My Lenten fast is a walk in the park

I don’t normally indulge in fasting for Lent. Giving up coffee or chocolate in the midst of a busy semester doesn’t seem like a great idea, and anyway I am not religious. But this year I have decided to give something up: I’m giving up taking the bus to work.*

I live a 37 minute walk from my work. It’s mostly on main roads, with the last bit in Princes Street Gardens, but it’s pleasant in many ways, and only takes a little longer than the bus. I’ve got out of the habit of walking in recent months: I had a series of colds in the late autumn, then it got so dark that it wasn’t at all appealing, then it was stormy, and then I experienced a slight footwear crisis, happily now resolved! But it is time to revisit my daily commute. As I do so, I am reminding myself of the benefits:

1. The seasons. Walking allows me to observe one of my favourite British phenomena – our seasons. Spring is best, of course, when the trees bend low under the weight of their blossoms, and new shoots burst forth from the ground. I divert my route in daffodil season, so as to take in the stunning fields of yellow beneath the castle. Autumn is glorious too, and a for a few weeks my commute includes circumambulating the horse chestnut tree on Queensferry Road in search of conkers. I can’t help it.

2. The scenery. Partly covered in the previous, but also the sky, which does some amazing things at this time of year in particular, when the sun is low. In the evenings the ever-changing moon keeps me smiling. Meanwhile the castle looms over part of my journey, and my exit from work involves gazing down towards – and across – the Firth of Forth. Edinburgh is such a stunning place to live.

3. People-watching. I rather love being part of the pedestrian commute, as we gradually swarm together over the bridge and up to the west end. And there’s a guy on my route who commutes by UNICYCLE !! I can’t help but grin each time I see him!

4. Listening. I’ve had the occasional flirtation with a podcast, but I prefer listen to music. I like big romantic piano concertos first thing in the morning. Let’s face it, podcasts may be educational, but music is good for the soul. If it exists. And even if it doesn’t, as the Buddhists suggest, it is still good for the collections of process that we label as a person. It also provides a helpful background for:

5. Thinking. Okay, this is supposed to be an academic blog, so here’s the actual academic bit. Sometimes at this time of year my days can consist of wall to wall meetings and classes, perhaps separated by a few minutes to trawl through the emails that have flooded in meanwhile. My walk to and from work is my one pause, a time for thinking through the day ahead, or processing what has taken place. Walking helps me puzzle out little dilemmas, or make connections that seemed elusive when I was at my desk. Whether it’s thinking through a lecture or reflecting on an article I’ve written or read, I can sometimes do my best creative work when I’m on my feet out in the fresh air.

And I didn’t even get to the physical health benefits. It is enough to remember that my daily walk makes me happier and more productive. So no more lazy bus rides for me. At least not until Easter.

* My exception is that I will allow the use of the bus during named storms. Happily the new policy of naming British storms will help me differentiate between simple bad weather (which should not prevent walking to work) and hostile anthropomorphised forces of the universe (which justify bus use)!

Sinxay: Renaissance of a Lao-Thai Epic Hero

Early this year I received a copy of Peter Whittlesey and Baythong Sayouvin Wittlesey’s new book Sinxay: Renaissance of a Lao-Thai Epic Hero, which they self-published late in 2015 after years of hard work. At its heart is an English retelling of a fascinating and complex Southeast Asian Buddhist narrative (one usually understood to be a jātaka tale), complemented by discussions of the story’s meaning and context, and lavishly illustrated.

The book is an impressive achievement. The translation is delightful, and it really brings the story of Sinxay to life, making it available to a wide audience. Although not an academic book, the authors’ careful discussion of the Buddhist framing of the text and its literary, artistic and cultural impact results in a book of real interest to scholars and students as well to the general reader. The passion that the husband-and-wife team have for this classic of Lao literature shines through on every page.

One of the most striking things about this volume is the images. They are everywhere! The retelling of the story itself benefits from a variety of illustrations, and each of the four commentarial chapters makes use of photographs and other visual aids. There is a wonderful mixture: photographs show us everything from temples to lampposts that portray the heroes and their adventures, while specially commissioned illustrations, including gorgeous maps of the landscape of the story, are vivid and enchanting. It is such a visual feast.

I am so delighted to see this book appear after so many years of dedicated work. I hope that it will succeed in its aim of bringing the story of Sinxay to a new readership. It certainly deserves the attention of anybody interested in the literature, culture and religion of Southeast Asia. You can find out more, or buy the book, from the Sinxay website.

 

Teaching the Hindu Epics

This semester I am teaching a course on the Hindu epics for the first time. I have got to know these delightful and intriguing texts very well in recent years, and I am excited to be able to share my enthusiasm with some students.

I am being a bit ambitious trying to cover both epics – Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa – in one eleven-week course. I couldn’t seem to decide which one I wanted to teach more – the Mahābhārata is my favourite, but the Rāmāyaṇa is a bit easier to access and there are some great teaching materials available. So, in a moment of folly, I decided to squeeze both in! The benefit, of course, is that we are able to make some comparative comment, and discuss the texts in relation to one another and in their historical and religious context. The challenge is in how to cover so much material, and the demand on the students’ time and energy is therefore high. But they are absolutely rising to the challenge: class discussions so far have been wonderfully stimulating!

I am using the two Penguin abridged translations: John Smith’s Mahābhārata and Arshia Sattar’s Rāmāyaṇa. So far so good. We have started with the Mahābhārata, and the students are doing a wonderful job navigating Smith’s text, digesting the summarised passages fine, and really engaging with the translated parts that form the set readings for class. The glossary of names and the family trees in the back of Smith’s volume are a great help too.

I did wonder about setting Carole Satyamurti’s Mahābhārata: A Modern Retelling (Norton, 2015) in future years, once the paperback version is out. I am only halfway through reading this myself, but I absolutely love it. The language is fabulously rhythmic and draws the reader into the action. There are no interruptions in the form of summarised passages, just a straightforward retelling in engaging blank verse. Such an achievement, and one that should make a whole new audience aware of this great work of literature.

But then my scholarly self cannot quite allow me to set a retelling as a set text for the course. It might make easier and more pleasant reading for the students, but it would also make it harder to cross reference the primary set text with secondary scholarship. I shall have to give this more thought.

Meanwhile I am really enjoying this course, and I am thoroughly impressed by the students’ engagement with one of my all-time favourite texts. It is such a pleasure to have a conversation about the Mahābhārata every week!

 

Paperback edition of Narrating Karma and Rebirth

I have returned from a research trip to find some gratis copies of my book Narrating Karma and Rebirth: Buddhist and Jain Multi-life Stories (Cambridge University Press, 2014) in paperback! It is very pleasing to see that it is now available in an affordable format. I now have that Beatles song, Paperback Writer, in my head as I catch up with emails and teaching prep….!

New book: The Ten Great Birth Stories of the Buddha

I was really delighted this morning to find a parcel waiting for me at work – my first copies of a long-awaited publication. The book is a translation, with Sarah Shaw, of the final ten jātaka stories of the great Pāli collection. It is a fantastic set of stories that we have both come to love over the seven years that this project has been underway. It is a real delight to see the final result at last!

The translation, in two volumes, is published by Silkworm Books, who are based in Thailand, and is available in hardback and paperback. It includes rather a lot of colour images too, which were fun – if time consuming – to assemble, and which remind us that the stories don’t only have a history in words.

I hope that readers will enjoy the translations and our little introductions. Much gratitude is due to Joel at Silkworm for all his hard work getting the book to print, and to Trasvin for taking on the publication. We are also very grateful to everyone who helped by providing images or comments.

Academic Baking

This week was the semi-final of The Great British Bake Off. For those of you unfortunate enough to have no idea what this is, it is a gloriously silly amateur baking competition, televised for the nation by the BBC. It has as many puns as cakes, thanks to the delightfully light-hearted presenters Mel and Sue, and despite the best efforts of the judges, nobody can manage to take it very seriously.

I love it. Can you tell?

Devanagari gingerbread was a gift for my fellow Sanskrit students.

One of the weekly challenges is the “showstopper”, which has to be elaborate and impressive in design as well as in flavour. There have been some really amazing creations, such as a bread lion, and – this week – a working chocolate well.

The Tocharian caravan-permit cake. Matt painted it so I can’t take any credit for that.

My baking is pretty pedestrian by comparison, but this has not always been the case. During my student days I was prone to a bit of Sanskrit gingerbread or marzipan bodhisattva. In Oxford I teamed up with fellow-student Matt Kimberley, an attendee of the Philologists’ lunch, on a few pretty elaborate creations, including a Tocharian caravan-permit, a three-dimensional Indo-European language family tree and a “six layers of linguistic analysis” cake (actually involving six different cakes in concentric circles, so there was quite a lot of cake left over!).

Our finest creation, however, was probably the Shiva-Sutras cake for our friend and fan of Sanskrit grammar Victor D’Avella. The Shiva Sutras are the code-breaker of Sanskrit grammar. Each of the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet feature in order, separated by code-letters (in vertical chocolate) so that any significant group of letters (eg all vowels, all retroflex consonants, etc) can be referred to by a two-letter shorthand. This enables incredibly concise expressions of grammatical rules. Clever stuff. And it all emerged from Śiva’s marzipan drum.

Maybe it is time for me to revisit academic baking. It could make for an alternative challenge for our students, or an accessible way to share research with colleagues….

New (Academic) Year’s Resolutions

The new semester is getting underway this week, and so I have spent quite a bit of time meeting with new and returning students, undergraduates and postgraduates, and talking about how to establish good work routines and maintain a healthy work-life balance. It is also a time for reflecting on my own work practices, and my goals for the coming year.

Keeping up the research during semester time is every academic’s challenge. This semester I have little teaching, as I am finishing off my Story of Story in South Asia research project. Even so, with meetings and tutees and dissertation students and so on, my diary is a lot more full than it was during the summer.

In terms of goals this semester is fairly clear: I am writing a book. It is more than halfway done, and really starting to come together, but there is still a way to go before I can call it complete. Maintaining progress on this book is priority number 1. I want to have a full and tidy draft by Christmas.

But, as I know too well, being clear about what you should be doing is not the same as actually doing it! So, as in previous years, I am setting myself some clear guidelines for how to work. As I advise the students, it is good to think in terms of regular work practices and routines, rather than grand goals:

1. Mornings, I know, are my best brain time. If I need to write, I must write in the mornings. Therefore, as far as is possible, I am scheduling all meetings and supervisions for the afternoons. Also, all non-urgent admin tasks will have to wait until after 3pm.
2. For many academics, writing is the thing that never seems to happen, but for me it is reading. I have a lot of sources I need to get through even at this stage in the book project, and so I have committed to a minimum of one hour’s concentrated reading every day, even on the busiest of busy days.
3. When I am working on a big writing project, my languages can get a bit rusty. I therefore aim to do some Sanskrit or Pali (or indeed Prakrit) at least twice a week. I have a bit of Avadānaśataka translation work on the side, so it will probably be that for now.
4. I will not work weekends. I have been pretty firm about this for many years, but it is worth re-resolving every semester, even if it shocks some of my colleagues! For me, this has always been a sensible position, since if I work weekends I am far less productive during the week. I also get very grumpy, and that is always counter-productive.

So these are my resolutions. I’d better get reading…

Wishing everybody a happy and productive autumn!