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New Books in Indian Religions: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Marshall Poe
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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- 6 days ago50 min
Dominik A. Haas, "South Asia Before Religion: Reflections on an Anachronistic Concept" (Knowledge Commons Works, 2026)
South Asia Before Religion: Reflections on an Anachronistic Concept (Knowledge Commons Works, 2026) critically examines the applicability of the concept of religion to premodern South Asian culture. I argue that premodern South Asia did not possess a concept equivalent to religion as understood today – neither as a distinct system of religious teachings and practices, nor as a fundamental cultural category separate from non-religious domains such as the secular, philosophy, or science. Using Āyurveda and philosophy as examples, I show that imposing anachronistic categories on past cultures risks misrepresenting their inner logics and social realities. I advocate deconstructing modern notions of religion and refraining from reconstructing the past with religion as a template. However, concepts of religion can serve a purpose when used as historicized objects of comparison or reference for premodern concepts and systems, in order to facilitate access to premodern cultures and contribute effectively to contemporary discourses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
- 1 weeks ago29 min
Ute Hüsken and Suganya Anandakichenin eds., "Pathika: Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions" (HAS, 2026)
A conversation featuring the editors of the new Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing series Pathika - Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions (HAS, 2026) Pathika – Sanskrit for "traveler" or "one who follows a path" – is a new series dedicated to the textual traditions of South Asia, engaging with the rich landscape of South Asian literary and religious traditions. The series encompasses critical editions, annotated translations, and in-depth studies of texts spanning the full breadth of South Asian traditions. From inscriptions to previously untranslated manuscripts, Pathika provides a venue to both established scholars and emerging researchers to publish their work on the textual traditions of South Asia. The volumes adhere to rigorous philological standards while making important texts and translations accessible to a wider academic audience. Pathika particularly welcomes interdisciplinary approaches that situate texts within their historical, religious, and cultural contexts. The series fully supports all South Asian scripts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
- 2 weeks ago34 min
Pratap Kumar Penumala and Arvind Sharma, "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Hindu Ethics" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
With the plurality of Hinduism in mind, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Hindu Ethics focuses on the human, sociological and situational ethical framework underpinning Hindu ethics. Chapters go beyond the traditional classical sources-such as the Vedas, epics, mythological narratives and Dharmasastra texts-to include lesser known vernacular based moral texts, as well as contemporary sources from organizations, intellectuals and movements of religious, social and political nature.Going beyond only theological and philosophical discussions, this handbook presents a truly multidisciplinary approach to Hindu ethics. This book will benefit not only scholars and students within religious studies and philosophy, but also those from sociology, history, theology, law, anthropology and literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
- 3 weeks ago1h 36m
Gajendran Ayyathurai, "Tamil Buddhism and Brahminism in Modern India: Deep Resistance Against Caste" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Tamil Buddhism and Brahminism in Modern India: Deep Resistance Against Caste (Oxford University Press, 2026) explores Tamil Buddhism in modern India, focusing on its emergence as a response to caste-based oppression during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Central to this movement was Pandit Iyothee Thass (1845–1914), a pioneering intellectual who reinterpreted India’s Buddhist past to challenge brahminical dominance. Thass reasoned that it was because many Indians followed Buddhist cultural and material traditions in ancient times, that they were oppressed as untouchables and lower castes by self-privileging-caste groups, such as brahmins. Thus, Thass challenged brahminism/casteism in India by reconstructing and mobilizing a reading public about the casteless Buddhist history of Indians who were prone to caste oppression. His writings, petitions, and archives reveal the castelessness of Tamil Buddhists and their commitment to a radical political transformation in modern India. Key aspects of the Tamil Buddhist movement include public mobilization for caste-free societies, self-representation of oppressed communities, economic redistribution through affirmative action, and a feminist critique of caste and patriarchy. Through interdisciplinary methods drawn from Critical Caste Studies, this monograph uncovers the intellectual history of Tamil Buddhism and its radical call for vernacular emancipation. It highlights how Indigenous, Tamil/Indian communities used Buddhist foundations to resist caste and envision a modern, casteless future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
- 3 weeks ago34 min
Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan, "Tamil Śiva Temples, Āgamas, and Śivabrāhmaṇas/Ādiśaivas" (YSSR Foundation, 2026)
Tamil Śiva Temples, Āgamas, and Śivabrāhmaṇas/Ādiśaivas addresses the issue of whether members of all castes can become priests in Tamil Śiva temples. The history of the Śivabrāhmaṇas or Ādiśaivas as priests in Tamil Śiva temples is described using the epigraphic corpus as well as other Śaiva texts in Tamil along with information from the Śaiva studies of the likes of Richard Davis, Alexis Sanderson, Dominic Goodall, and Michael Gollner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
- 4 weeks ago1h 3m
Aditi Chandra, "Unruly Monuments: Disrupting the State at Delhi's Islamic Architecture" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Unruly Monuments: Disrupting the State at Delhi's Islamic Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 2025) examines how Delhi's Sultanate and Mughal architecture, dating from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, became modern monuments and were assimilated and ordered into public consciousness as spaces for tourism, leisure, and intellectual contemplation during the colonial and early postcolonial eras (1828-1963). It examines the resistance that challenges this ordering, rendering monuments unruly and unassimilable despite state efforts to control their narrative. This exposes the nation's contradictory claims of inclusivity while marginalizing subaltern groups. It guides readers through picturesque landscapes, museums, imperial displays, postcards, travel experiences, Partition refugee camps, and cinema. Analyzing these forms reveals how the archive of Indo-Islamic monuments was shaped through presences and absences. Each chapter examines everyday life, untangles knowable public transcripts, illuminates strategic excisions and hidden transcripts, juxtaposes evidence that has not yet been analyzed in conjunction, reads archival material against the grain, and finds archival layers in unfamiliar places. NBN Host: Sohini Majumdar Sohini teaches history at University of San Francisco and Santa Clara University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
- Jun 26, 20260
Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context
Why has the Catholic Church in India become so engaged in environmental initiatives? And what does the wider Indian political context defined by an assertive Hindu nationalism mean for the ability of church actors to pursue environmental agendas? In this episode, we are joined by Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Nihar Gokhale who have examined these questions in the Indian state of Goa, focusing on church activities and outreach in the domain of sustainable agriculture and agroecology. You can read more about their research on the relationship between Christian environmentalism, agroecology and the rise of Hindu majoritarianism in the edited volume Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia, published by Leiden University Press. Kenneth Bo Nielsen is a Social Anthropologist at the University of Oslo in Norway. Nihar Gokhale is a DPhil student in International Development at the Oxford Department of International Development. Mette Halskov Hansen, your host, is a Professor of China Studies at the University of Oslo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
- Jun 25, 202635 min
Carola E. Lorea , "Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal" (Wesleyan UP, 2026)
Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal (Wesleyan University Press, 2026) brings together insights from religion, anthropology, sound, and migration studies to explore the sonic traces of untouchability and forced migration across the Bay of Bengal. Based on an immersive, multi-sited ethnography with Matua devotees—a low-caste, Bengali-speaking Dalit religious community fragmented by Partition, war, and postcolonial displacement—the book explores how sound sustains identity across fractured geographies. Using richly detailed descriptions, the book follows traveling archives of song, story, and ritual performance through West Bengal, Bangladesh, and the Andaman Islands. These sonic practices—congregational singing, drumming, and itinerant storytelling—forge belonging beyond nation-states, connecting the Matua's fifty million members across borders and seas. In a world dominated by visual culture, Communities of Sound centers listening as a mode of knowledge and care, revealing how sound shapes our sense of self and cosmos. More than scriptures or doctrine, it is sound—entangled with authority and power—that binds this transregional Dalit movement and animates its collective action. The book is generously illustrated and references an online companion with video and audio examples. Author bio: Carola E. Lorea is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology University of Tübingen, at the University of Tübingen, Germany, where she leads the ERC-funded project MANTRAMS: Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia. She is the author of Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman (2016), and editor with Rosalind Hackett of Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power (2024). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
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About New Books in Indian Religions
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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