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About Raj Balkaran
Dr. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Indian mythology and seasoned online educator. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom where he delivers original courses applying Indian wisdom teachings to modern life. Beyond teaching, speaking and research, Dr. Balkaran runs a thriving one-on-one life guidance practice and serves as McMaster University’s Chaplain of Indian Spirituality. See https://rajbalkaran.com for more information.
Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.
NBN Episodes hosted by Raj:
May 9, 2024
Devotional Visualities
Devotional Visualities: Seeing Bhakti in Indic Material Cultures (Bloomsbury, 2023) is the first to focus on material visualities of bhakti imagery th…
May 2, 2024
Mirabai
Mirabai, an iconic sixteenth-century Indian poet-saint, is renowned for her unwavering love of God, her disregard for social hierarchies and gendered …
April 30, 2024
Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics
What does cow care in India have to offer modern Western discourse animal ethics? Why are cows treated with such reverence in the Indian context? Join…
April 25, 2024
Contemplative Studies and Jainism
Contemplative Studies and Jainism: Meditation, Prayer, and Veneration (Routledge, 2023) is one of the first wide-ranging academic surveys of the maj…
April 18, 2024
The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki
The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, the monumental Sanskrit epic of the life of Rama, ideal man and incarnation of the great god Visnu, has profoundly affected t…
April 12, 2024
Sanskrit Study
A candid conversation with renowned Sanskritist and online teacher Antonia Ruppel on her love of the language, teaching philosophy, views on academia,…
April 11, 2024
Ramopakhyana: The Story of Rama in the Mahabharata
Consisting of about 25,000 verses in Valmiki's Rāmāyaṇa, the story of Rāma was summarized in 704 verses in eighteen chapters in the Rāmopākhyāna, whic…
April 10, 2024
Tantra: A New Understanding
Professor Gavin Flood of Oxford University discusses new insights on tantra to be released in an upcoming publication stemming from his Continuing Stu…
April 5, 2024
Translating a Śrī Vidyā Text
The Cidvilāsastava of Amṛtānanda (fl. c. 1325-1375) one of the most comprehensive treatments of the esoteric contemplation of ritual found within the …
April 4, 2024
Ashoka
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 soug…
March 28, 2024
A Sakta Method for Comparative Theology
Pravina Rodrigues' book A Sakta Method for Comparative Theology: Upside Down, Inside Out (Lexington, 2023) discusses the issue of the missing Hindu in…
March 21, 2024
Narrative Analysis of Bhagavata Purana
Shakuntala Gawde's book Narrative Analysis of Bhagavata Purana: Selected Episodes from the Tenth Skandha (Dev Publishers, 2023) presents an analytical…
March 14, 2024
Indian and Western Philosophical Concepts in Religion
Philosophical concepts are influential in the theories and methods to study the world religions. Even though the disciplines of anthropology and relig…
March 13, 2024
Religious Minorities Online
Religious Minorities Online (RMO) is the premier academic resource on religious minorities worldwide, reflecting the state of the art in scholarship. …
March 7, 2024
Who Owns Religion?
In Who Owns Religion?: Scholars and Their Publics in the Late Twentieth Century (U Chicago Press, 2019), scholar and noted university administrator La…
March 6, 2024
Open Access at Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing (HASP)
Learn about the fascinating Ethno-Indology series now published at Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing which offers inexpensive peer-reviewed Open Acc…
February 29, 2024
The Play of the Feminine
In Tamil Nadu, the nine-night autumnal Navarātri festival can be viewed as a celebration of feminine powers in association with the goddess. Ina Marie…
February 22, 2024
Perspectives on Reincarnation
What happens after you die? The book brings together fascinating theological and religious studies perspectives on a controversial yet pervasive idea:…
February 22, 2024
The Oxford History of Hinduism
Knut A. Jacobsen's edited volume The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Diaspora (Oxford UP, 2023) presents the histories and religious traditions of H…
February 15, 2024
Religions, Mumbai Style
Mumbai is generally recognized as an environment of extraordinary religious diversity. The city is known at one and the same time for a habitual cosmo…
February 8, 2024
Discovering Indian Philosophy
Jeffery D. Long's Indian Philosophy: An Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2023) helps readers discover how the many and varied schools of Indian thought can a…
February 1, 2024
Nondualism
The time has come for nondualism. As a fundamentally unifying concept, nondualism may seem out of place in an age of rising nationalism and bitter deg…
January 25, 2024
Widows Under Hindu Law
During British colonial rule in India, the treatment of high-caste Hindu widows became the subject of great controversy. Such women were not permitted…
January 18, 2024
Gandhi's Global Legacy
While there has been sustained interest in Gandhi's methods and continued academic inquiry, Gandhi's Global Legacy: Moral Methods and Modern Challenge…