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Talk: 6 May, 2.30-3.30 │ “Unfamiliar Religion” with Dr Seema Chauhan
Week 2, Wednesday 6 May, 2.30-3.30, OCHS Library
Dr Seema Chauhan
In the study of Jainism, it has become a truism to say that Jainas were interested in knowing the religious other. This is not a novel argument. What is less studied are the social identities that structure these encounters in stories, not to mention the literary methods used to write about the religious other. Put simply, when Jainas write stories about the religious other, who are the characters involved? And what motivates these characters to talk about non-Jaina religions?
In the Śvetāmbara suttas, it is usually the Jaina ascetic who encounters non-Jainas while on the road searching for alms. This makes for a narrative focused entirely on a conversation between Jaina ascetic and his other—a rather dry story devoid of any plotline because the ascetic has renounced all familial and sexual ties. But that is not the case for the Vasudevahiṇḍī, a fifth century CE Śvetāmbara narrative. There, it is sons who are looking for their long-lost fathers. And kings and nuns who try to justify incest and adultery. Such stories about day-to-day dramas inside the home become, I argue, the site for talking about non-Jaina religions. In this talk, I showcase such narratives, and answer how and why they use familial and sexual relationships to talk about unfamiliar religions.
Seema K. Chauhan is an Assistant Professor of Asian Religions at Trinity College Dublin. Prior to this appointment, she completed her doctorate at the University of Chicago Divinity School and held the Asoke Kumar Sarkar Early Career Fellowship in Classical Indology at Balliol College. She specialises in the history of early Jainism, Hinduism, and Sanskrit and Prakrit literature.
18th & 19th April | Interdisciplinary Symposium: “Hindu Approaches to Dialogue”
An Online Event
Organised by the Network of Hinduism in Dialogue
18th & 19th April 2026
Programme
18th April 2026
11am
Inauguration session
Welcome address
Dr Shruti Dixit, University of St. Andrews, UK
Introduction
Prof Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, Wellesley College, USA
Keynote speech:
Hindu Approaches to Dialogue – Beyond Words and Toward Shared Being
Prof Diwakar Acharya, University of Oxford, UK
12 noon
Panel 1: Art and Aesthetics
Moderator: Prof Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, Wellesley College, USA
2pm
Panel 2: The Feminine and Goddess Traditions
Moderator: Dr Shruti Dixit, University of St Andrews, UK
4pm
Panel 3: Textual Traditions
Moderator: Dr Patricia Palazzo Tsai, Methodist University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
19th April 2026
11 am
Panel 4: Epistemology, Philosophy, and Indian Knowledge Traditions
Moderator: Dr Shruti Dixit, University of St Andrews, UK
1pm
Panel 5: Comparative Religion and Interreligious Interaction
Moderator: Dr Leena Taneja, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates
3pm
Panel 6: Diaspora
Moderator: Dr Melanie Barbato, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Followed by
Closing Remarks
Dr Melanie Barbato, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Dr Shruti Dixit, University of St Andrews, UK
Register at: www.shorturl.at/tJHoz
Talk 25 Feb 2.30 pm | “Epistemic Limitation and the Critique of Absolutism in Malliṣeṇa’s Interpretation of Verse 21 of the Anyayogavyavaccheda” by Dr Aarti Gulgulia
Bio: Aarti Gulgulia completed her Ph.D. in Sanskrit at Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India, where her doctoral research focused on Jain Yoga and Bauddha Yoga: A Comparative Analysis. She is currently pursuing an M.A. by Research in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham. Her research specializes in Jain epistemology, with particular attention to the doctrines of non-absolutism (Anekantavada), conditional predication (Syädvada), and sevenfold exposition (Saptabhargi). She has served as Visiting Faculty at Amity Law School, Junior Research Fellow awarded by the University Grants Commission, and Associate Editor of Dharma for Life Echoes (ISSN: 3049-2459). She has also worked as Editorial Assistant at the International School for Jain Studies and has qualified for the UGC-NET for Assistant Professor in both Prakrit and Buddhist, Jaina, Gandhian, and Peace Studies.
Publications:
- The Many Faces of Renunciation: A Comparative Study of Asceticism Across
World Religions - Contours of Early Indian Yoga: A Comparative Inquiry into Vedic and Jain
Traditions
Talk 11 March 2.30pm | “Material, subtle, gendered and perfect bodies in Jain Yoga” with Dr Ruth Westoby
Jain Seminar Series
Hilary Week 8, 11 March 2026, 2.30pm
Dr Ruth Westoby
Abstract
Jain yoga sources in the early centuries of the second millennium adopt practices of physical yoga and adapt them to distinctly Jain theories of the body and soul (jīva), metaphysics, and stages of spiritual perfection. Sources such as Śubhacandra’s Jñānārṇava and Hemacandra’s Yogaśāstra teach physical practices, yet subordinate such physical practices to meditative techniques. There are many similarities with the Haṭha Yoga that emerges at a similar historical moment in sources from the Amṛtasiddhi to the Haṭhapradīpikā. This paper explores the presentation of the body in Jain sources in order to analyse both the rationale and efficacy of physical practices, and the role of materiality and gender in the physical—and liberated, body. Similarities and tensions are identified in the presentation of yogic bodies in the Haṭha corpus. I suggest that, for Jain sources, gender is a characteristic of the body in saṃsāra that is attenuated as the practitioner progresses. Though the perfected (siddha) body is in some ways beyond gender, it nevertheless also represents the paradigmatic male body.
Biography
Dr Ruth Westoby is a researcher in South Asian Religions and a yoga practitioner. She is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Jaina Studies at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, focusing on technologies of the body in Jainism. As Affiliate Researcher at Inform, King’s College London and Associate Researcher at SOAS, University of London, Ruth researches bdoily practices and menstruation in yoga, tantra and neo-tantra. Her current book project is a study of the stopping of menstruation in South Asian religions. She teaches MA Yoga in the Modern World as Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS. Her PhD from SOAS (2024), supervised by Prof. James Mallinson, explored The Body in Early Haṭha Yogaand was funded by CHASE-AHRC. She also collaborated with the SOAS Haṭha Yoga Project (2015-2020) interpreting early modern yoga postures, contributing to an emergent research methodology, ‘embodied philology’.
The 42nd Annual Sanskrit Traditions Symposium – CALL FOR PAPERS
Talk: 12 Mar at 2 pm | “Theistic Yoga in the Contemporary World: Exploring Practitioner Worldviews in Finland and India” with Dr Janne Kontala
Week 8, Thursday 12 March 2.00-3.00, OCHS Library
Dr Janne Kontala
Yoga’s long journey from ancient South Asia to global studios and fitness centers has transformed its meanings in remarkable ways. Rooted in the religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism—especially the rich theistic currents within Hinduism—yoga today often appears as a secular, even commercial, pursuit. Many practitioners describe it as “spiritual but not religious,” yet traces of devotion and religious belief surface in both commercial presentations and polemical discussion.
This lecture explores how theistic worldviews live on within contemporary yoga. As part of a four-year research project Yoga in Finland (YOFI), funded by the Research Council of Finland and Polin Institute, I draw on over 500 responses from practitioners in Finland and India. I combine surveys, Q-methodology, and interviews to examine how beliefs, practices, and identities intertwine. The findings suggest that existing typologies of modern yoga overlook the fluid, lived realities of practitioners. Instead of fixed categories, I propose thinking of yoga through dimensions—practice, identity, belonging, and belief—revealing a far more complex and human picture of what it means to do yoga today.
Janne Kontala received his PhD at Åbo Akademi University, Finland, in 2016. He is currently employed as a researcher within the project Yoga in Finland (YOFI), funded by the Research Council of Finland and Polin Institute, where his research focuses on worldviews and values in contemporary yoga. As a teacher, Janne is currently also in charge of a yoga studies minor program in humanities.
Study Hinduism and Buddhism in Kathmandu, August 2026
Talk 18 Feb 2.30pm | “Anekāntavāda and Niścaya-Vyavahāra Nayas: A Reinvestigation” with Dr Jinesh R. Sheth
In this talk, I reinvestigate the two-truths theory, i.e., niścaya- and vyavahāra nayas (absolute- and conventional-perspectives) and its purported incompatibility with anekāntavāda (non-one-sidedness). I argue against some of the previous scholarship on the subject and show that the two-truths theory in the Jaina context is sensitive to the spirit of non-one-sidedness. This is especially evident in the works of Amṛtacandra, but the sources of this could be traced back to Kundakunda as well. I also briefly reflect on how the two-truths theory in the Jain context differs from its Buddhist and Vedāntin parallels. Through this talk, I bring into discussion some of the underexplored dimensions of anekāntavāda, especially its role in domains such as ethics and soteriology that are beyond metaphysics.
Dr Jinesh R. Sheth is currently Dharmanath Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is also a Project-Member of the Global Philosophy of Religion Project at UoB. He holds a BA (Sanskrit) degree from JRRSU, Jaipur, and MA (Philosophy) and PhD (Philosophy) degrees from University of Mumbai. His current research is focused on engaging with problems of philosophy through anekāntavāda (non-one-sidedness), especially dealing with issues pertaining to epistemology, ethics and soteriology.