From November 22 to November 28, 2022, the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, the scientific laboratory "Center for the Study of Philosophy and Culture of India" Purushottama " and the Anand International College of Engineering, Jaipur, India are holding the first Annual International Conference in memory of Vsevolod Sementsov "Philosophical Sanskrit Texts: Problems of Reading and Interpretation"

The organizing committee of the conference is pleased to invite Russian and foreign scientists to present the results of their research in the field of classical Indian philosophy and related fields (Sanskritology and literary criticism).

The goal of the conference organizers is to bring together all specialists working in various areas of research in the Indian intellectual tradition, to create a permanent online and offline platform for the exchange of scientific experience, and to form new areas of research in this area. Thus, participation in the conference may be of interest to philosophers, historians of philosophy, literary critics, culturologists, religious scholars, and orientalists.

Another path opens up when we start from the Self — from what we know best, what is revealed to us more than anything else, and what can never and under no circumstances be removed from any picture of the world. To begin with the Self means to begin with the Self as consciousness; but how to do that? And what then is the Other - the Other, taken as the world, society, my body and brain, as well as other people and another culture? In comparison with the materialistic paradigm, the Self and the Other change places here. But not only. There is a kind of doubling of the Other. After all, my own culture, my language, my thinking traditionally acts as the Other for me insofar as I receive them from Others - and I always receive them from Others. And in this sense, I am the Other - because without my language and my culture, I am an empty sound and nothing. But apart from my culture and my language, In addition to the experience of thinking that my culture gives me, there are Other cultures, Other languages and experiences of Another way of thinking. Here it is, doubling. Those Others who have never become Me yet, about whom I did not know how to make them Mine - how to appropriate them. And if humanity lies in mastering and appropriating the Other, so that the Other enters into My flesh and blood, then we are still not human enough. Because until now we — all of us — have limited ourselves to Our culture, Our experience of thinking, Our language, pushing Others — the same, but different — experiences beyond the border of otherness, making them such Others that are not assimilated and not assimilated. how to make them your own - how to appropriate them. And if humanity lies in mastering and appropriating the Other, so that the Other enters into My flesh and blood, then we are still not human enough. Because until now we — all of us — have limited ourselves to Our culture, Our experience of thinking, Our language, pushing Others — the same, but different — experiences beyond the border of otherness, making them such Others that are not assimilated and not assimilated. how to make them your own - how to appropriate them. And if humanity lies in mastering and appropriating the Other, so that the Other enters into My flesh and blood, then we are still not human enough. Because until now we — all of us — have limited ourselves to Our culture, Our experience of thinking, Our language, pushing Others — the same, but different — experiences beyond the border of otherness, making them such Others that are not assimilated and not assimilated.

The conference is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian Indologist Vsevolod Sergeevich Sementsov (07/02/1941 - 01/12/1986) - one of the leading Russian experts in the field of classical Indian philosophy. Vsevolod Sergeevich was a teacher of Sanskrit to a number of prominent Russian orientalists, specialists in the field of Indian philosophy, in particular, V.K. Shokhin and V.G. Lysenko.

V.S. Sementsov is known to a wide range of readers as the author of an unsurpassed translation from Sanskrit into Russian of the outstanding monument of Indian religious literature, the Bhagavad Gita. The study of this monument is still striking in its relevance, depth of thought and talented penetrating description of the most important fragments of the text.

Based on the results of the conference, it is planned to publish an online collection of abstracts included in the RSCI. The most outstanding speeches, designed in the form of articles, will be published in the Bulletin of the RUDN University, Series "Philosophy" (indexed in Scopus).

The final results of the conference will be summed up in the form of an electronic and printed edition of the Proceedings of the Conference (in English), which will include the best reports of the conference participants. Invitations for publication will be sent to authors following the conference.

The main directions of the conference:

• philosophical texts in Sanskrit : problems of reading and interpretation
• classical Indian philosophy : terminological analysis of basic philosophical terms on the example of yoga, sankhya, vedanta, mimamsa, nyaya, vaisheshika, buddhism, jainism
• a methodology for studying highly developed non-European philosophical traditions.

Applications are also accepted on the following topics:

• Sanskritology - Buddhology - Literary criticism - Research methodology and history of Indology - Reception of Indian culture in Russia and in the West
• A number of scientific seminars and round tables are expected to be held within the framework of the conference.
• round table: " DigitalIndology ".
• scientific seminar: "Philosophical triptych: meaning-text-culture". Topic of the meeting: "Logical-semantic theory of A. Smirnov and Theory of civilization-specific rationalities of A. Paribka".
• scientific seminar: "Hermeneutic circle: breakpoints" Session topic: "Situational hermeneutics of R. Pskhu".
• scientific seminar: "Philosophical Indology". Theme of the meeting: "Yoga Sutras" of Patanjali and the Arabic paraphrase of Biruni.
• scientific seminar: "Intellectual theater". The topic of the meeting: ""

Official working language of the conference: English. Conference in a mixed format, in person and on the ZOOM online platform.