New Books Network
Indian Religions
Indian Religions April 30, 2021

Teaching Buddhist Studies Online

A Discussion with Kate Hartmann

Kate Hartmann

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Join Raj Balkaran as he talks with Dr. Kate Hartmann, Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Wyoming and Director of Buddhist Studies Online, a new educational platform …

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Indian Religions April 30, 2021

Land of the Golden River

The Medieval Tamil Folk Epic of Poṉṉivaḷa Nāḍu

Brenda Beck

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
This podcast features Brenda Beck’s lifelong work on the Tamil folk epic Ponnivala. In addition to her forthcoming new English translation of the epic (“Land of the Golden River”), we …
Indian Religions April 28, 2021

Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia

Insiders, Outsiders, and Interlopers

Gil Ben-Herut and Jon Keune

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Gil Ben-Herut and Jon Keune's book Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia: Insiders, Outsiders, and Interlopers (Routledge, 2019) explores the key motif of the religious Other in devotional (bhakti) literatures …
Indian Religions April 23, 2021

Sikhs in the Deccan and North-East India

Birinder Pal Singh

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Birinder Pal Singh's book Sikhs in the Deccan and North-East India (Taylor & Francis, 2018) is a major intervention in the understanding of the dynamics of internal migration in South Asia …
Indian Religions April 23, 2021

World Religions Reader

Understanding Our Religious World

Thomas Robinson and Hillary Rodrigues

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Preparing online materials since 2005 (including Hindusim the EBook, 2016), Dr. Hillary Rodrigues has been working on a fantastic resource for anyone interested in studying or teaching world religions. See www.robinest.org.  …
Indian Religions April 22, 2021

The Science of Satyug

Class, Charisma, and Vedic Revivalism in the All World Gayatri Pariwar

Daniel Heifetz

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
The first in-depth study of the All World Gayatri Pariwar, a modern Indian religious movement. The All World Gayatri Pariwar is a modern religious movement that enjoys wide popularity in …
Indian Religions April 20, 2021

Many Mahābhāratas

Nell Shapiro Hawley and Sohini Sarah Pillai

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Nell Shapiro Hawley and Sohini Sarah Pillai's book Many Mahābhāratas (SUNY Press, 2021) is an introduction to the spectacular and long-lived diversity of Mahābhārata literature in South Asia. This diversity begins with the …
Indian Religions April 14, 2021

The Muhammad Avatāra

Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam

Ayesha A. Irani

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
The Muhammad Avatāra: Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam (Oxford University Press, 2021) reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal.Its focus is on …
Indian Religions April 13, 2021

The Integrity of the Yoga Darsana

A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga

Ian Whicher

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Join Raj Balkaran as he discusses yoga philosophy with Ian Whicher. We begin with a discussion on how he began his journey towards yoga philosophy before probing his assertion that …
Indian Religions March 30, 2021

Daya Krishna and Twentieth-Century Indian Philosophy

A New Way of Thinking about Art, Freedom, and Knowledge

Daniel Raveh

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Daya Krishna and Twentieth-Century Indian Philosophy: A New Way of Thinking about Art, Freedom, and Knowledge (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) by Daniel Raveh introduces contemporary Indian philosophy as a unique philosophical genre through …
Indian Religions March 23, 2021

Till Kingdom Come

Medieval Hinduism in the Modern Himalaya

Lokesh Ohri

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Hinduism, as is well known, has taken a multitude of shapes and forms. Some Hindu "little traditions" have remained obscure or understudied to this day due to their regional remoteness …
Indian Religions March 19, 2021

An Indian Tantric Tradition and Its Modern Global Revival

Contemporary Nondual Śaivism

Douglas Osto

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
In An Indian Tantric Tradition and Its Modern Global Revival: Contemporary Nondual Śaivism (Routledge, 2020), Douglas Osto analyses the contemporary global revival of Nondual Śaivism, a thousand-year-old medieval Hindu religious philosophy …
Buddhist Studies March 18, 2021

Yasodhara and the Buddha

Vanessa R. Sasson

Hosted by Luke Thompson
By combining the spirit of fiction with the fabulism of Indian mythology and in-depth academic research, Vanessa R. Sasson shares the evocative story of the Buddha from the perspective of …
Buddhist Studies March 16, 2021

Wisdom as a Way of Life

Theravāda Buddhism Reimagined

Steven Collins

Hosted by Luke Thompson
This wide-ranging and powerful book argues that Theravāda Buddhism provides ways of thinking about the self that can reinvigorate the humanities and offer broader insights into how to learn and …
Indian Religions March 12, 2021

Religious Tolerance

A History

Arvind Sharma

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Religion has become a vital element in identity politics globally after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States of America. And so the question of how …
Indian Religions March 5, 2021

Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics

Why and How Deep Learning Still Matters

Francis X. Clooney

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
We live in an era of unprecedented growth in knowledge. Never before has there been so great an availability of and access to information in both print and online.  Yet …
Indian Religions March 2, 2021

Yoga in Jainism

Christopher Chapple

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Jaina Studies is a relatively new and rapidly expanding field of inquiry for scholars of Indian religion and philosophy. In Jainism, "yoga" carries many meanings, and this book explores the …
Indian Religions February 25, 2021

The Mahabharata

Bibek Debroy

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins the Pandavas and the Kouravas but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma …
Indian Religions February 24, 2021

Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab

Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947

Michale P. Brunner

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Michael P. Brunner's Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab: Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947 (Palgrave, 2020) explores the localisation of modernity in late colonial India.  As a …
Indian Religions February 17, 2021

Ownership and Inheritance in Sanskrit Jurisprudence

Christopher T. Fleming

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Ownership and Inheritance in Sanskrit Jurisprudence (Oxford UP, 2021) provides an account of various theories of ownership (svatva) and inheritance (dāya) in Sanskrit jurisprudential literature (Dharmaśāstra). It examines the evolution of different …