Toward a Ritual Theory of Metaphor in Buddhist Literature
April 10th, 2025 | 12:00 PM CT
206 Ingraham Hall
Presentation Details
Buddhist texts frequently appear to use metaphors to make arguments. For instance, in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, Vimalakīrti employs a long series of metaphors for emptiness and ephemerality. These metaphors—stock images, really, so pervasive are they in Buddhist literature—prove highly compelling to Vimalakīrti’s audience: they are not only convinced, but also transformed. Rhetorical situations of this kind, in which metaphors act upon audiences in ways that do not fit comfortably with modern notions of metaphor as a literary device, figure prominently in Buddhist texts, and demand alternative interpretive paradigms. Building on my recent work, in this presentation, I explore how we might approach metaphorical statements as ritual speech acts, focusing on metaphors for emptiness as a test case. My goal in this project is not only to shed new light on the ritual aspects of Buddhist literature, but also to consider how a ritual interpretation of Buddhist metaphors might shed light on other uses of metaphor.
About the Speaker
Natalie Gummer, Professor of Religious Studies, holds the Edwin F. Wilde, Jr. Distinguished Service Chair at Beloit College. She graduated with a PhD from Harvard University in Buddhist Studies in 2000. Her research examines premodern South Asian Mahāyāna Buddhist ritual and literary culture, especially normative notions of sūtra study and performance as ritual practices. She is editor of The Language of the Sūtras: Essays in Honor of Luis Gómez, and author of several articles on the performative aspects of Buddhist literature. She has recently completed a monograph entitled Performing the Buddha’s Body: Sūtras as Ritual Speech Acts.