History of Indian and Africana Philosophy

Francis Clooney joins us to discuss the religious and philosophical aspects of Vedānta.

The grammarian Bhartṛhari argues that the study of language is the path to liberation, because the undivided reality underlying language is brahman.

Śaṅkara and his “non-dual” (Advaita) Vedānta, which teaches that only brahman is real, and the world of experience and individual self are mere illusion.

How to fill the month of August while the podcast is on summer break. Buy the book versions of the podcast at Oxford University Press.

The founding text of the Vedānta school, the Vedānta- or Brahma-Sūtra, interprets the Upaniṣads as teaching that all things derive from brahman.

Mīmāṃsā expert Elisa Freschi speaks to Peter about philosophical issues arising from the interpretation of the Veda.

The Mīmāṃsā school put their faith in sense experience, and argue that the Veda, and hence language itself, had no beginning.

In the Mīmāṃsā school’s founding text, Jaimini systematizes Vedic ritual and explores its theoretical basis.

Skeptical tendences in Indian thought and responses to skepticism from the Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta schools.

Rival philosophical schools proliferate and subdivide in our second major historical period, the “age of the sūtra.”

An interview with Jessica Frazier about philosophical ideas and arguments in the Vedas, Upanisads and later Hindu texts.

Women philosophers and ideas about women in Buddhism, the Upanisads, and the Mahabharata.

Vegetarianism and non-violence (ahimsa) in ancient Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

The Bhagavad-Gītā or “Song of the Lord” from the Mahābhārata ties its theory of detached action to an innovative conception of the divine.

The great Hindu epic Mahābhārata explores moral dilemmas and the permissibilty of lying, against the background of the ethical concept of dharma.