Paul van der Velde

List of John Benjamins publications in which Paul van der Velde is involved.

Title

Humour in the Beginning: Religion, humour and laughter in formative stages of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism

Edited by Roald Dijkstra and Paul van der Velde

Humour in the Beginning presents a multidisciplinary collection of fourteen in-depth case-studies on the role of humour – both benign and blasphemous, elitist and ordinary, orthodox and heterodox – in early, formative stages of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and (late-antique) Judaism. Its… read more

[Topics in Humor Research, 10] 2022. xii, 306 pp.

Article

Velde, Paul van der 2022 “Are you really serious?”: The Buddha, the Brahmins and humour in the śramaṇa tradition of India Humour in the Beginning: Religion, humour and laughter in formative stages of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, Dijkstra, Roald and Paul van der Velde (eds.), pp. 253–270 | Chapter

Four possible examples of humour, jokes or puns from early India are discussed: two from Buddhism (the Khaggavisāṇa-sutta or ‘Song of the Rhinoceros’ and an example from the sermons of the Buddha on the mythical origin of the Brahmin caste system) and two from the Ṛgveda. It appears that humour… read more