As part of the Southern Asia Seminar of the University of Chicago, our PI Florinda de Simini delivered the talk “Gifts of Dharma: Shaping śaiva Communities Between Tradition and Innovation”. In her talk, she focused on the rules regulating the relationships between the lay and the monastic communities of the śaivas through the practice of ritual gifting.
She examined these rules as they were formulated in the early literature of the Śivadharma (6th-7th century), and discuss how they relate to the general Dharmaśāstric frame on one side, and to the post-initiatory rules (samayas) of the early Tantric traditions on the other. Particular attention has been given to how these precepts apply to the preservation and transmission of scriptural knowledge, a practice that lied at the core of the interactions with the laity, while also providing a foundation for the doctrine of liberation embraced by the ascetics.