Introduction

Hinduism is the world’s oldest living religion, and it won’t be disappearing any time soon. This ancient worldview currently boasts over one billion devotees, making it the third most popular religion in the world. Despite its popularity, scholarship in philosophy of religion continues to ignore its influence, with academic papers on the Abrahamic faiths vastly outnumbering those devoted to Hinduism. Our classrooms don’t paint a prettier picture. In UK schools, Hinduism is scarcely taught in comparison to the other major world religions, with reports showing that educators lack the confidence and subject knowledge to teach Hinduism properly. Fortunately, thanks to the work of scholars such as Jessica Frazier, things are changing.

Jessica Frazier is Lecturer in Theology and Religion at Trinity College, Oxford and Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Frazier is one of the world’s leading experts on Hindu philosophy, reshaping and globalising philosophy of religion for the 21st century. As well as being the founding editor of the Journal of Hindu Studies, she is best known for her books Reality, Religion and Passion, The Bloomsbury Companion to Hindu Studies, and most recently, Hindu Worldviews: Theories of Self, Ritual and Reality. Far from your ivory tower academic, Jessica is a committed public philosopher, broadening the horizons of academics and the general public through her captivating writing style and regular media appearances. 

As we will see, Frazier’s work demonstrates Hinduism's rich and insightful philosophical tradition; a tradition that can shed light on life’s greatest questions: from the nature of life, god and suffering, to the fundamental structure of reality.

This episode is produced in partnership with The Global Philosophy of Religion Project at University of Birmingham, led by Yujin Nagasawa and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Contents

Part I. Fundamental Reality

Part II. Death, Evil, and Suffering

Links

Jessica Frazier, About (webpage).

Jessica Frazier, Reality, Religion, and Passion (book).

Jessica Frazier, The Bloomsbury Companion to Hindu Studies (book).

Jessica Frazier, Hindu Worldviews: Theories of Self, Ritual and Reality (book).

Jessica Frazier, Categorisation in Indian Philosophy: Thinking Inside the Box (book).

Jessica Frazier, BBC In Our Times: Hindu Creation (podcast).

Jessica Frazier, History of Philosophy without Any Gaps (podcast).