Christopher Key Chapple 
Living Landscapes [EPUB ebook] 
Meditations on the Five Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas

In
Living Landscapes, Christopher Key Chapple looks at the world of ritual as enacted in three faiths of India. He begins with an exploration of the relationship between the body and the world as found in the cosmological cartography of Sāṃkhya philosophy, which highlights the interplay between consciousness (
puruṣa) and activity (
prakṛti), a process that gives rise to earth, water, fire, air, and space. He then turns to the progressive explication of these five great elements in Buddhism, Jainism, Advaita, Tantra, and Haṭha Yoga, and includes translations from the Vedas and the Purāṇas of Hinduism, the Buddhist and Jain Sūtras, and select animal fables from early Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Chapple also describes his own pilgrimages to the Great Stupa at Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, the five elemental temples (
pañcamahābhūta mandir) in south India, and the Jaina cosmology complex in Hastinapur. An appendix with practical instructions that integrate Yoga postures with meditative reflections on the five elements is included.

Inhoudsopgave

Illustrations

Acknowledgments



Foreword


John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker



Introduction: Yoga and Landscapes



1. The Inner World as Precondition for Experience



2. Earth: Loving the Land



3. Water: Life-giver and Purifier



4. Fire: Locus of Desire



5. Air: Wind and Breath



6. Animal Stories from the Upaniṣads, the Jātaka Tales, the Pañcatantra, Jaina Narratives, and the
Yogavāsiṣṭha



7. The Yoga of Space



Appendix: Constructing the Maṇḍala through Yoga Sādhana



Notes

Bibliography

Index

Over de auteur

Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University. He is the author or editor of many books, including
Yoga and the Luminous: Patañjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom and
Engaged Emancipation: Mind, Morals, and Make-Believe in the Mokṣopāya (Yogavāsiṣṭha) (coedited with Arindam Chakrabarti), both also published by SUNY Press.