I’ve started a biweekly (in the sense of every other week) podcast about Indian philosophy, called sutras (and stuff), which is being hosted at Anchor.fm and has a website here. In the coming week, it should be distributed to other podcast platforms like Spotify, Apple, and so on.
Here’s the podcast description: “Sutras (and stuff) is a podcast that gives you bite-size morsels of South Asian philosophy, paired with contemporary topics. Its basic theme is that there are always connections from the present to the past, even across cultures and languages. You don’t need to know anything about Sanskrit or India to listen, just to be curious about how what’s new might be connected to what’s old.”
It’s intended for a general (not academic) audience, hence the omission of the diacritical mark in sūtra. The first episode is about sūtra literature and Twitter, and the next scheduled show focuses on figurative language. I hope it’s interesting to some folks!
And if there are other podcasts people enjoy about Indian or South Asian philosophy, perhaps add them in the comments? (I think we all know about History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, but here’s a link, anyway: https://historyofphilosophy.net/india).
This is probably known to most people here but, just in case, here is the link to the very informative and entertaining History of India podcast by Kit Patrick:
https://historyofindiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Looks good, Malcolm. Best of luck!
I was trying to introduce myself to indian philosophy and thought, despite being an Indian these thoughts look rather alien (or somewhat boring or historical), the maine hindrances (being a layman) in getting into it (especially books) was unfamiliarity with technical terms, concepts, less explaination of difficult sentences, very long introductory paragraphs etc and there is one thing why indian philosophy is so hidden in the mainstream world is due to the default nudge towards western thought, not giving proper attention to whole of the philosophies, no engaging introductory articles and videos (you may find dozens of videos on Aristotle by lay, social media scholar or amateurs but hardly find the same for indian (except for topics on examination and courses for exams)
Hi Aditya, yes, you’re right that it’s hard to find the kind of material that exists for other philosophies–even Chinese philosophy has comparatively more of that kind of thing. In addition to my podcast (which has completed two seasons, with a third coming), there is also a longer-running podcast that has short, accessible introductions, here: https://historyofphilosophy.net/series/classical-indian-philosophy
I think a fun, accessible YouTube series would be a great idea. I wish I had the time and skills to do something like that–which, I think, is part of the challenge. Many of us who work in these areas of research just don’t have time (or the skills, or both) to make these kinds of things, at least not early in our careers. Writing and recording a 15 minute podcast takes much longer than 15 minutes!
But as you’ve found this blog and the podcast links, I hope you’ll check them out. If anyone knows of engaging, broadly accurate, and accessible materials, it’d be great to put them in the comments.
I saw your podcast, and i must say it was better than the things i went through on Youtube but i think it still lacks something (i went through nyaya sutra’s several sutras for first time and tried to make a yt video but couldn’t)
I think it would be more better if you make a detailed analysis of basic topics (which may be interesting life inference, fallacies, or even you can do it in a form of debate which took place around this topic), and yes as a point of constructive criticism your audio quality is something which was a concern for me while listening (i am a noob or non-expert in such topics but still for the betterment of Indian philosophy i presentedmy opinions)
Thanks for the thoughts. I did improve the audio quality as seasons went on, and I hope to fix earlier ones. My podcast isn’t intended as an “intro” it won’t do many of the things you suggest, though it would be great to do in the future for a different podcast.
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCKPxuul6zSLAfKSsm123Vww&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiDxNKc2p7yAhU-yzgGHZ9JBkYQFnoECAUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0t_Kd8knaDJbPQN-ZZoER5
For , introduction to vedas, explaining the study of religion, the no true translation fallacy, hinduism in academia, introduction to samkhya, mimamsa, charvaka (though this guy has masters in philosophy but still i don’t find his explaination of the samkhya, mimamsa darshana proper). The channel contains other related and non-related topics.
I want to thank you for sharing me this huge podcast link, morever i have found the youtube channel of the podcast which would fascilitate any android user (you will get the podcast by just searching history of philosophy without any gaps, to look for indian philosophy this channel has 2 playlist, hopwag2 will have the episodes with titles HPI…. )