Numerology as a Way of Explanation: the Panchatūryanāda Classification of Musical Instruments in Buddhist Sri Lanka by Eshantha Peiris
Abstract:
The concept of panchatūryanāda refers to a five-fold classification scheme of musical instruments that is found in Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition. Although the term has appeared in Pali and Sinhala texts since the seventh century, its connotations have varied in different eras, and recent scholars have been unable to agree on the precise criteria of the groupings. In this paper, I examine the idea of five-fold categorization in the context of Buddhist and South Asian thought, arguing that numerical equivalences in seemingly unrelated taxonomies constituted a way of explanation that created meaning within particular cosmological worldviews. Through this lens, I try to understand what the function and significance of panchatūryanāda categorization might have been for Sri Lankan ritual musicians prior to the twentieth century.
Bio:
Eshantha Peiris is a student of ethnomusicology at the University of British Columbia. He is currently writing a doctoral dissertation about processes of change in the Up-Country drumming tradition of Sri Lanka.
Women Photographers and the Business of Photography in North India (1950s-1980s) by Sameena
Abstract:
Through the archives of commercial photo-studios, this paper examines the conditions that led to the emergence of professional women photographers in Delhi and UP in post-Independence India. It critically addresses the politics of invisibility by looking at why the history of women photographers remains a ‘lost-history’ in India despite their presence in the dark rooms and as camera assistants in the commercial photo-studios.
Bio:
Sameena is a student of Art History at the University of British Columbia. She is currently pursuing her doctoral research on practices of analog photography within commercial studios in India at Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (AHVA)
Co-sponsored by: Centre for India and South Asia Research and Department of Asian Studies
