Isabelle Ratié
Isabelle Ratié is Professor of Sanskrit Language and Literatures at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University (Paris) and a Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Her research bears on the history of Indian philosophy. Her monograph on the Śaiva system of the Pratyabhijñā (Le Soi et l’Autre. Identité, différence et altérité dans la philosophie de la Pratyabhijñā, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2011) was awarded the Friedrich Weller Prize. She has also published two books on Buddhist philosophy: Une Critique bouddhique du Soi selon la Mīmāṃsā (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2014), and, with Vincent Eltschinger, Self, No-Self, and Salvation. Dharmakīrti’s Critique of the Notions of Self and Person (ibid., 2013). She has edited a collective volume on medieval Kashmir with Eli Franco (Around Abhinavagupta. Aspects of the Intellectual History of Kashmir from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century, Berlin: Lit, 2016; 2nd edition, Delhi: Dev, 2022). Her ongoing research on marginal annotations in Kashmirian manuscripts has led her to discover several chapters of a major tenth-century Śaiva work, Utpaladeva’s Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivṛti, so far deemed lost; in 2021 she published a monograph on the first of these chapters (Utpaladeva on the Power of Action, Cambridge: Harvard University Press). She has also been working with Vincent Eltschinger, Michael Torsten Much and John Taber on a translation of Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika 1 (section on apoha; vol. I was published in 2018 in Tokyo: IIBS). She recently wrote a monograph on Indian philosophy with Vincent Eltschinger: Qu’est-ce que la philosophie indienne? (Paris: Gallimard, 2023).
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Books by Isabelle Ratié
Isabelle Ratié, Utpaladeva on the Power of Action. A First Edition, Annotated Translation and Study of Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivṛti, Chapter 2.1, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, Harvard Oriental Series 96, 2021, xv+395 pages.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674270817
Si les récents travaux de recherche consacrés au śivaïsme ont permis de mieux comprendre les dimensions religieuses des mouvements śivaïtes médiévaux, les aspects proprements philosophiques de certains des textes produits dans ces milieux demeurent largement méconnus. La présenté étude se propose de contribuer à combler cette lacune en explorant le système philosophique complexe et original élaboré par les śivaïtes non dualistes cachemiriens Utpaladeva (925-975) et Abhinavagupta (975-1025). Montrant que ce système ne se réduit pas à une exégèse scripturaire, l’ouvrage examine la genèse des concepts de la philosophie de la Pratyabhijñā ou “Reconnaissance” en prenant en compte la complexité du champ philosophique (déjà investi par divers courants aussi bien bouddhiques que brahmaniques) dans lequel la pensée d’Utpaladeva s’est développée.
Papers by Isabelle Ratié
Published in V. Eltschinger, M. Sernesi & V. Tournier (eds.), Archaeologies of the Written: Indian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies in Honour of Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” Dipartimento Asia Africa e Mediterraneo, 2020, pp. 493-516.
The fields of indology and Indian philosophy owe to Raffaele Torella one of the most exciting manuscript discoveries made in the last decades, namely, that of the only extensive fragment thus far known of Utpaladeva’s own Vivṛti on his Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā. Thanks to the edition of this very incomplete codex unicus (it only covers 13 verses out of 190), we are now able to compare this known part of Utpaladeva’s lost text with the numerous annotations written in the margins of the manuscripts of Abhinavagupta’s commentaries on the Pratyabhijñā treatise. This comparison shows that some of these marginalia are quotations – and in a number of cases, rather lengthy ones – of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti. The article, which presents the first results of an ongoing study of the marginal annotations found in manuscripts of Abhinavagupta’s Pratyabhijñā commentaries, offers an edition and annotated translation of a hitherto unknown passage of the Vivṛti on kārikās 1.5.4 and 1.5.5. The fragment bears on the Buddhist controversy between Vijñānavādins and Sautrāntikas over the existence of other conscious streams (santānāntara) and on the possibility of intersubjectivity if, as the Vijñānavādins claim, nothing exists outside consciousness.
http://www.dkprintworld.com/product-detail.php?pid=1280858056
Utpaladeva’s detailed commentary (the Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) on his own Īśvarapratyabhijñā treatise was certainly the most innovative text of the Pratyabhijñā corpus; unfortunately, however, to date we only have access to fragments of this work. We owe to Raffaele Torella the crucial discovery, edition and translation of an important passage of Utpaladeva’s lost commentary (covering 13 of the 190 verses of the treatise) on the basis of a unique, very incomplete Vivṛti manuscript; but many more Vivṛti fragments were recently discovered in annotations written in the margins of manuscripts containing other Pratyabhijñā texts. The lengthiest of these covers three thus far entirely unknown chapters of the Vivṛti, the first of which has been edited and translated by Isabelle Ratié in a monograph about to be published. The present article is part of a series of papers devoted to the edition, translation and explanation of shorter fragments found in the margins of manuscripts containing Abhinavagupta’s commentaries on Utpaladeva’s treatise. The first of these studies (“Some hitherto unknown fragments of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti (I): on the Buddhist controversy over the existence of other conscious streams”, in R. Torella & B. Bäumer (eds.), Utpaladeva, Philosopher of Recognition, Delhi: DK Printworld, 2016, pp. 224-256) dealt with a fragment explaining verses 1.5.4-5; it focused on the Buddhist controversy between Vijñānavādins and Sautrāntikas over the existence of other conscious streams (santānāntara) and on the possibility of intersubjectivity if, as the Vijñānavādins claim, nothing exists outside consciousness. The paper included in the present volume deals with fragments of the Vivṛti on the following verses (1.5.6-9), which argue against the Sautrāntikas’ thesis that we must infer the existence of a reality external to consciousness in order to account for phenomenal variety. In these fragments Utpaladeva shows not only that, as already emphasized by the Vijñānavādins, postulating the existence of an external world is of no use in the realm of everyday practice, and that an external object must have contradictory properties whether it is understood as having parts or not, but also that the very act of mentally producing the concept (and therefore the inference) of an external object is in fact impossible to perform, because an object by nature alien to consciousness is simply unthinkable.
Published in Silvia D’Intino and Sheldon Pollock (eds.), L’espace du sens: Approches de la philologie indienne. The Space of Meaning: Approaches to Indian Philology, with the collaboration of Michaël Meyer, Paris: De Boccard, Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne du Collège de France 84, 2018, pp. 305-354.
Published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 138(4), 2018, pp. 709-741.
https://theoremes.revues.org/1166
“An Indian Debate on Optical Reflections and Its Metaphysical Implications – Śaiva Nondualism and the Mirror of Consciousness,” in Joerg Tuske (ed.), Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics, London: Bloomsbury: 2017, pp. 207-240.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/indian-epistemology-and-metaphysics-9781472529534/
Isabelle Ratié, Utpaladeva on the Power of Action. A First Edition, Annotated Translation and Study of Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivṛti, Chapter 2.1, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, Harvard Oriental Series 96, 2021, xv+395 pages.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674270817
Si les récents travaux de recherche consacrés au śivaïsme ont permis de mieux comprendre les dimensions religieuses des mouvements śivaïtes médiévaux, les aspects proprements philosophiques de certains des textes produits dans ces milieux demeurent largement méconnus. La présenté étude se propose de contribuer à combler cette lacune en explorant le système philosophique complexe et original élaboré par les śivaïtes non dualistes cachemiriens Utpaladeva (925-975) et Abhinavagupta (975-1025). Montrant que ce système ne se réduit pas à une exégèse scripturaire, l’ouvrage examine la genèse des concepts de la philosophie de la Pratyabhijñā ou “Reconnaissance” en prenant en compte la complexité du champ philosophique (déjà investi par divers courants aussi bien bouddhiques que brahmaniques) dans lequel la pensée d’Utpaladeva s’est développée.
Published in V. Eltschinger, M. Sernesi & V. Tournier (eds.), Archaeologies of the Written: Indian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies in Honour of Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” Dipartimento Asia Africa e Mediterraneo, 2020, pp. 493-516.
The fields of indology and Indian philosophy owe to Raffaele Torella one of the most exciting manuscript discoveries made in the last decades, namely, that of the only extensive fragment thus far known of Utpaladeva’s own Vivṛti on his Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā. Thanks to the edition of this very incomplete codex unicus (it only covers 13 verses out of 190), we are now able to compare this known part of Utpaladeva’s lost text with the numerous annotations written in the margins of the manuscripts of Abhinavagupta’s commentaries on the Pratyabhijñā treatise. This comparison shows that some of these marginalia are quotations – and in a number of cases, rather lengthy ones – of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti. The article, which presents the first results of an ongoing study of the marginal annotations found in manuscripts of Abhinavagupta’s Pratyabhijñā commentaries, offers an edition and annotated translation of a hitherto unknown passage of the Vivṛti on kārikās 1.5.4 and 1.5.5. The fragment bears on the Buddhist controversy between Vijñānavādins and Sautrāntikas over the existence of other conscious streams (santānāntara) and on the possibility of intersubjectivity if, as the Vijñānavādins claim, nothing exists outside consciousness.
http://www.dkprintworld.com/product-detail.php?pid=1280858056
Utpaladeva’s detailed commentary (the Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) on his own Īśvarapratyabhijñā treatise was certainly the most innovative text of the Pratyabhijñā corpus; unfortunately, however, to date we only have access to fragments of this work. We owe to Raffaele Torella the crucial discovery, edition and translation of an important passage of Utpaladeva’s lost commentary (covering 13 of the 190 verses of the treatise) on the basis of a unique, very incomplete Vivṛti manuscript; but many more Vivṛti fragments were recently discovered in annotations written in the margins of manuscripts containing other Pratyabhijñā texts. The lengthiest of these covers three thus far entirely unknown chapters of the Vivṛti, the first of which has been edited and translated by Isabelle Ratié in a monograph about to be published. The present article is part of a series of papers devoted to the edition, translation and explanation of shorter fragments found in the margins of manuscripts containing Abhinavagupta’s commentaries on Utpaladeva’s treatise. The first of these studies (“Some hitherto unknown fragments of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti (I): on the Buddhist controversy over the existence of other conscious streams”, in R. Torella & B. Bäumer (eds.), Utpaladeva, Philosopher of Recognition, Delhi: DK Printworld, 2016, pp. 224-256) dealt with a fragment explaining verses 1.5.4-5; it focused on the Buddhist controversy between Vijñānavādins and Sautrāntikas over the existence of other conscious streams (santānāntara) and on the possibility of intersubjectivity if, as the Vijñānavādins claim, nothing exists outside consciousness. The paper included in the present volume deals with fragments of the Vivṛti on the following verses (1.5.6-9), which argue against the Sautrāntikas’ thesis that we must infer the existence of a reality external to consciousness in order to account for phenomenal variety. In these fragments Utpaladeva shows not only that, as already emphasized by the Vijñānavādins, postulating the existence of an external world is of no use in the realm of everyday practice, and that an external object must have contradictory properties whether it is understood as having parts or not, but also that the very act of mentally producing the concept (and therefore the inference) of an external object is in fact impossible to perform, because an object by nature alien to consciousness is simply unthinkable.
Published in Silvia D’Intino and Sheldon Pollock (eds.), L’espace du sens: Approches de la philologie indienne. The Space of Meaning: Approaches to Indian Philology, with the collaboration of Michaël Meyer, Paris: De Boccard, Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne du Collège de France 84, 2018, pp. 305-354.
Published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 138(4), 2018, pp. 709-741.
https://theoremes.revues.org/1166
“An Indian Debate on Optical Reflections and Its Metaphysical Implications – Śaiva Nondualism and the Mirror of Consciousness,” in Joerg Tuske (ed.), Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics, London: Bloomsbury: 2017, pp. 207-240.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/indian-epistemology-and-metaphysics-9781472529534/
[“On the distinction between epistemic and metaphysical Buddhist idealisms: a Śaiva perspective,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 42, pp. 353-375.]
[“A Śaiva interpretation of the satkāryavāda: the Sāṃkhya notion of abhivyakti and its transformation in the Pratyabhijñā treatise,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 42(1), 2014, pp. 127-172.]
[“Can One Prove that Something Exists Beyond Consciousness? A Śaiva Criticism of the Sautrāntika Inference of External Objects,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 39 (4-5), 2011, pp. 479-501]