Fellows

Christèle BAROIS

History of ancient Indian religions - independent researcher

Fellowship : October 2021 to June 2022

Discipline(s) : History of Religions

Pays : France

Research project: The embryogenesis narrative in medieval Sanskrit sources and the history of its exegesis (13th-19th century)

The study of representations of the human embryo and fetus is a heuristic field of social representations as a whole, which has attracted strong interest in the disciplines of historical anthropology, history of science and philosophy, in historical periods ranging from classical antiquity to the present day. However, the account of embryonic development in the tradition of Hinduism is little studied, as it does not appear as a locus classicus of doctrine and has not acquired for itself the status of scriptural authority. The project "The Embryogenesis Narrative in Medieval Sanskrit Sources and the History of its Exegesis (13th-19th c.)" aims to study the narratives of embryonic development in the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇa. Through the development of a specialized corpus of recurring narratives, the translation and analysis of these narratives, the examination of their intertextual links, and the identification of their philosophical and medical sources, this project aims to study the representations of the human embryo in ancient and medieval Hinduism and to highlight the theological issues that preside over these representations.

Biography

Indianist, Sanskritist, Christèle Barois stayed in India for four years (2003-2007) as a research fellow in the Indology Department of the French Institute of Pondicherry. Her dissertation, defended in 2012 at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Section des sciences religieuses (Paris), is devoted to the study of the Vāyavīyasaṃhitā, a śivaita text composed in South India around the 11th century, which covers several fields of research (cosmogony, mythology, śivaita doctrine, ritual, yoga). In 2015, she joined the ERC project AyurYog: "Medicine, Immortality, Moksha: Entangled Histories of Yoga, Ayurveda and Alchemy in South Asia" (ayuryog.org), at the University of Vienna (Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde). Within this framework, she has initiated a study of an unpublished text, the Dharmaputrikā Saṃhitā, probably the oldest surviving yoga manual (ca. 7th c.).  Her current research focuses on the medical sources of ancient yoga techniques and the recurring narratives of embryogenesis in Sanskrit literature (Mahābhārata and Purāṇa). She has presented her work at numerous international conferences, including the Word Sanskrit Conferences in Helsinki (2003), Kyoto (2009) and Vancouver (2018), and the Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas (2005 and 2011).

Bibliography

 

♦ BAROIS, Christèle. « The Legendary Life of Upamanyu ». In Petteri Koskikallio (dir.), Parallels and Comparisons : Proceedings of the Fourth Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas, September 2005. Zagreb : Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2009, 279–302.

♦ BAROIS, Christèle, Dagmar WUJASTYK et Suzanne NEWCOMBE. Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and Inner Asia. History of Science in South India Vol 5 No 2 (2017): Special Issue. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18732/hssa.v5i2

♦ BAROIS, Christèle. « Stretching Out Life, Maintaining the Body: Part I - vayas in Medical Literature ». In Dagmar Wujastyk, Suzanne Newcombe et Christèle Barois (dir.), Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and Inner Asia. Ouvrage publié en ligne par History of Science in South India Vol 5 No 2 (2017), 37–65.

♦ BAROIS, Christèle. « The Dharmaputrikā Saṃhitā : Preliminary Notes on an Early Text on Yoga. » Journal of Yoga Studies (2020), Vol. 3: 3–75. DOI: https://doi.org/10.34000/JoYS.2020.V3.002

♦ BAROIS, Christèle. « ‘Cette âme tombée dans un corps étranger’. Notes introductives au Bhāgavatapurāṇa III 31 ». In Enric Porqueres I Gené et Séverine Mathieu (dir.), Embryon, personne et parenté. Paris : Éditions de la Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) (sous presse).

PARTICIPATION À DES OUVRAGES COLLECTIFS

2009 Édition critique du Dīptāgama, vol. III : participation, sous la direction de B. DAGENS,
avec M.-L. BARAZER-BILLORET, V. LEFÈVRE and SAMBANDHAN ŚIVĀCĀRYA,
Publications de l’Institut français de Pondichéry n° 81.3 (701 pages).
2007 Édition critique du Dīptāgama, vol. II : participation, sous la direction de B. DAGENS,
avec M.-L. BARAZER-BILLORET, V. LEFÈVRE et SAMBANDHAN ŚIVĀCĀRYA,
Publications de l’Institut français de Pondichéry n° 81.2 (603 pages).


ARTICLES À COMITÉ DE LECTURE (REVUES ET ACTES)
2021 « The Medical Practices of Yogins in Medieval India. The Testimony of the
Dharmaputrikā. » (History of Science in South Asia, en préparation, sous réserve
d’acceptation).
2021 « ‘Cette âme tombée dans un corps étranger’. Notes introductives au
Bhāgavatapurāṇa III 31 ». In Enric Porqueres I Gené et Séverine Mathieu (dir.),
volume dédié aux représentations de l’embryon, Paris: Maison des Sciences de
l’Homme (sous presse).
2020 « Preliminary Notes on the Dharmaputrikā ». Journal of Yoga Studies (63 pages)
(accepté pour publication).
2019 « Le Maître dans la tradition śivaïte de l’Inde du Sud. Lecture de la Vāyavīyasaṃhitā
II 13 ». In François Raviez (dir.), L’Image du maître spirituel, Arras: Artois Presses
Université (coll. Étude des faits religieux), 59–81.
2017 En collaboration avec Suzanne Newcombe et Dagmar Wujastyk, « Introduction ». In
Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and
Inner Asia, dirigé par Dagmar Wujastyk, Suzanne Newcombe, et Christèle Barois.
History of Science in South India vol. 5.2 (2017), i–xvii.
2017 « Stretching Out Life, Maintaining the Body: Part I - vayas in Medical Literature ».
Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and
Inner Asia, dirigé par Dagmar Wujastyk, Suzanne Newcombe et Christèle Barois.
History of Science in South India Vol 5 No 2 (2017), 37–65.
2009 « The Legendary Life of Upamanyu ». In Petteri Koskikallio (dir.), Parallels and
Comparisons : Proceedings of the Fourth Dubrovnik International Conference on the
Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas, September 2005. Zagreb : Croatian Academy of Sciences
and Arts, p. 279-302.
2003 En collaboration avec T. Ganesan, « À propos des manuscrits de l’Institut français de
Pondichéry », Bulletin d’Études indiennes, 21.1, Paris, 2003, p. 255-264.9


DIRECTION D’OUVRAGES
2017. Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and
Inner Asia, ed. by Dagmar Wujastyk, Suzanne Newcombe, and Christèle Barois.
History of Science in South India Vol 5 No 2 (2017): Special Issue.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18732/hssa.v5i2


REVUES CRITIQUES
2019. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 82(3), 559-561. Marc
Tiefenauer: Les Enfers indiens: Histoire multiple d’un lieu commun. (Handbook of
Oriental Studies Section Two South Asia.) xxxv, 681 pp. Leiden: Brill, 2018.


ARTICLES AUTRES
2020 En collaboration avec Nirajan Kafle (Université de Naples). Rédaction de la notice
scientifique du manuscrit MS.SL.57, dit Śivadharma, conservé à la bibliothèque de
l’Institut d’études indiennes du Collège de France. Cette notice accompagnera la mise
en ligne de la numérisation du manuscrit sur le site Salamandre, Bibliothèque
patrimoniale et catalogue en ligne des archives du Collège de France.
2020 « Usman Report (1923) – First Translations of Regional Submissions », avec
Dagmar Wujastyk et Suzanne Newcombe, introduction aux traductions inédites du
Usman Report (1923). À paraître dans le eJournal of Indian Medicine
(https://indianmedicine.nl/).


OUVRAGE EN PRÉPARATION (2021)


En collaboration avec Nirajan Kafle (Université de Naples) et Anil Kumar Acharya (Tripura,
Inde), Introduction, traduction annotée et édition critique de la Dharmaputrikā.
En collaboration avec Silvia D’Intino (AnHiMA), direction d’un volume de la collection
« Puruṣārtha » (Éditions de EHESS) consacré aux différents aspects du Dharma hors
littérature des Dharmaśāstra.


DIFFUSION DES CONNAISSANCES
2021 (en préparation) Traduction anglaise, en collaboration avec Jason Birch (SOAS), de
l’ouvrage de Christian Bouy, Les Upaniṣads et les Nathyogins, Paris : Collège de
France, 1994 (Routledge, sous réserve d’acceptation).
2020 “Medical treatment in the context of yoga practice (yogacikitsā): Chapter Ten of the
Dharmaputrikā”. Published on the website Ayuryog (ayuryog.org).
2019 « Yoga, Daoism and Alchemy ». Publié sur le site dédié Ayuryog (ayuryog.org).
2017 « Philology through experiment ». Publié sur le site dédié Ayuryog (ayuryog.org).
2017 « Eight Yoga Postures in the Dharmaputrikā ». Publié sur le site dédié Ayuryog
(ayuryog.org).
2016 « The Arion Roşu Collection of the Institute of Indian Studies (Collège de France) ».
Publié sur le site dédié Ayuryog (ayuryog.org).

 

FELLOW FOCUS

Christèle Barois’ residency seminar was held on Monday, December 6, 2021: The embryogenesis narrative from medieval Sanskrit sources. Methodology and issues.

Suggestions of the week:

Film: Thirsty (Pyāsa), by Guru Dutt (1957).

Reading: grappling with pain. Conversational analysis of analgesia consultations, by Michel de Fornel and Maud Verdier. Editions de l’EHESS, 2014.

Since pain is conceived as a subjective experience, its evaluation and objectification rely on the patient’s explanations and self-evaluation. How, then, to assess pain in the case of multi-handicapped and non-speaking children? This work presents a conversational analysis of pain consultations in a reception center for children with severe pathologies. It is based on the audiovisual recording of interactions "in natural context", which are then subjected to a transcription and analysis process. This study, "which is the first ever conducted of epistemic themes specific to a cutting-edge medical field," is my first encounter with conversational analysis. The numerous transcriptions of the analgesia consultations, which use a system of conventions that note the silences, intonations, gestures and glances of the participants, represented for me a striking reading experience, in that they allow the reader direct and sensitive access to the scene of the interactions between the participants (the algologist specialist, the child’s parents and the entourage: nursery nurse, psychomotrician, pediatrician).  


Image: Lemon oil / French Institute of Pondicherry