Fate and Immortality in Asia: A Cross-cultural Perspective is an innovative multi-disciplinary project focused on the role played by fate in the quest of immortality and on issues related to immortality per se.
The project objectives consist in an analytical investigation of religious and socio-anthropological-psychological responses to the notions of fate and immortality, with reference to ancient Mesopotamia, Islam, India, Tibet, China, Japan, and in the synergic contextualization of those responses in a comparative, theoretical bridge-building framework geared to define an inclusively cogent and articulated blueprint to be utilized for further trans-disciplinary inquiries and dialectic epistemological exchange.
Immortality represents a compelling aspect of Asian religious and philosophical concerns surrounding death and spiritual salvation. Fate and immortality-related notions and beliefs generated doctrines, liturgies, specialized procedures, and praxes conceived and sanctioned according to the distinct Weltanschauung of the above-mentioned geo-cultural realities. They informed salvation propositions, healing narratives, and curative methods up to the present time. They also informed mythological provenience and contributed to mold national identities and collective images of the latter. Even so, a specific research on the proposed themes has never been carried out so far in a systematic way, neither in terms of individual cultural spheres nor in a comprehensive or comparative mode. In order to contribute to filling such a long-standing research gap, the research methodology envisaged to fulfill the project objectives will combine a dyadic architecture structured upon a historical-textual approach, implying the identification, analysis, and study of ad hoc primary textual sources, and an ethno-anthropological-psychological approach, implying fieldwork, case studies, and interviews with knowledgeable experts as well as Asian migrants in Rome.
The proposed research project is innovative in that it aims at readdressing the research gaps mentioned in the "Contextualization" Section, namely, the need of more systematic studies concerning the topic and relevant points in question in the mentioned geo-cultural contexts as well as the lack of cross-cultural approaches concerning the topic of Fate and Immortality at the broader comparative level of Asian and Eurasian thought.
In that regard, it will adopt not only a comparative approach but also a trans-disciplinary methodology.
It will accomplish an advancement of knowledge with respect to the state of the art by addressing and discussing, on a meta-level, issues concerning immortality, such as survival after death, the problem of personal identity, the relation between mind and body, the possibility of disembodied and/or of the "other body" existence.
In particular, the project will address the following research questions:
How were notions of destiny and immortality formulated and how were they developed through the course of history in the specific contexts?
What are the most prominent soteriological and eschatological views connected to the achievement of immortality?
What are the liturgies and praxes utilized to avert death and the danger of death?
Are there funerary rituals or praxes that 'grant' immortality?
Are these liturgies and praxes socially accepted and diffused?
Can immortality be achieved without transcending the physical body?
What is the image of the liberated self and how does it relate to the mortal one in the various Asiatic cultural contexts?
To which extent do theories of immortality influence healing narratives and practices?
What is the role of divination?
In what way do religious experts interpret relevant textual authority and legitimate it in present-day social circumstances?
Does immortality have to be proven and how could it be proven?
What kind of gender dynamics intervene in constructing notions of fate and immortality?
Are there specific female practitioners who play(ed) any role in that regard?
Is there an ethic of immortality?
Is there an aesthetic of immortality?
How do notions of fate and immortality contribute to the definition of cultural and religious identities and to the nation-building process?
In terms of Third Mission, the proponent believes that the research project and the dissemination of its results may contribute to foster and deepen intellectual understanding of influential Asian cultures and civilizations. Such knowledge plays an ever increasing crucial role at the social, political, and international levels, assuming particular relevance in processes of cultural mediation and integration.