Fellow type: Research Fellow

Dr Rajan Khatiwoda

Dr Rajan Khatiwoda

Biography:

Rajan is a Research Associate at the South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University and the Research Unit “Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal”, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Rajan has a PhD in South Asian Studies (Heidelberg University) and MA in Classical Indology (Nepal Sanskrit University, Balmeeki Vidyapeeth). Rajan has been a Research Assistant and Cataloguer at the Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (NGMCP) at the Nepal Research Centre (NRC) in Kathmandu for 9 years (2004-2013). He is the Honorary Leader of our Kathmandu Office.

Research Area/s:

His interests span widely from Śaivism to Indian Philosophy, Manuscriptology and Epigraphy with a special focus on medieval and pre-modern Nepalese legal History, and the emergence and practices of the Śākta traditions in the Kathmandu Valley.

Selected Publications:

His publications include:

  • “Documented Evidence Relating to the Implementation of the Mulukī Ain in Mid-19th Century Nepal”, in: Studies in Historical Documents of Nepal and India, herausgegeben von Simon Cubelic, Axel Michaels und Astrid Zotter (im Erscheinen) (2018). Co-authored with Manik Bajracharya und Simon Cubelic.
  • “Reporting across Borders in a Time of Turmoil: Eight Reports from Lokaramaṇa Upādhyāya from the Years 1837–1844,” in: Abhilekha 34: 138-172 (2017). Co-authored with Simon Cubelic.
  • “Nepalese Monarchy in an Age of Codification: Kingship, Patriotism, and Legality in the Nepalese Code of 1854“, in: Transnational Histories of the “Royal Nation”, herausgegeben von Milinda Banerjee, Charlotte Backerra and Cathleen Sarti, 67–86. Cham: Springer International Publishing (2017). Co-authored with Manik Bajracharya und Simon Cubelic.
  • “Reporting across Borders: Four Reports of Lokaramaṇa Upādhyāya from the years 1831–1837”, in: Abhilekha 33: 120–133 (2016). Co-authored with Manik Bajracharya und Axel Michaels.
  • “Six 19th-20th Century Documents on Elephants from the National Archives of Nepal”, in: Abhilekha 32: 96–105 (2015).  „Acyutāṣṭakavyākhyā by Vācaspati Panta: A testimony to Nepalese Scholarship“, in: Abhilekha 28: 90–103 (2012).
Professor Himanshu Prabha Ray

Professor Himanshu Prabha Ray

Biography

Himanshu Prabha Ray is former Chairperson of the National Monuments Authority, Ministry of Culture, and former Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. As a recipient of the Anneliese Maier research award of the Humboldt Foundation in 2013, she is affiliated to Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich. She is also editor of Archaeology and Religion in South Asia in the Routledge Series.

Prof. Ray is Series Editor on the Archaeology and Religion in South Asia book series: http://www.routledge.com/books/series/AR/

Selected Publications

Her recent publications include:

  • ‘Anchoring maritime crossings. Coastal heritage of the Bay of Bengal’, International Institute of Asian Studies Newsletter, 2020;
  • ‘Nagapattinam Bronzes in Context’, CSMVS Research Journal, 2019;
  • Archaeology and Buddhism in South Asia, Routledge, 2019;
  • ‘Early Historic Gujarat and the Trading World of the Western Indian Ocean’, in E. Alpers and C. Goswami eds., Transregional Trade and Traders: Situating Gujarat in the Indian Ocean From Early Times to 1900, Oxford University Press, 2019;
  • ‘Warp and Weft: Producing, Trading and Consuming Indian Textiles Across the Seas (First- Thirteenth Centuries CE’, in P. Machado & S. Fee eds., Textile Trades, Consumer Cultures, and the Material Worlds of the Indian Ocean: An Ocean of Cloth, Palgrave Macmillian, 2018;
  • Beyond Trade: Cultural Roots of India’s Ocean, Aryan Books International, 2015;
  • The Sea, Identity and History: From the Bay of Bengal to the South China Sea, Satish Chandra & Himanshu Prabha Ray eds, Manohar Publishers, 2013;
  • The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Professor Ravi M. Gupta

Professor Ravi M. Gupta

Biography

Professor Ravi M. Gupta holds the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies and serves as Director of the Religious Studies Program at Utah State University, and was a Visiting Scholar at the Maxwell Institute during Fall 2020. In 2000 he completed his Masters in The Study of Religion at Oxford University. Professor Gupta holds a doctorate in Hindu Studies from Oxford University and has taught at the University of Florida, Centre College, and the College of William and Mary. He has received four teaching awards, a National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowship, and two research fellowships at Oxford. He is a Permanent Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a past president of the Society for Hindu Christian Studies.

Research Area

Sanskrit, Hinduism, World Religions and Theory and Method.

Research Interests

The Bhagavata Purana’s Sanskrit commentaries, Vaishnava bhakti traditions, interreligious dialogue, the relationship between faith and scholarship and religion and ecology.

Selected Publications

  • Translater: Bhagavata Purana (Columbia University Press, 2017).
  • Caitanya Vaisnava Philosophy: Tradition, Reason and Devotion (Ashgate, 2014).
  • The Chaitanya Vaishnava Vedanta of Jiva Goswami (Routledge, 2007).

Chapters and Articles

  • “”He is our master”: Jesus in the Thought of Swami Prabhupada”, Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 23/7, 15-19 (2010).
Professor Daniel J. Ehnbom

Professor Daniel J. Ehnbom

Biography

Daniel Ehnbom is Associate Professor at the McIntire Department of Art at the University of Virginia. He was with the Macmillan/Grove Dictionary of Art (1996) in London as a contributor and consultant from 1984 and as South Asia Area Editor for Painting and Sculpture from 1988.

Research Areas

Painting and Indian architecture, South Asia in general, including Sri Lanka and contiguous regions of Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Research Interests

Mughal and pre-Mughal or Sultanate painting; Western Indian painting; Pala or Eastern Indian painting; Rajput painting; Rajasthani painting; Bundi, Kota, or Hadauti painting; Mewar or Udaipur painting; Bikaner painting; Jodhpur or Marwar painting; sculpture and architecture, especially Early Indian sculpture; Maurya sculpture; Sunga or Shunga sculpture; Sanci or Sanchi; Kusana or Kushana or Kushan sculpture.

Selected Publications

  • Realms of Earth and Sky: Indian Painting from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century (Fralin Museum of Art, 2014).
  • Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection (Hudson Hill Press, 1985).
  • Cleveland Tuti-Nama Manuscript and Origins of Mughal Painting (Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976).
Dr Santanu Dey

Dr Santanu Dey

Biography:

Dr Santanu Dey is today an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira (a residential autonomous College affiliated to the Calcutta University) located at Belur Math near Kolkata, India. He completed his Masters in 2001 at Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India, and a MPhil in 2004, also at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. In 2015 Dr Santanu Dey did his Ph.D. on the topic ‘Resuscitating or Restructuring Tradition? Issues and trends among Gaudiya Vaishnavas in late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Bengal’, likewise from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Dr Santanu Dey is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford University, and a UK Life Member of Bangiya Sahitya Parishat and Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture Library, Golpark.

Research Area/s:

Modern Indian History, Socio-cultural history of Colonial Bengal, Religion and modernity, Cultural Studies, and Pilgrimage studies.

Research Interests:

Vaishnava Studies, Religion and Colonial Modernity and literary history of Bengal.

Selected Publications:

  • “Piety in Print: The Vaishnava Periodicals of colonial Bengal”, Journal of Hindu Studies 13/1, (2020).
  • “Vaishnava Institutional Processes in colonial Bengal”, in: Ferdinando Sardella & Lucian Wong eds., The Legacy of Vaishnavism in colonial Bengal, Routledge Hindu Studies Series, Abingdon and New York (2020).
  • “Debating historical validity of Vaishnava texts in colonial Bengal”, in: Samina Sultana ed., Itihas Prabandhamala, Annual Proceedings of the Itihas Academy, Dhaka (2015).
  • “Oupanibeshik Juge Banglar Baishnab Andolaner prabhab o prabanata” Dashadishi journal 3, 160-177 (2015).
  • “Dinesh Chandra Sen and the archiving of a Vaishnava Literary Heritage: Search for Bengali identity in colonial Bengal”, Bengal Past and Present 132, 1-68 (2013).
  • “Vaishnava Periodicals and Aspects of Bengali Devotionalism in Colonial Bengal”, in: Santanu Dey ed., Religion and Culture in India across the Ages: Historical Reflections, Rkm Vidyamandira, Belur Math (2013).
  • “Vaishnava Reform movement and the making of a national culture in colonial Bengal”, in: Santanu Dey et al., Indigenous Traditions and Historical Forces: Impact of Bhakti Movement on Indian Nationalism, Manav Prakashan, Kolkata (2012).
  • “Kedarnath Datta and the Process of re-asserting Gaudiya Vaishnava identity in Bengal at the cusp of the 20th century”, in: Ratna Ghoshal ed.,  The Study of Social History, Progressive Publishers, Kolkata (2013).
  • “Autobiographic and Hagiographic constructions of Kedarnath Datta as a Gaudiya Vaishnava Reformer in colonial Bengal”, History Journal 11, 64-75 (2012).
Dr Måns Broo

Dr Måns Broo

Biography:

Dr Måns Broo is a senior lecturer at the Department of Comparative Religion, Åbo Akademi University, Finland. He was awarded the 2017 Donner Research Prize for his book The Rādhā Tantra: A critical edition and annotated translation (Routledge, 2017). Dr Broo is also  editor of the award-winning Finnish yoga magazine Ananda.

Research Area/s:

Aspects of intentionality, agency and identity formation in contemporary Finnish popular culture, Hindu Studies and Yoga.

Research Interests:

Yoga – both its history and contemporary forms –, the intersections between Vaiṣṇavism and Tantrism in pre-modern Bengal, Caitanya Vaishnava ritual practices, modern middle-class Hinduism, and issues of agency and identity within modern yoga practices.

Selected Publications:

  • The Rādhā Tantra: A critical edition and annotated translation (Routledge, 2017).
  • Spiritual Guidance Across Religions: A Sourcebook for Spiritual Directors and Other Professionals Providing Counsel to People of Differing Faith Traditions (SkyLight Paths, 2014).
  • As Good as God. The Guru in Gaudiya Vaisnavism (Abo Akademi University Press, 2003).

Chapters and Articles:

  • “Diversification, Mainstreaming, Commercialization and Domestication – New Religious Movements and Trends in Finland”, in: James R. Lewis & Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen eds., Handbook of Nordic New Religions, Brill, Leiden, 2015.
Professor Purushottama Bilimoria

Professor Purushottama Bilimoria

Biography:

Professor Purushottama Bilimoria is a current Fulbright-Nehru Distinguished Fellow and Visiting Faculty at Ashoka University in Delhi, India (fall 2019), and a Senior Research Fellow with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. He is a visiting Professor and Lecturer with the Institute for South Asia Studies, at UC Berkeley, and Dominican University, San Anselmo, and serves as a senior lecturer in the Center for Dharma Studies at Graduate Theological Union (GTU). Professor Purushottama Bilimoria is likewise Honorary Research Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Studies at Deakin University, and Senior Research Fellow with the School of Philosophical and Historical Studies and the Australia India Institute at University of Melbourne.

Professor Purushottama Bilimoria is an Editor-in-Chief of Sophia, Journal of Philosophy of Religion, Springer and has also edited a book series with Springer on Sophia: cross-cultural studies in Culture and Traditions.

Lectures he conducted at the Oxford Centre For Hindu Studies:
  • The Logical Illumination of Mīmāṃsā, and Nyaya (to Navyanyaya) – The evolution of thinking, metaphysics and theology  (apauruṣeyā, apurva, padarthas, Isvara, vadavivada, hetutarka)
  • Hinduism’s Transnational Diasaporias*: the view from Oceania – (*aporias of diaspora)
  • Indian Practical Ethics: Law, Gender, Justice, Ecological and Bioethical Challenges

Research Area/s:

Hindu religious philosophies, political philosophy, pertaining to ethics of rights, theories of justice, capabilities and education and gender issues in third world, particularly South Asian.

Research Interests:

Classical Indian philosophy and comparative ethics, Continental thought, cross-cultural philosophy of religion, diaspora studies, bioethics, and personal law in India.

Selected Publications:

  • Globalization, Transnationalism, Gender and Ecological Engagement (2015)
  • Indian Diaspora : Hindus and Sikhs in Australia (2015)
  • Emotions in Indian Thought-Systems (2015)
  • Postcolonial Reason and Its Critiques: Deliberations on Spivak’s Thoughts (2014)
  • Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion (Springer, 2009)
  • Sabdapramana: Word and Knowledge in Indian Philosophy (DK PrintWorld, 2008)
  • Indian Ethics I (Ashgate, 2007)

Managing Editor

  • Professor Purushottama Bilimoria is an Editor-in-Chief of Sophia, Journal of Philosophy of Religion, Springer.

Chapters and Articles

  • “Nietzsche as ‘Europe’s Buddha’ and Asia’s Superman”, Sophia 47/3, 2008