Faculty Forum Continues March 30

Lloyd Pflueger, professor of religion, will present “Ishopanishad or The Secret Teaching on the Lord,” at 7 p.m. March 30 in Magruder Hall 1000 as part of the faculty forum.

Presentation Abstract
The Isha Upanishad is a secret poetic discourse on the nature of God, karma and the ritual prayer and enabling enlightened passage from this life. It is fairly simple linguistically yet cryptic and open to a variety of philosophical and theological interpretations. Because it is profound, polysemic and central to most Hindu religious traditions, and quite short, it is a perfect text not only to muse upon, but to educate Western students of Indian philosophy and religion. In this lecture Pflueger will discuss the problems of translating this text and creating a textbook in which undergraduate students without the knowledge of Sanskrit language can read the famous text in the original Sanskrit and immerse themselves in the traditional exegesis and speculation on this text.