The two-day workshop will explore the historically linked South and Inner Asian practices of rasāyana, kāyakalpa and bcud len. These are practices, treatment techniques and for-mulations aimed at a variety of goals that range from prolonging life, restoring youthful-ness, and promoting physical health, to accessing special powers, achieving enlightenment, and attaining immortality. Early accounts of such practices are found in Sanskrit medical, alchemical and yoga literature; Tamil Siddha medical literature; and Tibetan Buddhist literature. Variations of these practices are still found as part of South and Inner Asian medicine, yogic techniques and Buddhist practices. Participants will present historical overviews of these practices in the different disciplines and their literatures, looking for connections (but also disjunctures) between them, and discussing the concepts and aims underlying them. There will also be a practical demonstration of the preparation of traditional ayurvedic iatrochemical tonics.
Program - Friday Oct 21, 2016
Venue: Seminarraum 1, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2, entrance 2.7, 1090 Vienna
9:00 Welcome
9:10 Dagmar Wujastyk (University of Vienna): Rasāyana in Sanskrit medical and alchemical literature
10:00 Ilona Kędzia (Jagiellonian University): Mastering deathlessness - some remarks about immortality teachings from selected Tamil Siddha texts
10:50 tea break
11:10 Claudia Preckel (Ruhr-University Bochum): The Elixir of the Body (Iksīr al-badan): Alchemy, rejuvenation and immortality in Unani medicine
12:00 Francis Zimmermann (EHESS) Rasāyana today on the market of proprietary medicines
12:50 lunch break
14:00 Christèle Barois (University of Vienna): Representations of age and life in Sanskrit medieval literature: the concept of vayas
14:50 Philipp A. Maas (University of Leipzig): Rasāyana in classical Sāṃkhya-Yoga
15:40 tea break
16:00 Jason Birch (SOAS): Rejuvenation and herbs in medieval yoga traditions
16:50 Suzanne Newcombe (Inform, LSE): Human Hibernation and 185-year-old Sadhus – Claims of life extension and aspirations for immortality in the modern period
17:40 Conclusion
Program - Saturday Oct 22, 2016
Venue: The practical demonstration on Saturday, October 22, will take place at the Carl Auer von Welsbach Lecture Hall of the Faculty of Chemistry. Entrance at Boltzmanngasse 1, 1090 Vienna.
9:30 Welcome
9:45 Andrew Mason (Netera Publishing): Demonstration of the preparation of rasāyanas: bhallātaka and rasa parpaṭī
13:00 lunch break
Venue: Saturday afternoon presentations will again take place at Seminarraum 1, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2.7, 1090 Vienna.
14:30 Cathy Cantwell (University of Oxford): Reflections on bcud len and related practices in Nyingma (rnying ma) tantric ritual
15:20 Barbara Gerke (University of Vienna): Mercury as a bcud len in Tibetan medical traditions
16:10 tea break
16:30-17:30 Concluding session
