivism ............................................................................. 219
Bettina Bäumer
Encountering the Divine Mother in Hindu and Christian
Hymns .............................................................................................. 235
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
Narratives of a Dialogue Pilgrim ..................................................... 249
Albert Nambiaparambil, C.M.I.
Pranayama: Breathing from the Heart ............................................ 273
Richard Kearney
Spiritual Improvisations: Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, and the
Freedom of Tradition .................................................................... 283
Martin Cohen
COLOR PLATES
TRAVERSALS (II):
CHRISTIAN, ISLAMIC, BUDDHIST, JEWISH
1. Islamic Legacies
Imaging Islam: Intellect and Imagination in Islamic
Philosophy, Poetry, and Painting ................................................ 303
James W. Morris
India: A Laboratory of Inter-Religious Experiment ..................... 329
Maqbool Ahmed Siraj
The Paradox of Proximity to the Infinite: An Exploration of
Sidrat Al-Muntaha, “Āe Lote Tree Beyond which None
May Pass” ........................................................................................ 339
Hannah Bigelow Merriman
contents vii
Following .............................................................................................. 353
Steffen A. J. Stelzer
2. Buddhist Offerings
Knowing Āe Heart Sūtra by Heart ................................................ 367
Joseph S. O’Leary
Pure Perception and Equanimity of Heart .................................... 381
John Makransky
On Seeing the Birth of the Heart ..................................................... 395
Mary M. Anderson
3. Jewish and Christian Transformations
Healing Wounds: Reflections on Abraham Joshua Heschel
and Interfaith Partnership in Poland .......................................... 425
Edward K. Kaplan
Desire and the Desirable: Nicholas De Cusa’s Interfaith
Imagination ..................................................................................... 433
Fred Dallmayr
Promises of Advent: North and South ........................................... 447
Eileen Rizo-Patron
Notes on Contributors ........................................................................ 471
Index of Terms/Topics ...................................................................... 481
Index of Names/Titles ........................................................................ 498
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to express our sincere thanks to James Najarian and Eric
Ziolkowksi, founding editors of the new Brill Book Series on Studies in
Religion and the Arts, for inviting us to publish one of its first volumes.
Heartfelt gratitude goes as well to Dennis Taylor, emeritus editor of
the Boston College journal Religion and the Arts , and to the Jesuit
Institute of Boston College, for sponsoring the special issue (12.1–3:
2008) of which this book is an expanded and edited revision. Our
project was made possible, in the first place, by the gracious hospitality
of Siddhartha and the Fireflies Community in Bangalore, India, who
hosted the conference that launched these conversations and inspired
the subsequent journeys of the inter-religious imagination featured in
this volume.
Several friends and colleagues offered generous help at different
stages of the process. We owe special thanks to Chad Stutz, manag-
ing editor of Religion and the Arts in 2007–2008, for his help in for-
matting the initial manuscript; to Jeffery Howe for his professional
expertise as Art Editor of the journal; and to a talented team from
Boston College—Kascha Semonovitch, Alex Yiannopoulos, Jessica
Locke, Simone Kearney, Adam Fitzgerald, Sarah Kearney, and Sarit
Larry—for their artistic, editorial, and logistical assistance along the
way. We are also indebted to Joshua Oliver-Mason for solving some
of the technical conundrums in the transition from journal to book
editing. For his expert advice on the uses of Sanskrit and Mid-Eastern
terms in English, we are grateful to Joseph O’Leary who drew our
attention to the importance of allowing a plurality of terminological
styles to reflect the diversity of approaches (methodological, philo-
sophical, cultural, geo-historical) adopted by the contributors to this
exploratory work. Finally, for the professional miracle of bringing this
book to dock in timely fashion, our deep appreciation goes to the edi-
torial staff at Brill Publishers—Maarten Frieswijk, Marjon Jekel, and
most especially Wendy Shamier and Wilma de Weert.
We dedicate this volume to the memory of Professor Richard
Antoun, a kind and beloved colleague from Binghamton University,
New York, whose scholarly interests focused on comparative reli-
gion, Islamic law, and ethics. Prof. Antoun’s lifetime dedication to
