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About Raj Balkaran
Dr. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Indian mythology and seasoned online educator. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom where he delivers original courses applying Indian wisdom teachings to modern life. Beyond teaching, speaking and research, Dr. Balkaran runs a thriving one-on-one life guidance practice and serves as McMaster University’s Chaplain of Indian Spirituality. See https://rajbalkaran.com for more information.
Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.
NBN Episodes hosted by Raj:
April 2, 2026
Bangladesh in Anglophone and Vernacular Literature
Bangladesh in Anglophone and Vernacular Literature: Cultural Imaginings of a Postcolonial Nation (Routledge, 2025) illuminates individual and collecti…
April 1, 2026
Indology in Canada Conference
Introducing a new conference to showcase the breadth and vitality of Canadian research on premodern India. We discuss the vision behind the conference…
March 26, 2026
The Goddess in the Mirror
In The Goddess in the Mirror: An Anthropology of Beauty (Duke UP, 2025), Tulasi Srinivas offers a pathbreaking ethnography of contemporary Indian beau…
March 19, 2026
Routes, Patterns, Ideologies
Hindu sacred geographies are shaped by interwoven webs of myth, ritual, and pilgrimage. Routes, Patterns, Ideologies: Navigating Sacred Sites in India…
March 12, 2026
For the Love of Tamil
For the Love of Tamil celebrates the life and work of E. Annamalai (born 1938), the most prominent Tamil linguist of his generation. Spanning six deca…
March 9, 2026
The 4th Yoga Darśana Yoga Sādhana Conference
The 4th International Yoga Darśana Yoga Sādhana Conference convenes 27–29 May 2026 at EHESS Paris, organized by CESAH. Theme: Authenticity, Authority …
March 5, 2026
The Supreme Refuge
The Supreme Refuge: Durgā's Transformation Into the Hindu Great Goddess (SUNY Press, 2025) provides the first comprehensive examination of the Hindu G…
March 2, 2026
The Ocean of Yoga
The Ocean of Yoga: A Complete Guide to Living the Teachings, Tradition, and Practice (Shambhala, 2026) is definitive guidebook to the core principles …
February 26, 2026
Decolonial Keywords
Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes (Columbia UP, 2025) presents a set of keywords and concepts embedded in the languages of South…
February 19, 2026
Chips from a Calcutta Workshop
Chips from a Calcutta Workshop: Comparative Religion in Nineteenth Century India (Cambridge University Press, 2025) explores the development and natur…
February 12, 2026
The Meeting of Rivers
In The Meeting of Rivers: Translating Religion in Early Modern India (Oxford UP, 2025), Elaine Fisher reconstructs Vīraśaiva origins from unstudied mu…
February 5, 2026
Wisdom of the Goddess
Hillary Langberg discusses Wisdom of the Goddess, an online exhibition she curated for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art featuring nine g…
January 29, 2026
Panini's Perfect Rule
Around 500 BCE, the Indian scholar Pāṇini wrote a treatise on Sanskrit, the Aṣṭādhyāyī, describing a kind of language machine: an algebraic system of …
January 22, 2026
Hinduism in the World
Hinduism in the World: Migrations and Global Presence (Routledge, 2025) explores Hindu religion from a global perspective and investigates the presenc…
January 15, 2026
The Unraveling Heart
In this interview we discuss The Unraveling Heart: Women's Oral Poetics and Literary Vernacularization in Marathi (Columbia UP, 2025). Women’s songs o…
January 8, 2026
Engaged Jainism
The Jain tradition, with roots in ancient India but now spread across the globe, is anything but static and monolithic. In Engaged Jainism, an interdi…
January 1, 2026
Stories of Shiva's Saints
The Kannada language boasts an ongoing literary tradition spanning more than a millennium, with a rich array of social positions and roles, religious …
December 31, 2025
Slandering the Sacred
Why is religion today so often associated with giving and taking offense? To answer this question, Slandering the Sacred: Blasphemy Law and Religious …
December 29, 2025
Critics Not Caretakers
Russell T. McCutcheon's essay collection Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion (Routledge, 2023) argues that the study of …
December 25, 2025
Engaging Hindu Narratives and Practices in the Contemporary World
"Engaging Hindu Narratives and Practices in the Contemporary World"Special Issue of the International Journal of Hindu Studies: Volume 29, Issue 2 (Au…
December 18, 2025
Purana Media: Past, Present, Future
PURANA Media is an annual, peer-reviewed, open access journal focused on modes of cultural production encompassed by the term purāṇa (a Sanskrit word …
December 11, 2025
Embodied Ecology
In Embodied Ecology: Yoga and the Environment (Mandala Publishing, 2025), Hindu Studies scholar Christopher Key Chapple explores how Hindu and Yoga tr…
December 8, 2025
Nitya Prārthanā
"Nitya Prārthanā” and “Nitya Dhyāna” are two profound collections designed to infuse daily life with sacredness. “Nitya Prārthanā” offers popular chan…
December 4, 2025
The Serpent's Tale
The Serpent’s Tale: Kundalini, Yoga, and the History of an Experience (Columbia UP, 2025) traces the intricate global histories of Kuṇḍalinī, from its…