Sutras & Stuff: A Philosophy Podcast

In this episode, I talk with Catherine Tan, Philosophy Lecturer at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, about Indian materialism, skepticism, and overlaps with Chinese Philosophy.

April 11, 2026: This is a revised version of the original podcast. The episode now includes spoken credit for Kevin MacLeod’s music, “Brittle Rille,” which I use for the show.

Further Resources

Christine Tan’s website: https://tanchristineabigail.com/

Cārvāka: https://iep.utm.edu/indmat

Podcast Episodes on Jayanta Bhatta’s play: Part 1: https://anchor.fm/malcolm-keating/episodes/Episode-9-Much-Ado-about-Religion--Part-1-eovu0c Part 2: https://anchor.fm/malcolm-keating/episodes/Much-Ado-about-Religion-Part-2-epn4fc

Music Credits:

“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It seems like everyone, from companies to online influencersto fitness coaches, talk about having mantras. But what are mantras,anyway? In this episode, we'll talk about how they compare to birdsong, Tibetansinging bowls, and spells at Hogwarts, as well as some ancient debates aboutwhether they mean anything, and why that matters.

Listen to more episodes of Sutras & Stuff at www.sutrasandstuff.com.

Sounds and Music

All music excerpts and soundbites used with an understandingof fair use modification for educational purposes.

Theme music by­ https://incompetech.filmmusic.io Kevin MacLeod’s music 

Title Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

LoungeAmbient Music Loop by user orangefree sound, posted to Freesound.com on July 8,2014. https://freesound.org/people/orangefreesounds/sounds/242080/

Tibetan Chantingby user djgriffin, posted to Freesound.com on February 7, 2006. https://freesound.org/people/djgriffin/sounds/15488/

Sources

Documentary Educational Resources. “Altar of Fire – Preview.”YouTube video, posted Sept 19, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvvI3bIAgVA

Dictionary.com. “The Meanings Behind “Harry Potter” Spells.”July 29, 2019. https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/rowling-spells/

Grimes, Samuel. “Where Did ‘Tibetan’ Singing Bowls ReallyCome From?” Tricyle. Mar 4, 2020. https://tricycle.org/article/tibetan-singing-bowls/

McGill University. “Do Birdsong and Human Speech ShareBiological Roots?” YouTube video, posted Nov 22, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heMy6dlWvkQ

Staal, Frits. “Mantras and Bird Songs.” Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 105, no. 3 (1985): 549-558.

Just keep swimming!

Title Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

What do the Metaverse, blue aliens, and airbenders have in common? They’re all based on the idea of the avatar, which goes back thousands of years to the Sanskrit term avatāra. In this episode, we’ll explore what an avatar is and how thinking about these ideas in ancient Hindu and Buddhist contexts can help us think about reality, the divine, and even our survival after death.

Sounds and Music All music excerpts and soundbites used with an understanding of fair use modification for educational purposes. 

Theme music by Kevin MacLeod’s music https://incompetech.filmmusic.io 

Bibliography and Further Reading 

Clough, Bradley S. “The Ambivalence of the Hindus: The Buddha as Avatāraṇa of Viṣṇu in the Mahhāpurāṇas and Beyond.” The Journal of Hindu Studies (2021): 1–19. Parrinder, Geoffrey. Avatar and Incarnation: The Divine in Human Form in the World's Religions. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1997. 

Sheth, Noel. “Hindu Avatāra and Christian Incarnation: A Comparison.” Philosophy East and West 52, no. 1 (2002): 98–125. 

Stevenson, Robert W. “The Concept of Avatāra in Ancient and Modern Commentaries on the Bhagavadgītā.” Journal of Studies in the Bhagavad Gītā 3 (1983): 56–86. 

Vaidya, Anand. Review of Reality+ by David Chalmers in Philosophy East and West, forthcoming. 

Wolfendale, Jessica. “My avatar, my self: Virtual harm and attachment.” Ethics and Information Technology (2007) 9:111–119. 

Clips and Sound Effects 

Watch Mark Zuckerberg Reveal Next-Gen Avatars With Legs!, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njvp-E8gzqA. 

https://freesound.org/s/403005/ by InspectorJ 

https://freesound.org/s/326404/ by MorneDelport 

Avatar | Official Trailer (HD) | 20th Century FOX, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PSNL1qE6VY. 

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” Theme Song (HQ) | Episode Opening Credits | Nick Animation, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EnW4kn1kg. 

New Books Network. Raj Balkaran, host. “Podcast | Simon Brodbeck, "Divine Descent and the Four World-Ages In….” Accessed February 2, 2023. https://newbooksnetwork.com/divine-descent-and-the-four-world-ages-in-the-mah%C4%81bh%C4%81rata-or-why-does-the-krsna-avat%C4%81ra-inaugurate-the-worst-yuga. 

Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Ramesh Pattni. “Three Faces of Vedanta: Shankaracharya, Madhvacharya, and Ramanujacharya - YouTube.” Accessed February 3, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlmdRFz1DVs. 

New Books Network. Raj Balkaran, host. “Podcast | Sucharita Adluri, "Textual Authority in Classical Indian….” Accessed February 3, 2023. https://newbooksnetwork.com/sucharita-adluri-textual-authority-in-classical-indian-thought-ramanuja-and-the-vishnu-purana-routledge-2014. 

David Chalmers: Reality+ from the Matrix to the Metaverse, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ov_BTAsgDU. Little Buddha (1993). Clip via Crescendo on YouTube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf4e4tbkmCM 

Dalai Lama Wants to Be a Machine Avatar, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JNyUVSoiAE. 

The Dalai Lama on Why Reincarnation Is Not Important, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqOMZP6HPP8. 

DW Shift. How You Can Become Immortal as a Digital Avatar, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8EiTfOggbI.

Does what goes around always come around? And is instant karma gonna get you? In the first episode of a season devoted to Sanskrit-to-English loanwords, we’ll examine how three groups of Indian philosophers understand karma: Jains, Buddhists, and Naiyayikas (or Nyaya philosophers).

Sounds and Music

All music excerpts and soundbites used with an understanding of fair use modification for educational purposes.

Drake featuring Bryson Tiller, “Bad Karma”

Alicia Keys, “Karma”

John Lennon and Yoko Ono with The Plastic Ono Band, “Instant Karma! (We all Shine On)”

Taylor Swift, “Karma”

Indigo Girls, “Galileo”

Culture Club, “Karma Chameleon”

Fox News clips:

Joey Jones, July 2021

Sean Hannity, August 2017

Theme music by­ https://incompetech.filmmusic.io Kevin MacLeod’s music

Title Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Bibliography and Further Reading

My YouTube lecture on Milinda’s Questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBqC43PK8Q

Bronkhorst, Johannes. Karma. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011. http://muse.jhu.edu/pub/5/monograph/book/1739.

Finnegan, Bronwyn. “Karma, Responsibility, and Buddhist Ethics.” In The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology, by Manuel Vargas and John Doris, 7–23. Oxford University Press, 2022.

McDermott, James. “Kamma in the Milindapañha.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 97, no. 4 (October - December 1977): 460-468.

Hermann Jacobi’s translation of the Ācāraṅgasūtrahttps://www.wisdomlib.org/jainism/book/acaranga-sutra

Taylor Swift says karma is her boyfriend, and Boy George sings about karma chameleons. In addition to “karma,” there are lots of other Sanskrit terms which have made their way into English: yoga, dharma, mantra, guru, Buddha, swastika, and more. In this season, we’ll focus on one word an episode to get a deeper understanding of what they meant in their original contexts, and how these meanings resonate today.

Episodes of Season Four will air the first Friday of every month, beginning January 6, 2023. Subscribe anywhere you can download podcasts.

Music & Effects Credits:

"Brittle Rille" by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3460-brittle-rille

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Title Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Karma" by Taylor Swift

Excerpts used for educational purposes based on fair use principles

Record Scratch by user luffy

Link: https://freesound.org/people/luffy/sounds/3536/

In this episode, I talk with Tom Davies, Seymour Reader in Ancient History and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, about how understanding Indian philosophy in relationship with the rest of the ancient world helps us reflect on what philosophy is, as a human activity, in different cultural contexts.

Note: This is the final episode of the regular season, concluding the series of interviews with philosophers who taught Philosophy and Political Thought at Yale-NUS. Not every philosopher participated, but interviews with all those who did are now available as episodes one through ten.

April 11, 2026: This is a revised version of the original podcast. The episode now includes spoken credit for Kevin MacLeod’s music, “Brittle Rille,” which I use for the show.

Further Resources

Tom Davies on Academia.edu: https://yale-nus.academia.edu/TomHerculesDavies

Ancient Egyptian Philosophy at Philosophy Now: https://philosophynow.org/issues/128/Does_Western_Philosophy_Have_Egyptian_Roots

Hannah Arendt: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/

Music Credits:

“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I talk with Robin Zheng, Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, about connections between social practices and knowing in premodern Indian philosophy and contemporary feminist philosophy.

April 11, 2026: This is a revised version of the original podcast. The episode now includes spoken credit for Kevin MacLeod’s music, “Brittle Rille,” which I use for the show.

Further Resources:

Robin Zheng’s website: https://www.robin-zheng.me/

Helen Longino: https://philosophy.stanford.edu/people/helen-longino

Miranda Fricker: https://www.mirandafricker.com/

Christy Dotson: https://lsa.umich.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/kldotson.html

Debating: https://sutrasandstuff.wordpress.com/2020/11/23/debating/

Questions of King Milinda, Book II (Rhys Davids): https://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe35/sbe3504.htm

Music Credits:

“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I talk with Cathay Liu, Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore, about philosophical systems and both Indian and European philosophy in the 17th century.

April 11, 2026: This is a revised version of the original podcast. The episode now includes spoken credit for Kevin MacLeod’s music, “Brittle Rille,” which I use for the show.

Further Resources

Rene Descartes https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/

The Tarkasamgraha at https://archive.org/details/tarka-samgraha-ramkrishna-mission/mode/2up

How to Think Like a Nyāya Philosopher, Annambhatta's Primer on Reasoning (Part 1 of 4)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L14Q87r24Is

The Craft of Research https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo23521678.html

Music Credits:

“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I talk with Neil Mehta, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS, about what exists and what we can say about it.

April 11, 2026: This is a revised version of the original podcast. The episode now includes spoken credit for Kevin MacLeod’s music, “Brittle Rille,” which I use for the show.

Further Resources

Neil Mehta’s website: http://www.profneilmehta.com/

Theory of Two Truths in India: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/twotruths-india/

Graham Priest’s website: https://grahampriest.net

Metaphysics of grounding: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/

Nagarjuna: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/

Music Credits:

“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/