New Books in Indian Religions

Marshall Poe
  • 4.0 (20)
  • Hinduism
  • Updated Weekly

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. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

  1. 17h ago

    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

    35 min

  2. 5d ago

    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

    1h 37m

  3. Jul 2

    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. Find the open access PDF here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

    35 min

  4. Jul 1

    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

    1h 3m

  5. Jun 26

    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

  6. Jun 25

    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

    36 min

  7. Jun 25

    Hamsa Stainton and Anna Lee White, "Sanskrit Hymns Across Traditions: Studying Stotras" (Routledge, 2026)

    Sanskrit hymns of praise (stotra/stuti/stava) have been popular and influential within multiple religious traditions for thousands of years. Sanskrit hymns remain lively, meaningful parts of the religious lives of countless Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains today, and new stotras continue to be composed and recited around the world. The academic study of these hymns has made notable progress in recent decades as scholars have paid increasing attention to such compositions. A valuable pedagogical resource for educators teaching about Asian religions and literature, especially in comparative contexts, Sanskrit Hymns Across Traditions: Studying Stotras (Routledge, 2026) also establishes the foundation for future research and scholarship on a genre of religious poetry popular across South Asian religious traditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

    40 min

  8. Jun 11

    Manasicha Akepiyapornchai, "Surrender to God Across Languages: Multilingual Intellectual History of Premodern India" (Oxford UP, 2026)

    Surrender to God Across Languages: Multilingual Intellectual History of Premodern India (Oxford UP, 2026) explores the role of languages in the intellectual landscape of second-millennium India by way of six theological treatises composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, each written by a key intellectual figure: Vātsya Varadaguru, Periyavāccān Pillai, Meghanādari Sūri, Pillai Lokācārya, and Vedāntadeśika. Drawing on theories of language politics and translation, Manasicha Akepiyapornchai proposes a new theoretical framework of "language sphere" to better capture the linguistic and intellectual interaction from a micro perspective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

    39 min
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About

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. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

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