The Aesthetic Use of Taxonomy in Knowledge-Oriented Yogas by Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette

This talk explores the significance of taxonomy in shaping the spiritual exercises of the ancient Indian yogas that focussed on the cultivation of knowledge (jñāna) as a means of self-transformation. In this gnostic context, the determinate negation of specific taxonomical schemes, or doctrinal lists, is meant to progressively alter the aesthetic experience of practitioners, to foster total renunciation. This absolute renunciation, I argue, is the ultimate goal south after by South Asian Gnostics. It involves a complete detachment and dispassionment for the objects of both the outer and inner world, the objects of the senses as well as those of the mind.

BIO: Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette obtained his PhD (2018) in Indian Philosophies from the Institute for Indology and Tibetology of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, in Munich, Germany. He is now Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy (DoP) at MAHE. He published extensively on the early developments of Sanskrit philosophical doxography and now researches on the phenomena of list-making and taxonomy within the spiritual exercises of South-Asian gnostic yogas. In general, he is exploring the ancient South-Asian intellectual dimensions of spiritual life, especially in the scholastic and ascetic aspects of their expression. In brief, he has taken interest in what he describes as the ‘yoga of reason’, or the ‘path of knowledge’ (jnana-yoga) pursued by Gnostics belonging either to the Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain traditions.