New Books in South Asian Studies

Shakuntala Gawde's book Narrative Analysis of Bhagavata Purana: Selected Episodes from the Tenth Skandha (Dev Publishers, 2023) presents an analytical study of selected narratives of the tenth skandha of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa with the framework of Narratology. It checks the possibilities of interpretation of some popular narratives from Kṛṣṇa saga. Book gives an exhaustive introduction dealing with Purāṇas, the growth of Vaiṣṇnavism and Narratology with special reference to Bhāgavata Purāṇa which sets precursor to the further analysis. It undertakes hermeneutic interpretation of episodes – Lord Kṛṣṇa’s birth story, Lifting of Govardhana Mountain, Syamantaka jewel, exploits of Pūtanā and other demons, uprooting of Arjuna trees, the expulsion of Kāliya, Gopīcīraharaṇam, Rāsapaῆcādhyāyī, story of Kubjā, story of Śrīdāman and Rukmiṇī Svayaṁvara. All these narratives are categorised into three themes – 1) Assimilation and acculturation 2) Exploits of demons and 3) Bhakti Narratives. The Narrative structure of each episode is analysed to derive the meaning from it. Theoretical frameworks developed by K. Ayyappa Paniker, Genette and Roland Barthes are applied to the selected narratives of the tenth skandha of Bhāg. P. to understand the deeper meaning of the narratives. The toolbox approach is taken into consideration while doing textual exegesis and hermeneutic interpretation. It explores socio-historical, psychological and philosophical aspects of the above narratives through textual analysis of the tenth skandha of Bhāgavata Purāṇa using the tools like intertextuality and intratextuality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Music in Colonial Punjab (Oxford UP, 2023) offers the first social history of music in undivided Punjab (1800-1947), beginning at the Lahore court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and concluding at the Patiala royal darbar. It unearths new evidence for the centrality of female performers and classical music in a region primarily viewed as a folk music centre, featuring a range of musicians and dancers -from 'mirasis' (bards) and 'kalawants' (elite musicians), to 'kanjris' (subaltern female performers) and 'tawaifs' (courtesans). A central theme is the rise of new musical publics shaped by the anglicized Punjabi middle classes, and British colonialists' response to Punjab's performing communities. The book reveals a diverse connoisseurship for music with insights from history, ethnomusicology, and geography on an activity that still unites a region now divided between India and Pakistan.Dr Radha Kapuria is an Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Durham University, United Kingdom. She is a historian of gender and culture in South Asia. Her current research is on the impact of the 1947 Partition on musicians’ lives in India and Pakistan. This ongoing research will feed into her second monograph on musical memories of the Partition, focused on the history of musical exchange across the Indo-Pak border in both South Asia and the British diaspora since 1947. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In The Metaphysics of Meditation: Sri Aurobindo and Ādi Śaṅkara on the Īśā Upaniṣad (Bloomsbury 2024), Stephen Phillips argues that the two titular Vedānta philosophers are not as opposed as commonly thought. His book is structured as a series of essays on Aurobindo and Śaṅkara’s analysis of the early, important, and brief Īśā Upaniṣad, also including a new English translation of the text along with a translation of Śaṅkara’s commentary thereupon. Philosophically, the book investigates questions about what is metaphysically fundamental, the epistemology of mystical, meditative practices such as yoga, the limitations of human language in expressing the ineffable—and the role of poetry in these efforts, and the problem of evil facing even panentheistic monists such as Advaita Vedāntins. In many ways an introduction to Advaita Vedānta, The Metaphysics of Meditation also includes new translations of Śaṅkara’s theodicy from his Brahmasūtra commentary and his discussion of the disciplines (yogas) of meditation and action in his Bhagavad Gītā commentary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Manu Bhagavan and Ellen Chesler discuss Bhagavan’s latest book on Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (Penguin, 2023), admired sister of India’s founding Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and a pioneering public servant, diplomat, and women's rights advocate, in her own right. They talk about the Nehru’s privileged upbringing and elite education, their conversion to a Gandhi inspired ascetism, the hardships of repeated jail sentences during the struggle against British colonialism, as well as the many influences on Pandit’s feminist consciousness, including early western role models like Annie Besant and Margaret Sanger.Their conversation highlights the critical role of the All-India Women's Conference chaired by Pandit in advancing popular critiques of colonialism and inspiring confidence that the country could transition peacefully and move forward successfully on its own. They also discuss Pandit’s impressive diplomatic career after World War II, when she served in many foreign posts, became the first woman president of the UN General Assembly, and was celebrated globally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) is perhaps the most iconised historical figure in India. Born into a caste deemed ‘unfit for human association’, he came to define what it means to be human. How and why did Ambedkar, who revered and cited the Gita till the 1930s, turn against Hinduism? What were his quarrels with Gandhi and Savarkar? Why did he come to see himself as Moses? How did the lessons learnt at Columbia University impact the struggle for water in Mahad in 1927 and the drafting of the Constitution of India in 1950? Having declared in 1935 that he will not die as a Hindu, why did Ambedkar toil on the Hindu Code Bill? What made him a votary of Western individualism and yet put faith in the collective ethical way of life suggested by Buddhism? Why is it wrong to see Ambedkar as an apologist for colonialism? From which streams of thought did Ambedkar brew his philosophies? Who were the thinkers he turned to in his library of fifty thousand books? What did this life of the mind cost him and his intimates? What of his first wife, Ramabai, while he was busy with the chalval?A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar (Navayana Press, 2023) is a rigorous effort at both asking questions and answering as many as one can about B.R. Ambedkar. Ashok Gopal undertakes a mission without parallel: reading the bulk of Ambedkar’s writings, speeches and letters in Marathi and English, and what Ambedkar himself would have read. This is the story of the unrelenting toil and struggle that went into the making of Ambedkar legend.A graduate in history, Ashok Gopal has worked as a journalist, consultant for NGOs, curriculum designer and educational content developer. He has been studying the life and thought of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar since 2004. He lives in Pune.The book features 70 photographs, most of them from the archivist Vijay Surwade’s collection.For a more dedicated analysis about Ambedkar’s take on as well as departure from John Dewey’s American Pragmatism, please check out Scott R. Stroud’s monograph, The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In the wake of the devastating WWI, three Jews headed the most valuable territory in the British Empire in addition to a strategically important new addition. Edwin Montagu held the position of Secretary of State for India, Rufus Isaacs (Lord Reading) was the newly appointed Viceroy of India, and Herbert Samuel arrived in Jerusalem as the first High Commissioner of Palestine.Their appointments came at a time of great upheaval as Indian nationalists clamoured for independence, pan-Islamists fought to keep the defeated Ottoman Empire intact and the sultan in Constantinople, and Zionists sought to build on the wartime promise by the British government to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine in face of opposition by Palestinians and pan-Islamists. The task of tackling these issues was made all the more difficult by accusations that Jews were not loyal to the British Empire and its goals, a view promoted by the appearance of the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion in English translation.British Jews and Imperial Service: Nationalism, Pan-Islamism and Zionism in Mandate Palestine and Colonial India (Bloomsbuy, 2023) by Dr. Stephanie Chasin follows this web of divisive imperial politics, and nationalist and pan-Islamist aspirations in India and Palestine, through the lives and work of these three men whose efforts were coloured by the post-war fear of a declining empire that was being corroded from within.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Friendship—particularly interreligious friendship—offers both promise and peril. After the end of Muslim political sovereignty in South Asia, how did Muslim scholars grapple with the possibilities and dangers of Hindu-Muslim friendship? How did they negotiate the incongruities between foundational texts and attitudes toward non-Muslims that were informed by the premodern context of Muslim empire and the realities of British colonialism, which rendered South Asian Muslims a political minority? In Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023), SherAli Tareen, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, explores how leading South Asian Muslim thinkers imagined and contested the boundaries of Hindu-Muslim friendship from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. He argues that often what was at stake in Muslim scholarly debates on Hindu-Muslim friendship were unresolved tensions over the meaning of Islam in the modern world. Tareen’s framework also provides a timely perspective on the historical roots of present-day Hindu-Muslim relations, considering how to overcome thorny legacies and open new horizons for interreligious friendship. In our conversation we discussed Muslim scholarly translations of Hinduism, Hindu-Muslim theological polemics, intra-Muslim debates on cow sacrifice, and debates on emulating Hindu customs and habits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language of the famous Ramayana tale. It was written by the poet and scholar Svayambhudeva, who lived in south India around the beginning of the tenth century. Like the epic tradition on which it is based, The Life of Padma narrates Prince Rama's exile, his search for his wife Sita after her abduction by King Ravana of Lanka, and the restoration of his kingship.The second volume recounts Rama's exile with Sita and his brother Lakshmana. The three visit various cities--rather than ashrams, as in most versions; celebrate Lakshmana's marriages; and come upon a new city built in Rama's honor. In Dandaka Forest, they encounter sages who are masters of Jain doctrine. Then, the discovery of Sita's disappearance sets the stage for war with Ravana.Eva De Clercq's The Life of Padma (Harvard UP, 2023) is the first direct translation into English of the oldest extant Apabhramsha work, accompanied by a corrected text, in the Devanagari script, of Harivallabh C. Bhayani's critical edition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Philosophical concepts are influential in the theories and methods to study the world religions. Even though the disciplines of anthropology and religious studies now encompass communities and cultures across the world, the theories and methods used to study world religions and cultures continue to be rooted in Western philosophies. In Indic philosophical systems, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, one of the common views on reality is that the world both within one self and outside is a flow with nothing permanent, both the observer and the observed undergoing constant transformation. Pankaj Jain and Jeffery D. Long's book Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) is based on such innovative ideas coming from different Indic philosophies and how they can enrich the theory and methods in religious studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Kalpavigyan—science fiction written to excite Bengali speakers about science, as well as to persuade them to evolve beyond the limitations of religion, caste, and class—became popular in the early years of the twentieth century. Translated into English for the first time, in The Inhumans and Other Stories (MIT Press, 2024) you'll discover The Inhumans (1935), Hemendrakumar Roy's satirical novella about a lost race of Bengali supermen in Uganda. Also included are Jagadananda Ray's “Voyage to Venus” (1895), Nanigopal Majumdar's “The Mystery of the Giant” (1931), and Manoranjan Bhattacharya's “The Martian Purana” (1931). The stories were selected and translated by Dr. Bohdisattva Chattopadhyay.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies