The Sanskrit Studies Podcast

The Sanskrit Studies Podcast

In-depth explorations into the field of Sanskrit Studies. Featuring candid conversations and interviews with scholars of Sanskrit across the disciplines of Indology, Linguistics, Religious Studies, Philosophy, History, and more. Hosted by Dr. Antonia Ruppel.

  1. 03/02/2023

    16. Amba Kulkarni | Sanskrit and Computers

    My guest this month is Amba Kulkarni from the Department of Sanskrit at the University of Hyderabad, who has also been associated with IIT Kanpur and the National Sanskrit University. Professor Kulkarni is best known for her work linking traditional Indian linguistic theory (starting with Pāṇini and focussing on aspects such as Śabdabodha and Kāraka theory as studied especially within the Navya-Nyāya/'Neo-Logical' school of philosophy) and AI theories of Knowledge Representation to effe...

  2. 12/01/2022

    15. Robert Zydenbos | The Life of Sanskrit Traditions

    My guest this month is Robert Zydenbos, who is Professor of Modern Indology at the LMU Munich. (Full disclosure: we thus are colleagues!)His first point of contact with Indian languages and philosophies was through Collier's Encyclopaedia. It introduced him to such ideas as rebirth, a concept found in various traditions (see e.g. here, here or here)His first degree was in Indian Studies at the University of Utrecht, at an institute that developed into a centre of Tantric Studies and that has ...

  3. 11/01/2022

    14. Saroja Bhate | Vyākaraṇa and Good Teachers

    My guest this month is Professor Saroja Bhate, former Professor of Sanskrit and Head of the Department of Sanskrit and Prakrit Languages at Pune University, who has published prolifically on Vyākaraṇa.Her first contact with Sanskrit was through the recitation of stotras. She was educated at Pune University and at Ṭiḷaka Mahārāṣṭra Vidyāpīṭha, and among her teachers were Pundit Vāmanaśāstrī Bhāgavata, T. G. Mainkar and S. D. Joshi.Among the texts she read during her studies are the Rāmāyaṇa, M...

  4. 10/02/2022

    13 Patrick McCartney | Sanskrit in the World

    My guest this month is Patrick McCartney. His written work, on Sanskrit-speaking villages, Sanskrit in the Indian census, the popular use and the politics of Yoga (and many other topics), is very conveniently linked to here. His Yogascapes project has its own website. The Himāl article on Spoken Sanskrit he mentions is linked to here. His videos, including his 'A Day in our Ashram' and the videos on his search for the Sanskrit-speaking villages, are available on his YouTube channel. You can read more about the Sanskrit programme at Australia National University here. (And of course there is the SSP interview with the wonderful McComas Taylor, the heart of Sanskrit at ANU.) The article on the 'Sanskrit Boulevard' from the Hindustan times is here; this is a related article. Read more about M. N. Srinivas and the concept of Sanskritisation. If you are interested in the SOAS- based Haṭha Yoga Project, their website is here; this is a brief introduction to pole yoga or Mallakhamba. The books Patrick recommends for people interested getting into the field are Asko Parpola's Roots of Hinduism and Sheldon Pollock's Rasa Reader.

  5. 09/01/2022

    12. Andrew Ollett | Beyond Sanskrit

    My guest this month is Mr Prakrit, Andrew Ollett, who teaches at the University of Chicago Perhaps his most well-known publication is the book 'Language of the Snakes', which you can download for free here.Among his teachers were Eleanor Dickey, Gary Tubb and Sheldon Pollock (whose book 'The Language of the Gods in the World of Men' Andrew mentions)He talks about his work comparing the language of Theocritus with that of Prakrit poetry, about the work of Mātṛceṭa and Aśvaghoṣa , a...

  6. 06/01/2022

    11. Wendy Doniger | Translating India

    My guest this month is Wendy Doniger. Read more about her and her many wonderful books here and here. She was educated at Radcliffe, the only part of Harvard then to admit women, and at Oxford. She has taught at SOAS, but has spent most of her career at the University of Chicago's Divinity School, on the Committee on Social Thought, and in South Asian Languages and Civilizations.Among her teachers, she lists Daniel Ingalls at Harvard, Robert Zaehner at Oxford, and in India, Ali Akbar Khan, fr...

  7. 05/01/2022

    10. Arshia Sattar | Speaking Sanskrit and Flying

    My guest this month is the scholar, translator and author Arshia Sattar. You can find her books here and here, and some of her many articles in may places (such as with Open, the Times of India, Scroll, Mint, and Words Without Borders. Much of her work has been focussing on the Rāmāyaṇa and also the Kathāsaritsāgara.Among her teachers were A.K. Ramanujan, Alf Hiltebeitel and Wendy Doniger. She also mentions Martha Selby, as well as Phil Lutgendorf and his work on the R...

  8. 04/02/2022

    9. Ananya Vajpeyi | The Life of Sanskrit

    My guest this month is Ananya Vajpeyi (read more about her and her main publications here). Her current academic home is the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi. As you will hear, I did not have a lot of work this time: Ananya only required minimal prompting to tell me the story of her life so far, which spans several countries in three continents and many fascinating encounters in and around academia.  Ananya’s many teachers include Arindam Chakrabarti, Madhu Khanna, Robert Young, Alexis Sanderson, Jim Benson, Matthew Kapstein, Patrick Olivelle, David Shulman,  Sheldon Pollock, Gayatri Spivak and Wendy Doniger. She has worked closely with Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Ashis Nandy and Rajeev Bhargava. She studied and did research at Lady Shri Ram College, the School of Languages at JNU, the University of Oxford, the University of Chicago, the University of Pune, Deccan College and the Bhandarkar Institute. Read more about Ferdinand de Saussure and his Course in General Linguistics, the volume resulting from the 'Ideology and Status of Sanskrit conference; about shudras, Shivaji, Ambedkar and Jim Laine; the Murty Library and the controversy around its editor; and about the fellowships at the Kluge Center and at CRASSH.

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About

In-depth explorations into the field of Sanskrit Studies. Featuring candid conversations and interviews with scholars of Sanskrit across the disciplines of Indology, Linguistics, Religious Studies, Philosophy, History, and more. Hosted by Dr. Antonia Ruppel.

Information

  • Creator
    The Sanskrit Studies Podcast
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2023
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Sanskrit Studies Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Sanskrit Studies Podcast

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