40. What do the Words Sampradāya and Paramparā Mean?
Yoga Studies in Five Minutes - Theodora Wildcroft
Daniela Bevilacqua [+]
Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA, ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon
Daniela Bevilacqua received her PhD in 2015, in Civilizations of Africa and Asia from Sapienza University of Rome and in Anthropology from the University of Paris Nanterre. Her PhD research was published by Routledge (2018) under the title Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India: The Śrī Maṭh and the Jagadguru Rāmānandācārya in the Evolution of the Rāmānandī Sampradāya. She is a Associate Researcher at the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA, ISCTE-IUL) in Lisbon. Her research has aroused particular interest because of its methodology and results. Her article, “Let the Sādhus Talk. Ascetic understanding of Haṭha Yoga and yogāsanas”, published in Religions of South Asia, (Vol 11, n. 2, pp. 182-206) has been translated into German, French and Portuguese. She has been invited to give lectures in various universities (Cambridge, London, Haifa, Prague, Turin, Milan) and to present her research in various yoga teacher training courses and yoga studios. She has published several articles in peer review journals and book chapters for on Hindu asceticism, female asceticism, etc. She is currently editing two volumes, one forthcoming for Amsterdam University Press and another will be a special issue of the Journal of Yoga Studies (JoYS).
Description
Hinduism is characterised by different religious approaches, philosophies and theologies often organised into religious orders/communities called sampradāyas. In general, in religious contexts, it indicates received doctrines or teachings, hence a religious tradition or system. The most important feature of a sampradāya is the paramparā, the unbroken chain of knowledge transmission.