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The mantra known as Gāyatrī or Sāvitrī (Ṛgveda III 62.10) is one of the most frequently recited texts of mankind. Over the course of time it has not only been personified as the mother of the Vedas – the oldest religious literature of …
Guest: Dominik A. Haas
Date: 11/22/2023
Sanskrit narrative is the lifeblood of Indian culture, encapsulating and perpetuating insights and values central to Indian thought and practice. Raj Balkaran and McComas Taylor's edited volume Visions and Revisions in Sanskrit Narrative: …
Guest: Raj Balkaran and McComas Taylor
Date: 11/21/2023
In The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya (SUNY Press, 2023), Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure …
Guest: Steven E. Lindquist
Date: 11/9/2023
Science and Society in the Sanskrit World (Brill, 2023) lauds the remarkable career of Christopher Z. Minkowski, the erstwhile Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Balliol College, University of Oxford. The volume contains seventeen essays, …
Guest: Christopher T. Fleming
Date: 9/14/2023
Today I talked to Ravi Gupta and Kenneth Valpey about The Bhagavata Purana: Sacred Text and Living Tradition (Columbia UP, 2013) A vibrant example of living literature, the Bhagavata Purana is a versatile Hindu sacred text written in …
Guest: Ravi Gupta and Kenneth Valpey
Date: 9/6/2023
Michael Baltutis' book The Festival of Indra: Innovation, Archaism, and Revival in a South Asian Performance (SUNY Press, 2023) details the textual and performative history of an important South Asian festival and its role in the …
Guest: Michael Baltutis
Date: 8/3/2023
Blending travelogue, history, and archaeology, Searching for Ashoka: Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand (SUNY Press, 2023) unravels the various avatars of India's most famous emperor, revealing how he came to be …
Guest: Nayanjot Lahiri
Date: 6/29/2023
Sanjaya Singhal discusses Sangraha, an ambitious digital enterprise cataloguing India's millions of decaying Sanskrit manuscripts. Sangraha is a detailed, descriptive catalogue allowing users to find relevant manuscripts with a wide range …
Guest: Sanjaya Singhal
Date: 6/21/2023
The newly-elected first female president of the The International Association of Sanskrit Studies, Dr. Dipti Tripathi discusses Association’s genesis, mandate, and potential in honour of its 50th year. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of …
Guest: Dipti Tripathi
Date: 5/10/2023
The Brahma-sutra, attributed to Badaraya (ca. 400 CE), is the canonical book of Vedanta, the philosophical tradition which became the doctrinal backbone of modern Hinduism. As an explanation of the Upanishads, it is principally concerned …
Guest: Aleksandar Uskokov
Date: 4/13/2023