The Discover India Podcast by Professor Pankaj Jain: Bhārat Darśan

Episode 51. Raag Jogiya in Popular Music: A Webinar with Shri Manoj Govindraj and Professor Pankaj Jain

Film Songs include:

Episode 50. Raag Bhoopali in Hindi and Marathi Film Songs: A Webinar with Shri Manoj Govindraj and Professor Pankaj Jain

Film Songs include:

Ghazals include

Episode 3 (New Books in Indian Studies): Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) is a seminal work in the field of postcolonial culture studies. It critiqued Western scholarship about the Eastern world for its patronizing attitude and tendency to view it as exotic, backward and uncivilized. 

Arvind Sharma, longstanding professor of comparative religion at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, now takes up the Palestinian academic's groundbreaking ideas - originally put forth predominantly in a Middle Eastern context - and tests them against Indian material. He explores in an Indian context Said's contention that the relationship between knowledge and power is central to the way the West depicts the non-West. Scholarly and accessible, The Ruler's Gaze throws fresh light on Indian colonial history through a Saidian lens.  

Formerly of the IAS, Dr. Arvind Sharma is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion in the School of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He has also taught in Australia and the USA, and has published extensively in the fields of comparative religion and Indology.  

Dr. Pankaj Jain is a Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at FLAME University, where he is heading the Indic Studies Initiative in the FLAME School of Liberal Education.

(Originally published at https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-rulers-gaze)

Episode 49. Raag Bhairav in Hindi and Marathi Film Songs: A Webinar with Shri Manoj Govindraj and Professor Pankaj Jain

Film Songs include:

Ghazals include:

New books in South Asian Studies, Episode 2: This book is a provocative account of the development of modern national culture in India using classical music as a case study. The author demonstrates how the emergence of an “Indian” cultural tradition reflected colonial and exclusionary practices, particularly the exclusion of Muslims by the Brahmanic elite, which occurred despite the fact that Muslims were the major practitioners of the Indian music that was installed as a “Hindu” national tradition. This book lays bare how a nation’s imaginings—from politics to culture—reflect rather than transform societal divisions. 

Dr. Janaki Bakhle is a Professor of Modern South Asian History at the University of California at Berkely, with a focus on the cultural, social and political history in the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. 

Dr. Pankaj Jain is a Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at FLAME University, where he is heading the Indic Studies Initiative in the FLAME School of Liberal Education.

Keywords: India, classical music, national culture, Muslims, Brahmanic elite, Indian music, Hindu, societal divisions, politics, culture

(Originally published at https://newbooksnetwork.com/two-men-and-music)

Episode 48. Raag Manjh Khamaj in Hindi and Marathi Film Songs: A Webinar with Shri Manoj Govindraj and Professor Pankaj Jain

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Episode 47: Patriotic Film Songs on Classical Raag: A Webinar with Shri Manoj Govindraj and Professor Pankaj Jain, Ph.D.

New Books in South Asian Studies, Episode 1: Jainism evokes images of monks wearing face masks to protect insects and micro-organisms from being inhaled. Or of Jains sweeping the ground in front of them to ensure that living creatures are not inadvertently crushed: a practice of non-violence so radical as to defy easy comprehension. Yet for all its apparent exoticism, Jainism is still little understood in the West. What is this mysterious philosophy which originated in the 6th century BCE, whose absolute requirement is vegetarianism, and which now commands a following of four million adherents both in its native India and diaspora communities across the globe?   

In Jainism: An Introduction (I. B. Tauris, 2009), Long makes an ancient tradition fully intelligible to the modern reader. Plunging back more than two and a half millennia, to the plains of northern India and the life of a prince who - much like the Buddha - gave up a life of luxury to pursue enlightenment, Long traces the history of the Jain community from founding sage Mahavira to the present day. He explores asceticism, worship, the life of the Jain layperson, relations between Jainism and other Indic traditions, the Jain philosophy of relativity, and the implications of Jain ideals for the contemporary world. The book presents Jainism in a way that is authentic and engaging to specialists and non-specialists alike.  

Dr. Pankaj Jain is a Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at FLAME University, where he is heading the Indic Studies Initiative in the FLAME School of Liberal Education.  

(Originally published at https://newbooksnetwork.com/jainism)

Episode 46. Raag Kafi in Film Songs, Ghazals and Bhajans: A Webinar with Shri Manoj Govindraj and Professor Pankaj Jain.

Film Songs include:

Ghazals include:

Episode 45. Raag Basant Mukhari in Popular Music: A Webinar with Shri Manoj Govindraj and Professor Pankaj Jain

Songs include: