Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchIn Pursuit of the Inconceivable: An Investigation of Metaphysics and Mysticism with Peter G. Jones (Essentia Books, 2025)
Episode 656
In Pursuit of the Inconceivable: An Investigation of Metaphysics and Mysticism (Essentia Books, 2025) is a compelling exploration of fundamental ques…
6 hours ago
Palimpsests Past and Present: The Sufis and Sultans of the Maklī Necropolis, 1380–1660 with Fatima Quraishi (UNC Press, 2026)
Episode 655
Established in the late fourteenth century in what is now Sindh Province, Pakistan, the Maklī necropolis grew over three centuries to a site of more …
4 days, 6 hours ago
Shared Sacred Sites in South Asia: Negotiating Coexistence and Belonging with Christophe Jaffrelot (Hurst, 2026)
Episode 654
What can shared sacred sites tell us about religious coexistence in South Asia? Political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot joins Shreya Urvashi to disc…
4 days, 6 hours ago
The Cultural Heritage of Śākta Tantric Communities in India: Goddesses and Magicians in the Holy Groves of Kerala with Maciej Karasinski (Routledge, 2026)
Episode 653
Despite the long tradition of exploring the Tantric temple culture of Nampūtiri Brahmins within Tantric studies, the Śākta stream remains under-resea…
1 week ago
An Alaṅkāra Reader: Classical Indian Poetics with Yigal Bronner (Columbia UP, 2026)
Episode 652
Classical Indian poetics prized the skillful use of alaṅkāras, or “ornaments”—literary figures of speech. Across more than a millennium, Sanskrit wri…
2 weeks ago
The Examination of Religion (Dharmaparīkṣā): A Jain Tradition of Narrative Adaptations with Heleen De Jonckheere (Brill, 2026)
Episode 651
Repetition, reconfiguration, or adaptation form key characteristics of the Indian literary traditions. Jain literature exemplifies this vividly, espe…
3 weeks ago
Allama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination with N.S. Gundur
Episode 650
Engages with the life and ideas of the twelfth-century Shaiva mystic and philosopher-poet Allama Prabhu.
In his last, profoundly innovative work All…
4 weeks ago
Karline McLain, "Living with Gandhi: Experiments in Utopia" (Association for Asian Studies, 2026)
Episode 649
Mahatma Gandhi was an anticolonial activist, lawyer, and politician. Less famously, but no less importantly, he was also a back-to-the-land farmer, a…
1 month ago
James D. Ryan, "The Upanisads as They Are: Brhadaranyaka, Chandogya, Aitareya, Taittiriya, Kausitaki" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Episode 647
These Upanisads (c. 800-300 BCE) are almost always read from the point of view of the later Vedantins, but they do not share in the neatly tailored c…
1 month, 1 week ago
Sanjay Joshi, "Brahmins of the Himalaya: Upper-Caste Ways of Belonging, 1850-1950" (SUNY Press, 2026)
Uses the everyday histories of Brahmin clans, communities, and families in a prominent small town in the Indian Himalaya to challenge the assumption …
1 month, 2 weeks ago