New Books in Indian Religions

The Mirror of Ornaments (Alaṅkāradappaṇō) defines and exemplifies 42 figures of speech or “ornaments” in 134 verses. It is the only surviving work of poetics in Prakrit, a literary language closely related to Sanskrit. It is one of the earliest representatives of the larger Indian discourse on poetics, and is especiall

Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas (Springer, 2025) examines the significance of metaphysical list-making as a determining feature of 'spiritual exercises' in South Asian gnostic yogas. It examines how these ancient traditions sought spiritual transformation through the dialectical pr

In Ghostly Past, Capitalist Presence: A Social History of Fear in Colonial Bengal (Duke UP, 2024), Tithi Bhattacharya maps the role that Bengali ghosts and ghost stories played in constituting the modern Indian nation, and the religious ideas seeded therein, as it emerged in dialogue with European science. Bhattacharya

In Yogalands (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025), Paul Bramadat wrestles with his position as a skeptical scholar who is also a devoted yoga practitioner. Drawing from his own experience, and from conversations with hundreds of yoga teachers and students in the United States and Canada, he seeks to understand what yoga means for

Brahmins and Kings: Royal Counsel in the Sanskrit Narrative Literatures (Oxford UP, 2025) examines some of the most well-known and widely circulated narratives in the history of Sanskrit literature, including the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, Visnusarman's famed animal stories (the Panchatantra), Somadeva's labyrinthine O

The SāṃKhya System: Accounting for the Real (SUNY Press, 2024) brings new life to an ancient Hindu system of thought. Sāṃkhya spans the fields of philosophy, physics, metaphysics, psychology, and ethics. Although notably not theological, its key premises can be found in virtually all religious traditions that originate