To Savor the Meaning: The Theology of Literary Emotions in Medieval Kashmir (Oxford University Press, 2021)
link to publisher’s website
To Savor the Meaning examines the overlap of literary theory and religious philosophy in 9th to 12th century Kashmir by looking at debates from the period about how poetry communicates emotions to its readers, what it is readers do when they savor these emotions, and why this might be valuable. Focusing on the work of three influential figures—Anandavardhana [ca. 850 AD], Abhinavagupta [ca. 1000 AD], and the somewhat lesser known theorist Mahimabhatta [ca. 1050 AD]—this book gives a broad introduction to their ideas and reveals new, important, and previously overlooked aspects of their work and their debates.
Academic Articles
“Transmitting Awareness (saṅkrānti): A Point of Contact in Abhinavagupta’s Śaiva Aesthetics,” Indo-Iranian Journal, 2024.
(co-authored with Ben Williams) PDF
This article considers the ways in which Abhinavagupta theorized “transmission” (saṅkrānti) in his descriptions of aesthetic experience and in his descriptions of the reception of knowledge in non-dual Śaiva philosophy. We argue that this notion of transmission, in which the lines between author and qualified audience are blurred and individuality is transcended, is indebted to a number of earlier tantric and philosophical sources, but that Abhinavagupta expands these sources in particular ways. The article concludes with an exploration of the purpose of Abhinavagupta’s vision of transmission, which is rooted in the notion that texts can encode, preserve, and—in the presence of a sensitive audience—reenact the awareness of their authors, even after lineages break or traditions fragment.- “Poetry and the Play of the Goddess: Theology in Jayaratha’s Alaṃkāravimarśinī,” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2020. PDF available upon request.
The beginning of Jayaratha’s commentary on Ruyyaka’s Alaṃkārasarvasva contains a long digression on the nature of the goddess Parā Vāc, “Highest Speech,” referred to in Ruyyaka’s benedictory verse. This is an unusual choice in a text on poetics, and attention to Jayaratha’s religious context reveals that the digression is based closely on Abhinavagupta’s Parātrīśikāvivaraṇa, a tantric commentary. Jayaratha models his opening passage on this text in order to bolster an argument he wants to make about poetry, namely that poetry is the appearance of the goddess Highest Speech, who has split herself into both poet and reader in order to blissfully interact with herself.
“‘Out-of-the-Box’ Hinduism: Double Diaspora and the Guyanese Hindus of Queens, NY,” The Journal of Hindu Studies, 2019.
(co-authored with Drew Thomases) PDF
New York City is home to a thriving immigrant community of Guyanese Hindus. Descended from indentured laborers who left India in the 19th and early 20th centuries, these Hindus moved again to New York in the second half of the 20th century. They have roots in both India and Guyana and are thus in a position of "double diaspora." In New York, they now have many more opportunities to meet and interact with recent Indian immigrants in their new home. This paper examines how members of this religious community understand themselves and their relationship with their own past and future, how they think and feel about India and the Indians that they meet in New York, and how their situation of double diaspora shapes both their anxieties and their hopes for their community.
“Bhaṭṭanāyaka and the Vedānta Influence on Sanskrit Literary Theory,” Journal of American Oriental Society, 2018. PDF
Bhaṭṭanāyaka occupies an influential yet mysterious position in the history of Sanskrit literary theory. Abhinavagupta clearly owes a great debt to him, but since Bhaṭṭanāyaka’s works themselves have been lost it has proven difficult to understand exactly what that debt is. The common understanding is that Bhaṭṭanāyaka was a Mīmāṃsaka, and that he applied the principles of Vedic hermeneutics to literature. But upon closer inspection it becomes clear that in fact Abhinavagupta presents him as someone who was thoroughly interested in ideas drawn from non-dual Vedānta. Taking this connection seriously helps us develop a much clearer picture of Bhaṭṭanāyaka’s ideas, and it also helps us understand various details of Abhinavagupta’s response to Bhaṭṭanāyaka that would otherwise remain obscure.
Book Reviews
“Review of Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra,” Journal of Asian Studies, 2020. PDF
“Review of Around Abhinavagupta: Aspects of the Intellectual History of Kashmir From the Ninth to the Eleventh Century, edited by Eli Franco and Isabelle Ratié,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2019. PDF
Essays / Public Writing
“There’s a Word for That: Can Language Describe Everything We Feel—And Should It?” Boston Review, 2025 link
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A review essay of Maria Heim’s Words for the Heart: A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India that explores the relationship between language, emotion, and experience.
“Rest and Play in Deep Focus,” Dibur, 2024 link
In this article, ideas about work from two different religious traditions are explored and compared. One tradition, stemming from the Talmud and early Rabbinic Judaism, thinks of work as the opposite of rest, and sees work and rest as, ideally, part of a divine cycle, alienation from which is painful. The other, a branch of Hinduism known as Shaivism, thinks of work as the opposite of play, and yet similarly thinks of play as a divine dynamic in which we are encouraged to participate. In both traditions, the relation between the isolated individual and the community is the key to understanding participation in divinity as well as what holds us back from that. And both traditions, despite their religiosity, find deep parallels in modern, secular, political thought in ways that help us better understand the foundations of our own assumptions about community, work, and political flourishing.
“Therapy Across the Line: Goddess ‘Manifestation’ in an Indo-Caribbean Hindu Temple in Brooklyn,” The Revealer, 2017.
(co-authored with Drew Thomases) link
Profile of Vijah, a spirit medium in a Guyanese Hindu temple in Brooklyn who also works as a psychiatric research coordinator at Columbia University Medical Center. The seeming incommensurability of these two professions is bridged by a notion of “healing,” so that Vijah actually does not feel he is doing two different things but is helping to heal people in both cases. In the course of the profile, new ways of thinking about the anthropology of religion, as well as the phenomenon of belief as such, are explored.
Translations
Buddhabhaṭṭa’s Investigation of Gems (selections). Circumference, 2024. link
Excerpts from a Sanskrit manual on gemology from the first millennium, in which the myth of the origin of gemstones is narrated. Gems are said to come from the body of a primordial demi-god, torn apart in a ritual sacrifice and scattered across India. Each part of his body becomes a different type of gemstone.
Subandhu’s Vāsavadattā (selections). Caesura, 2021. link
Excerpts from the longest single sentence in Subandhu’s famous 7th century prose-poem, in which the hero of the poem meets the heroine of the poem for the first time in a dream.