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Centre for the Research of Indian Philosophy and Culture «‎Purushottama»‎

Contract number
075-15-2021-603
Time span of the project
2021-2023
Invited researcher
since December 2022 Pruzhinin Boris Isayevich

As of 01.12.2023

32
Number of staff members
16
scientific publications
General information

Name of the project: Development of a next-generation methodology and intellectual foundations for the study of Indian philosophy and its relationship with other leading philosophical traditions of Eurasia


Goals and objectives

Goals of project:

The main objective of the research is the development of concepts and new methodological approaches that will allow to form a new outlook on Indian philosophy, to assess its principal philosophical notions and concepts taking the changes in the modern world into account, to determine their intellectual importance for the prioritised philosophical traditions. The scientific research as a whole is aimed at the creation of an advanced methodology for the study of a vast array of sources in the domain of Indian philosophy with a subsequent comparative investigation of major philosophical traditions. This goal is supposed to be achieved by means of working in the following directions:

  • The translation of the most significant modern studies of Indian philosophy into Russian;
  • The translation of prominent texts of classical Indian philosophy (written in Sanskrit, Pali, and Tamil) into Russian;
  • The re-assessment, development and testing of various methodological approaches to the research of Indian philosophy;
  • The comparative research of the core cultural spheres;
  • The research of the influence of Indian philosophy on the development of the terminology of philosophy in Russian;
  • The testing of the results of the research in teaching lecture courses on Indian philosophy and disciplines expressly related to it (history of Indian philosophy, history of Indian logic, literary studies, history of Indian religions, Sanskrit, the Tamil language, methods of Indian yoga, history of Buddhist teachings, and others).

The practical value of the study

Scientific results:

  • A number of classical texts of the Brahmanic and Buddhist traditions have been translated, a commentary apparatus has been compiled, as well as the most outstanding works of foreign Indology.
  • Existing methodological approaches to the study of Indian philosophical heritage are analyzed, and a special methodological apparatus is developed, on the one hand, taking into account the achievements of Western Indology, and on the other, offering new solutions to research problems.
  • As a result of the project, the foundations of the activity typology of four large civilizations were built. The system of concepts required for this task has been initially developed. This general part of the results has already begun to be used in specific studies of historical and cultural material in such areas as philosophy, religion, politics; variations of anthropology, law, etc. inherent in civilizations, especially in relation to Indian civilization and culture. The applied significance of this part of the project is associated primarily with the opportunity to significantly clarify the connection between the classical regional cultural heritage and modern processes and with facilitating the assessment of the comparative difficulty or ease of undertaken projects for the dialogue of civilizations, the prospects for borrowing or adapting cultural achievements from one civilization to others, etc.
  • The general patterns of formation and development of the Russian philosophical terminological language are highlighted. Despite the fact that there is a lot of research devoted to the formation of special scientific terminology of the Russian language in general, however, in relation to the philosophical conceptual apparatus, this kind of research has so far been carried out only to an extremely limited extent and has always been based on extremely limited material. Our research involves a wide range of translations of philosophical texts from different eras and different cultural traditions, in particular, the philosophical heritage of India; features were found that were similar to the process of formation and development of the conceptual language of philosophy in other cultural regions (Europe and Asia), and features characteristic only of Russia; the influence of the peculiarities of the philosophical terminology of the Russian language and its differences from Western European and Indian on the formation of the mentality of the Russian people is described; on the basis of the studied patterns, linguistic features of philosophical texts belonging to different cultural regions (both texts of the Western European tradition and texts of the Indian cultural tradition) were identified; a correlation has been established between the linguistic features of the language of the philosophical tradition and the picture of the world it creates.

Implementation of research results:

The main professional educational program of higher education «Philosophy of India in the context of religion and culture» has been opened in the field of preparation 47.04.01 Philosophy (Master’s degree).

The program involves training professionals in the field of Indology, regional specialists with a broad humanitarian profile. Certified specialists are becoming an important creative force in research, teaching, information, education and other fields, including those in which Russian-Indian relations find their fruitful refraction.

Education and personnel occupational retraining:

The new methodology and the formed intellectual base are actively used within the framework of educational programs of higher education, in particular, the master's program of the RUDN University 47.04.01 «Philosophy of India in the context of religion and culture», implemented on the basis of the laboratory, as well as additional education programs.

Cooperation:

Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ibn Sina Foundation, Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Kabardino-Balkarian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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Paribok, A.V.
“Sverhkratkie tezisy o yazykovyh aspektah teorii zivilizazionno-spezificheskoi razionalnosti” [Super-concise theses on the linguistic aspects of the theory of civilization-specific rationality], Filosofskii zhurnal / Philosophy Journal, 2023, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 54–61. (In Russian)
Pskhu, R.V.
“Eshhe odin sub’ekt? Logiko-grammaticheskie osnovanijavishishta-advajta-vedanty” [One more logical subject? Logical and grammatical founda-tions in viśistādvaita], Filosofskii zhurnal / Philosophy Journal, 2023, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp.47–53. (In Russian)
Smirnov, A.V.
“Smysl i variativnost’ razuma” [Sense positing and plurality ofreason], Filosofskii zhurnal / Philosophy Journal, 2023, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 5–17. (In Russian)
Pruzhinin, Boris I., Pskhu, Ruzana V.
(2023) “Methods for Studying Classical Philosophical Texts in Indian and European Thought Traditions”, Voprosy filosofii, Vol. 12 (2023), pp. 93–102. (In Russian)
Roman, Liliya G.
(2023) “Prāmāṇya’s Interpretation Question”, Voprosy Filosofii, Vol. 8 (2023), pp. 189–196. (In Russian)
Shokhin, Vladimir K
(2023) ‘“Philosophy” in Classical India: a Regimentation of the Sources’, Voprosy filosofii, Vol. 5 (2023), pp. 79. (In Russian)
Other laboratories and scientists
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Field of studies
City
Invited researcher
Time span of the project
Kantian Rationality Laboratory

Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University - (IKBFU)

Philosophy, ethics and religion

Kaliningrad

Sturm Thomas Kurt

Dmitrieva Nina Anatolievna

Russia

2019-2021