the Graduate Programme for Interreligious Comparison of Monastic Cultures at the Research Centre for the Comparative History of Religious Orders (FOVOG), TU Dresden, is hosting the conference “Between Community and Seclusion. Defining the Religious Life in the South Asian Traditions, in Buddhism, and in Eastern and Western Christianity” from November 19th to 21st, 2015.
The vita religiosa has a long tradition in eastern and western Christianity. In other cultural regions, such as ancient India or Buddhist areas, monastic life emerged at different times. These monastic cultures are structurally comparable through a historical approach. One of the questions the Graduate Programme would like to address is whether the particularities of ascetic-monastic life can be compared analytically.
For details of the conference program, see
http://www.fovog.de/download/tagung_dresden.pdf