Episodios

  • Andrew Ollett, "The Mirror of Ornaments (Alaṅkāradappaṇō): A Prakrit Work of Poetics" (UniorPress, 2025)

    Andrew Ollett, "The Mirror of Ornaments (Alaṅkāradappaṇō): A Prakrit Work of Poetics" (UniorPress, 2025)
    May 8 2025
    The Mirror of Ornaments (Alaṅkāradappaṇō) defines and exemplifies 42 figures of speech or “ornaments” in 134 verses. It is the only surviving work of poetics in Prakrit, a literary language closely related to Sanskrit. It is one of the earliest representatives of the larger Indian discourse on poetics, and is especially closely linked to Bhāmaha’s Ornament of Literature (Kāvyālaṅkāra). This book includes an introduction, annotated translation, glossary, and diplomatic and critical editions of the single surviving manuscript of the Mirror of Ornaments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    55 m
  • Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette, "Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas" (Springer, 2025)

    Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette, "Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas" (Springer, 2025)
    May 1 2025
    Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas (Springer, 2025) examines the significance of metaphysical list-making as a determining feature of 'spiritual exercises' in South Asian gnostic yogas. It examines how these ancient traditions sought spiritual transformation through the dialectical practice of taxonomy. It highlights the gnostic thread that intersects 'spiritual exercises' and 'ways of life' in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina circles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    59 m
  • Tithi Bhattacharya, "Ghostly Past, Capitalist Presence: A Social History of Fear in Colonial Bengal" (Duke UP, 2024)

    Tithi Bhattacharya, "Ghostly Past, Capitalist Presence: A Social History of Fear in Colonial Bengal" (Duke UP, 2024)
    Apr 29 2025
    In Ghostly Past, Capitalist Presence: A Social History of Fear in Colonial Bengal (Duke UP, 2024), Tithi Bhattacharya maps the role that Bengali ghosts and ghost stories played in constituting the modern Indian nation, and the religious ideas seeded therein, as it emerged in dialogue with European science. Bhattacharya introduces readers to the multifarious habits and personalities of Bengal’s traditional ghosts and investigates and mourns their eventual extermination. For Bhattacharya, British colonization marked a transition from the older, multifaith folk world of traditional ghosts to newer and more frightening specters. These "modern" Bengali ghosts, borne out of a new rationality, were homogeneous specters amenable to "scientific" speculation and invoked at séance sessions in elite drawing rooms. Reading literature alongside the colonial archive, Bhattacharya uncovers a new reordering of science and faith from the middle of the nineteenth century. She argues that these shifts cemented the authority of a rising upper-caste colonial elite who expelled the older ghosts in order to recast Hinduism as the conscience of the Indian nation. In so doing, Bhattacharya reveals how capitalism necessarily reshaped Bengal as part of the global colonial project. Arnab Dutta Roy is Assistant Professor of World Literature and Postcolonial Theory at Florida Gulf Coast University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    38 m
  • Paul Bramadat, "Yogalands: In Search of Practice on the Mat and in the World" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

    Paul Bramadat, "Yogalands: In Search of Practice on the Mat and in the World" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)
    Apr 24 2025
    In Yogalands (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025), Paul Bramadat wrestles with his position as a skeptical scholar who is also a devoted yoga practitioner. Drawing from his own experience, and from conversations with hundreds of yoga teachers and students in the United States and Canada, he seeks to understand what yoga means for people in the modern West. In doing so, he addresses issues that often sit beneath the surface in yogaland: why yoga’s religious dimensions are rarely mentioned in classes; how the relationship between yoga and trauma might be reconsidered; and how yoga seems to have survived debates around nationalism, cultural appropriation, and sexual misconduct. Yogalands encourages practitioners and critics to be more curious about yoga. For insiders, this can deepen their practice, and for observers, this approach is an inspiring and unsettling model for engaging with other passionate commitments. Paul Bramadat is director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    1 h y 14 m
  • John Nemec, "Brahmins and Kings: Royal Counsel in the Sanskrit Narrative Literatures" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    John Nemec, "Brahmins and Kings: Royal Counsel in the Sanskrit Narrative Literatures" (Oxford UP, 2025)
    Apr 17 2025
    Brahmins and Kings: Royal Counsel in the Sanskrit Narrative Literatures (Oxford UP, 2025) examines some of the most well-known and widely circulated narratives in the history of Sanskrit literature, including the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, Visnusarman's famed animal stories (the Panchatantra), Somadeva's labyrinthine Ocean of Rivers of Stories (the Kathasaritsagara), Kalhana's Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir (the Rajatarangini), and two of the most famous plays in the history of Sanskrit literature, Kalidasa's Abhijnanasakuntala and Harsa's Ratnavali. Offering a sustained close, intertextual reading, John Nemec argues that these texts all share a common frame: they feature stories of the mutual relations of ksatriya kings with Brahmins, and they all depict Brahmins advising political figures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    54 m
  • Christopher Key Chapple, "The SāṃKhya System: Accounting for the Real" (SUNY Press, 2024)

    Christopher Key Chapple, "The SāṃKhya System: Accounting for the Real" (SUNY Press, 2024)
    Apr 10 2025
    The SāṃKhya System: Accounting for the Real (SUNY Press, 2024) brings new life to an ancient Hindu system of thought. Sāṃkhya spans the fields of philosophy, physics, metaphysics, psychology, and ethics. Although notably not theological, its key premises can be found in virtually all religious traditions that originate from India. Sāṃkhya espouses a reciprocity between Prakṛti, the realm of activity, and Puruṣa, the silent witness. It also delineates the phenomenal experiences that arise from Prakṛti, including the operations of the human body, the five great elements, and the eight mental states. Sāṃkhya proclaims that knowledge of world and self can lead to freedom. This book presents a new translation of Īśvarakṛṣṇa's Sāṃkhya Kārikā, with grammatical analysis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    56 m
  • Lavanya Vemsanim, "Reframing India in World History" (Lexington Books, 2024)

    Lavanya Vemsanim, "Reframing India in World History" (Lexington Books, 2024)
    Apr 3 2025
    Reframing India in World History breaks the stereotypical portrayal of India based on misconstrued historical theories. Prevalent constructions of Indian history are tinged with colonial historical frameworks and presentation. It is important to understand India for what it is in the past based on self-determined frameworks derived from Indian history to reclaim India’s place in the world history. Based on new evidence-based research, Lavanya Vemsani explores patterns of civilization that are indigenous to India to investigate its history from the beginning to the present. This book covers topics central to a comprehensive understanding of the nation including a discussion of long held cultural notions, civilization continuity, and the historical crises deriving from conquests and colonization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    39 m
  • Kiyokazu Okita, "The Building of Vṛndāvana: Architecture, Theology, and Practice in an Early Modern Pilgrimage Town" (Brill, 2023)

    Kiyokazu Okita, "The Building of Vṛndāvana: Architecture, Theology, and Practice in an Early Modern Pilgrimage Town" (Brill, 2023)
    Mar 27 2025
    The small town of Vṛndāvana is today one of the most vibrant places of pilgrimage in northern India. Throngs of pilgrims travel there each year to honour the sacred land of Kṛṣṇa’s youth and to visit many of its temples. The Building of Vṛndāvana: Architecture, Theology, and Practice in an Early Modern Pilgrimage Town (Brill, 2023) explores the complex history of this town’s early modern origins. Bringing together scholars from various disciplines to examine history, architecture, art, ritual, theology, and literature in this pivotal period, the book examines how these various disciplines were used to create, develop, and map Vṛndāvana as the most prominent place of pilgrimage for devotees of Kṛṣṇa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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    43 m
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