Indian Religions Podcast

In his book Yoga in Modern Hinduism: Hariharānanda Āraṇya and Sāṃkhyayoga (Routledge, 2017), Knut A. Jacobsen examines the Kāpil Maṭh, a Sāṃkhyayoga institution emerging in the late nineteenth century Bengal. This movement (developing contemporaneously with modern yoga) is centered on the cave-dwelling renunciant yogin Hariharānanda Āraṇya. This …

Did modern Hinduism truly emerge due to the “reforms” instigated by “progressive” colonial figures such as Rammohun Roy? Brian A. Hatcher's new book Hinduism Before Reform (Harvard University Press, 2020) challenges this prevalent notion. Aimed at sidestepping the obfuscating binary of “progressive” vs “traditional”, this book examines in tandem …

Imagining Religious Communities: Transnational Hindus and their Narrative Performances (Oxford University Press, 2019) tells the story of the Gupta family through the personal and religious narratives they tell as they create and maintain their extended family and community across national borders. Based on ethnographic research, the book …

What does cow care in India have to offer modern Western discourse animal ethics? Why are cows treated with such reverence in the Indian context? Join us as we speak to Kenneth R. Valpey about his new book Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Valpey discusses his methodological odyssey looking at ancient Hindu scriptural …

While typically circulating as a separate text, The Harivamsha forms the final part of the Mahabharata storyline. Beyond this, it is rich storehouse of cosmological, genealogical, theological materials, detailing the biography of Krishna (avatar of the Hindu great god Vishnu), along with much more mythic material. Join us as we speak with Simon …

This is the first sustained study of an important figure in Hindu narrative, one largely obscure to readers and scholars alike: Kṛṣṇa's son Pradyumna. In Pradyumna: Lover, Magician, and Scion of the Avatara (Oxford University Press, 2019), Christopher Austin traces the evolution of Pradyumna's persona, placing it in historical context, across its …

Angela Rudert's Shakti's New Voice: Guru Devotion in a Women-Led Spiritual Movement (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) is the first academic study of the popular contemporary North Indian female guru Anandmurti Gurumaa. In drawing from, e.g., Sikh and Sufi traditions, Gurumaa’s syncretic approach innovates Hindu religiosity, as does her progressive …

The Hindu great epic, Mahābhārata, exists today in hundreds of variant manuscripts across India. These manuscripts were painstakingly examined, sorted and reconstituted into the official Critical Edition of the Mahābhārata. Is the Critical Edition a viable means of studying India's great epic? While several scholars critique this undertaking …

Was ancient India ruled by politics or religion? In The History of the Arthaśāstra: Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Mark McClish explores the Arthaśāstra (ancient India’s foundational treatise on statecraft and governance) to problematize the common scholarly idea that politics in ancient India was …

What role did women play in securing power in colonial Himalayan kingdoms? Kingship and Polity on the Himalayan Borderland (Amsterdam University Press, 2019) specifically documents the key roles played by women - especially queen regents - in the modern transformation of state and society in the Indian Himalaya kingdoms. Arik Moran examines three …