Ashoka: Portrait of a Philosopher King (Yale UP, 2024) is the first biography of the great Emperor Ashoka relying solely on his own words. Ashoka sought not only to rule his territory but also to give it a unity of purpose and aspiration, to unify the people of his vastly heterogeneous empire not by a cult of personality but by the cult of an idea—“dharma”—which served as the linchpin of a new moral order. In this deeply researched book, Patrick Olivelle draws on Ashoka’s inscriptions and on the art and architecture he pioneered to craft a detailed picture of Ashoka as a ruler, a Buddhist, a moral philosopher, and an ecumenist who governed a vast multiethnic, multilinguistic, and multireligious empire.
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Dominik A. Haas, "Gāyatrī: Mantra and Mother of the Vedas" (Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2023)
Raj Balkaran and McComas Taylor, "Visions and Revisions in Sanskrit Narrative: Studies in the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas" (ANU Press, 2023)
Keith Cantú, "Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami And Śivarājayoga" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Steven E. Lindquist, "The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya" (SUNY Press, 2023)
Vanessa R. Sasson, "The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women" (Equinox, 2023)
Episode 300: Christopher Miller interviews "New Books in Indian Religions" host Raj Balkaran
Yigal Bronner, "A Lasting Vision: Dandin's Mirror in the World of Asian Letters" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Christopher Jain Miller, "Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation" (Routledge, 2023)
Réka Máté, "Portrayals of Women in Pakistan: An Analysis of Fahmīdah Riyāẓ's Urdu Poetry" (de Gruyter, 2023)
From the Indian Goddess to Icelandic Spirits
Patrick Laude, "Surrendering to the Self: Ramana Maharshi's Message for the Present" (Hurst, 2021)
The Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik
Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar, "Against High-Caste Polygamy: An Annotated Translation" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Teaching (and Learning) at a University Online
Sumit Chakrabarti, "Local Selfhood, Global Turns: Akshay Kumar Dutta and Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century Bengal" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Jain Studies and the Arihanta Institute
Divya Cherian, "Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia" (U California Press, 2023)
Jennifer D. Ortegren, "Middle-Class Dharma: Gender, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Matthew R. Dasti, "Vatsyayana's Commentary on the Nyaya-Sutra: A Guide" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Christopher T. Fleming et al., "Science and Society in the Sanskrit World" (Brill, 2023)
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