Event — IIAS Lunch Lecture

Two series of Kāludāyi’s verses as transmitted in Pāli commentaries

While the Theragāthā (‘Elders’ Verses’) contains only ten verses attributed to the Elder Kāludāyi, the Pali commentaries ascribe a further two sets of verses to him. The present study deals with a survey of these verses.

Lunch lecture by IIAS-Gonda fellow Aruna Gamage. 

Lunch is provided; registration is required

While the Theragāthā (‘Elders’ Verses’) contains only ten verses attributed to the Elder Kāludāyi, the Pali commentaries ascribe a further two sets of verses to him. The present study deals with a survey of these verses, which have so far received no scholarly attention, as a contribution to the understanding of the formation of Kāludāyi’s verses in the canon and their paracanonical legacy. In this study, some of the additional verses of Kāludāyi that appear in the commentaries are consulted. The style, syntax, and wordings of specific stanzas of both series will be taken　into consideration so as to evaluate their antiquity and their literary quality. When dealing with the rhetorical devices adapted in the stanzas, some Sanskrit poems are also taken into account.

Aruna Gamage is a lecturer at the Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. He received his undergraduate and postgraduate training in Pāli and Buddhist Studies at Kelaniya University. After completing his PhD from SOAS, University of London, he is now carrying out research on Pāli commentaries at IIAS, Leiden with a fellowship form the J. Gonda Foundation of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

Registration (required)

Please register using the webform on the right-hand side of this page (by Wednesday, 22 January 2020, 12:00 hrs if you would like IIAS to cater for your lunch).