Sovremennye Issledovaniâ Socialʹnyh Problem (Nov 2020)
THE RELIGIOUS AND AESTHETIC CONCEPTS OF HINDUISM: SIMILARITIES AND PECULIARITIES
Abstract
The article deals with the main concepts and basic concepts of Hindu aesthetics. The problem area reveals itself in the question of European culture’s perception of Hindu aesthetics. Proceeding from the historical and cultural position of aesthetic knowledge as it is presented in the European tradition, the main tendencies and approaches to the phenomenon of aesthetic knowledge are shown, where the main place is occupied by the epoch of German classical philosophy – “cradle” of aesthetic science (A. Baumgarten, I. Kant). The underlined heterogeneity of aesthetic knowledge is the evidence of its problematic status in the European historical-philosophical discourse, and at the same time it gives the possibility to see against this background the harmonious place of aesthetics in the Hindu culture. Mainly it concerns the peculiarities of religious and worldview systems. The text provides an analogy and distinction between theoretical and ritual notions and practices in Christianity and Hinduism. In particular, as a common place is called the meaning of “threshold” people - liminalies in the spiritual life of society. Among the radical differences is the “natural embedding” of aesthetics in the religious system of India, while in European aesthetics the religious world is only one of the spheres of aesthetics. Thus, a number of notions, with reference to leading Russian orientalists and foreign researchers (V. Shokhin, D. Zilberman, E. Torchinov, R. Genon, N. Gupta), show the identity of religious and aesthetic concepts in Hinduism, as well as the possibility of mutual “cultural translation” of such basic concepts as “aesthetics” and “aesthetic”, “rasa” and “bhava”. In the final part of the article, using the method of comparative text analytics, the specific features of Hindu aesthetics are identified, the concepts are specified and summed up.
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