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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:
July 25, 2024
Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar
This autobiography--Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story (Bloomsbury, 2024)--traces Francis X. Clooney's intellectual and spiritual jo…
July 18, 2024
Hindu Mission, Christian Mission
For some four hundred years, Hindus and Christians have been engaged in a public controversy about conversion and missionary proselytization, especial…
July 11, 2024
Saving the Dead
Saving the Dead: Tibetan Funerary Rituals in the Tradition of the Sarvardurgatipariśodhana Tantra (WSTB, 2024) explores Tibetan funerary manuals based…
July 4, 2024
Śambūka's Death Toll: a History of Motives and Motifs in an Evolving Rāmāyaṇa Narrative
According to Vālmīki's Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa (early centuries CE), Śambūka was practicing severe acts of austerity to enter heaven. In engaging in these a…
June 27, 2024
Yoga - Anticolonial Philosophy
Providing a decolonial, action-focused account of Yoga philosophy, Yoga - Anticolonial Philosophy: An Action-Focused Guide to Practice (Singing Dragon…
June 20, 2024
For My Blemishless Lord
For My Blemishless Lord (de Gruyter, 2023) presents the text and translation of the exquisite poem Amalaṉ Āti Pirāṉ by Tiruppāṇ Āḻvār, which is part o…
June 13, 2024
Puruṣa
Personhood is central to the worldview of ancient India. Across voluminous texts and diverse traditions, the subject of the puruṣa, the Sanskrit term …
June 12, 2024
The European Association for South Asian Studies
Ute Hüsken discusses the European Association for South Asian Studies and its upcoming conference in Heidelberg, Germany in October 2025. This confe…
June 6, 2024
Visnu-Narayana
The contributions to Visnu-Narayana: Changing Forms and the Becoming of a Deity in Indian Religious Traditions (Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 20…
May 30, 2024
Krishna's Mahabharatas
Between 800 and 1700 CE, a plethora of Mahabharatas were created in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, T…
May 24, 2024
Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell
Is reality more than the material? Raj Balkaran holds a fascinating interview with philosopher Bernardo Kastrup on this topic. At the vanguard of the …
May 23, 2024
The Metaphysics of Meditation
In The Metaphysics of Meditation: Sri Aurobindo and Adi-Sakara on the Isa Upanisad (Bloombury, 2024), Stephen Phillips focuses on one of the most impo…
May 16, 2024
How to Love in Sanskrit
How to Love in Sanskrit (HarperCollins, 2024) is an invitation to Sanskrit love poetry, bringing together verses and short prose pieces by celebrated …
May 9, 2024
Devotional Visualities
Devotional Visualities: Seeing Bhakti in Indic Material Cultures (Bloomsbury, 2023) is the first to focus on material visualities of bhakti imagery th…
May 2, 2024
Mirabai
Mirabai, an iconic sixteenth-century Indian poet-saint, is renowned for her unwavering love of God, her disregard for social hierarchies and gendered …
April 30, 2024
Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics
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…
April 25, 2024
Contemplative Studies and Jainism
Contemplative Studies and Jainism: Meditation, Prayer, and Veneration (Routledge, 2023) is one of the first wide-ranging academic surveys of the maj…
April 18, 2024
The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki
The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, the monumental Sanskrit epic of the life of Rama, ideal man and incarnation of the great god Visnu, has profoundly affected t…
April 12, 2024
Sanskrit Study
A candid conversation with renowned Sanskritist and online teacher Antonia Ruppel on her love of the language, teaching philosophy, views on academia,…
April 11, 2024
Ramopakhyana: The Story of Rama in the Mahabharata
Consisting of about 25,000 verses in Valmiki's Rāmāyaṇa, the story of Rāma was summarized in 704 verses in eighteen chapters in the Rāmopākhyāna, whic…
April 10, 2024
Tantra: A New Understanding
Professor Gavin Flood of Oxford University discusses new insights on tantra to be released in an upcoming publication stemming from his Continuing Stu…
April 5, 2024
Translating a Śrī Vidyā Text
The Cidvilāsastava of Amṛtānanda (fl. c. 1325-1375) one of the most comprehensive treatments of the esoteric contemplation of ritual found within the …
April 4, 2024
Ashoka
Ashoka: Portrait of a Philosopher King (Yale UP, 2024) is the first biography of the great Emperor Ashoka relying solely on his own words. Ashoka soug…
March 28, 2024
A Sakta Method for Comparative Theology
Pravina Rodrigues' book A Sakta Method for Comparative Theology: Upside Down, Inside Out (Lexington, 2023) discusses the issue of the missing Hindu in…