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 4.0https://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 MusicAll 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/SourcesDocumentary 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/

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 MusicAll 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 2021Sean Hannity, August 2017Theme music by­ https://incompetech.filmmusic.io Kevin MacLeod’s musicTitle Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Bibliography and Further ReadingMy YouTube lecture on Milinda’s Questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBqC43PK8QBronkhorst, 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 MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3460-brittle-rilleLicense: 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 SwiftExcerpts used for educational purposes based on fair use principlesRecord Scratch by user luffyLink: 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 ResourcesTom Davies on Academia.edu: https://yale-nus.academia.edu/TomHerculesDaviesAncient Egyptian Philosophy at Philosophy Now: https://philosophynow.org/issues/128/Does_Western_Philosophy_Have_Egyptian_RootsHannah Arendt: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/Music Credits:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://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-longinoMiranda Fricker: https://www.mirandafricker.com/Christy Dotson: https://lsa.umich.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/kldotson.htmlDebating: https://sutrasandstuff.wordpress.com/2020/11/23/debating/Questions of King Milinda, Book II (Rhys Davids): https://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe35/sbe3504.htmMusic Credits:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://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 ResourcesRene Descartes https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/The Tarkasamgraha at https://archive.org/details/tarka-samgraha-ramkrishna-mission/mode/2upHow to Think Like a Nyāya Philosopher, Annambhatta's Primer on Reasoning (Part 1 of 4)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L14Q87r24IsThe Craft of Research https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo23521678.htmlMusic Credits:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://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 ResourcesNeil 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.netMetaphysics 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 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I talk with Matthew Walker, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS, about ancient philosophy, therapeutic arguments, reading practices, and the Bhagavad Gita.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 ResourcesMatt Walker’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/mattwalker2000/homeAristotle on the Uses of Contemplation: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/aristotle-on-the-uses-of-contemplation/14962F5B7153012A256FB48B5A27CCE8Aristotle https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/Zhu Xi https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zhu-xi/Emotions in Indian Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-emotion-india/Music Credits:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I talk with Jay Garfield, Professor of Philosophy at Smith College, about the Buddhist philosopher Candrakirti and how teaching Indian philosophy at Yale-NUS impacted his understanding of Western philosophers like Hume.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 ResourcesJay Garfield’s website: https://jaygarfield.org/ David Hume:https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/The Concealed Influence of Custom (Jay Garfield): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-concealed-influence-of-custom-9780190933401Candrakirti and Hume on the Self and the Person (Jay Garfield): https://jaygarfield.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/candrakicc84rti-and-hume-on-self.pdfMadhyamaka philosophy (and Chandrakirti):https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/madhyamaka/https://iep.utm.edu/madhyamaka-buddhist-philosophy/Music Credits:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I talk with Kathryn Muyskens, Philosophy Lecturer at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, about the Buddhist philosopher Shantideva and bioethics, health care, and compassion.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 ResourcesKathryn Muyskens’ papers on Philpapers: https://philpeople.org/profiles/kathryn-muyskensShantideva:https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shantideva/https://iep.utm.edu/santideva/YouTube video on Shantideva with Connie Kassor and Stephen Harris:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQVLrbk0yKMMusic Credits:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Content note: There's one instance of the "F-word" in English towards the end of the interview.In this episode, I talk with Andrew Bailey, Associate Professor of philosophy at Yale-NUS College in Singapore about the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna and analytic metaphysics, Gandhi on technology, and Nyaya philosophers on inference.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 ResourcesAndrew Bailey’s website: https://www.andrewmbailey.com/Nagarjuna: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/David Lewis: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/david-lewis/Peter Van Inwagen: https://philosophy.nd.edu/people/emeritus/peter-van-inwagen/Gandhi's Hind Swaraj: https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/hind_swaraj.pdfAnnambhatta lecture (1 of 4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L14Q87r24IsMusic Credits:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I talk with Bryan Van Norden, Professor of philosophy at Vassar College in the United States about how he came to Indian philosophy, what he enjoys about teaching it, as well as connections between ideas about knowing in Indian and 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 ResourcesBryan Van Norden’s website: http://www.bryanvannorden.com/“Less Commonly Taught Philosophies” bibliography: http://www.bryanvannorden.com/suggestions-for-further-readingThe Questions of King Milinda:My YouTube videos on this text start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBqC43PK8QMengzi (Mencius)https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mencius/https://iep.utm.edu/mencius/Mozi and Mohismhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/https://iep.utm.edu/mozi/Music Credits“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

How does a 9th century Nyaya philosopher addresses the intersection of religious conflict and ruling power in India? Are feelings of offense reason to exclude certain religious practices? What lessons can we take from Nyaya philosophers on religious toleration, and are they internally consistent here? To read the whole play, get the Clay Sanskrit Library translation of Much Ado about Religion by Csaba Dezsö, published 2005 by NYU Press. https://nyupress.org/9780814719794/much-ado-about-religion/ Maniacal laugh sound effect from: https://freesound.org/s/367738/

Join our hero Sankarshana as he travels around the kingdom, vanquishing foes...with reason. Part 1 of 2. To read the whole play, get the Clay Sanskrit Library translation of Much Ado about Religion by Csaba Dezsö, published 2005 by NYU Press. https://nyupress.org/9780814719794/much-ado-about-religion/

When is a door not really a door? When it's ajar! That old joke equivocates on two meanings of "ajar" In this episode we look at how equivocation can impact our reasoning, like when we ask, When is a doctor not really a doctor? We explore a few other ways that reasoning can go wrong and force us to lose in a debate. And listen until the end to hear what's planned for Episode 9.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.Sources:Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips, The Nyaya-sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries, Hackett Publishing, 2017. https://www.hackettpublishing.com/new-forthcoming/the-nyaya-sutraMuch Ado About Religion adapted from the Csaba Dezsö translation in the Clay Sanskrit Library, New York: NYU Press, 2005. https://nyupress.org/9780814719794/much-ado-about-religion/Definition of "doctor" fromMerriam-Webster Onlinehttps://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-history-of-doctorOED"doctor, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2020. Web. 20 December 2020.Clips:Good Morning America, December 15, 2020"Women rally behind Jill Biden after WSJ op-ed asks her to drop 'Dr.'"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJHm2rzMJ-Q%200:49“Hair-raising hare” (Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies, 1946)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnPRB00xgoQ"Expertise" (Sutras (and stuff) Season 1, Episode 6)https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/edfmbjBilly Madison (Universal Pictures, 1995)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec7rCsNFn30Music:“Brittle Rille,” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Sounds:Monastery Bellhttps://freesound.org/people/florianreichelt/sounds/440606/Buzzerhttps://freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/211103/ by qubodup

Quick announcement about Episodes 8 through 10.

Sutras (and stuff) will return next week for a new episode. Apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience!

We can’t directly see it but we know it exists by extending our vision with special tools. We can reason about when it’s present based on associations. We can share facts about it with each other. And we can learn its name by comparing it to other similar kinds of things. I’m talking about the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, and in this episode we’ll focus on how early Nyāya philosophers might explain our knowledge about this disease, and how they think all human beings have the ability to know using a special set of natural abilities. Music: Brittle Rille by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3460-brittle-rille License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Sound: Zapsplat.com dersuperanton at https://freesound.org/s/435876/ FreqMan at https://freesound.org/s/20049/ Trump clip from Feb 27, 2020 (AP footage): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15XjckAOTwU Sources: Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips, The Nyaya-sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries, Hackett Publishing, 2017. https://www.hackettpublishing.com/new-forthcoming/the-nyaya-sutra Complete translation of the Nyaya-sutras: Ganganatha Jha, The Nyaya-sutras of Gautama, Volume 1, 2, 3, and 4, Motilal Banarsidass Publishing, 1984.

When I started this podcast in February 2020, I envisioned a first season of ten episodes. I wrote, recorded, and scheduled the most recent episode (Episode 8) before the nationwide protests  against police brutality began in the United States, which is my country of origin and my current home while I am on leave from my college. Given current events, even though I strongly believe that philosophy, and even premodern Sanskrit philosophy, has an important role to play in shaping a more just and equitable society, I have decided to put a pause on recording and disseminating these episodes. I'll be taking the summer off to focus elsewhere, and plan to return in the fall with the second season. Why not write more episodes which focus on connections between social justice, the current protests, and Sanskrit philosophy? Perhaps I will in the future, but right now I feel like my voice isn't the one that needs to be heard. Rather, as a white person, I want to listen to, and have my fellow Americans hear, the voices of black people, along with others historically oppressed in this country. I plan to return September 1, 2020, with a new season.

Binge-watching. You sit down, popcorn and soda at the ready, and before you know it, three hours have gone by and Netflix pops up with a message: “Are you still watching?”  While binge-watching is a fairly new English phrase (attested by the OED back to 1998 in verb form) in the sense of “overindulgence,” binging goes back to the 19th century, associated with gluttony. While binging on television may be a particularly modern phenomenon, the connection between gluttony and aesthetic taste is not. Today on Sutras (and Stuff) we’ll look at the Sanskrit thinker Abhinavagupta on aesthetic gluttony. Would he binge-watch the Tiger King or even the Ramayana on Netflix? Sources Locana commentary on Anandavardhana’s Dhvanyaloka, Jeffrey Moussaeiff Masson, M.V. Patwardhan, Daniel H.H. Ingalls, Harvard University Press, 1990. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674202788 Śāntarasa and Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Aesthetics, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, J. L. Masson, M. V. Patwardhan, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1969. On Amazon. The Triadic Heart of Siva: Kaula Tantricism of Abhinavagupta in the Non-dual Shaivism of Kashmir,  Paul E. Muller-Ortega, State University of New York Press, 2010. https://www.sunypress.edu/p-857-the-triadic-heart-of-siva.aspx For further listening & reading: History of Philosophy podcast about rasa more generally: https://historyofphilosophy.net/node/764 This episode's sounds are from Sandpiper tweeting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sandpiper Spotted sandpiper alarm call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdqpvJ7FO4w Sideways Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBzJR4Emxvo Community Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWRuxQyzFcM Theme music from Ramayana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJJTPXLlWDU

Do you wish things were different right now? Is there some experience you used to have that you miss? Are you having unpleasant feelings? If so, you've got a lot in common with Buddhist practitioners and philosophers from the 4th century CE. In this episode, I speak with Bryce Huebner, Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. We talk about how some Buddhist philosophers think our mental lives are interrelated with our emotions, how this idea relates to contemporary cognitive science, and why that may help those of us who are wishing things were different right now. Sources and Links Bryce Huebner is Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. To learn more about Yogacara Buddhism, cognitive science, and the relationship between the two check out: Jonathan Gold, Paving the Great Way Maria Heim, The Forerunner of all Things Evan Thompson, Waking, Dreaming, Being

Who should you listen to? Now, more than ever before, we have access to advice from a range of self-proclaimed experts. Anyone with a webcam and an Internet connection can dole out advice. But how do we tell if someone is trustworthy? In this episode, I test some so-called experts based on the requirements from Nyaya philosophers. Let's see who makes the cut... Sources and Links Quotes from Caraka’s Compendium are from Domink Wujastyk’s The Roots of Ayurveda and the Caraka Samhita Online Quotes from the Nyayasutra are from The Nyaya-sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries translated by Matthew Dasti and Stephen Phillips Clips of Dr. Phil and Dr. Fauci are from The Laura Ingraham Show on Fox News (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GLwsH8EwgA), an interview with Dr. Phil (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDGKsWPOq1w ), and an interview with Dr. Fauci (https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/#interview)

Who should you listen to? Now, more than ever before, we have access to advice from a range of self-proclaimed experts. Anyone with a webcam and an Internet connection can dole out advice. But how do we tell if someone is trustworthy? In the next episode, I test some so-called experts based on the requirements from Nyaya philosophers, with a litle help from Caraka. Let's see who makes the cut... Background music by junkfood2121 on freesound, used under Creative Commons Attribution License. *Oops! This is a trailer for episode six!

Love, happiness, and disease. These are a few things that today we call  "contagious." But how did thinkers in the Indian subcontinent, before  the discovery of viruses, understand diseases and their treatment? This  podcast is part two of a two-part interview with Patricia Sauthoff, an  expert in the history of alchemy and medicine in India.  Sources and links  Dominik Wujastyk, The Roots of Ayurveda Caraka Samhita online Patricia Sauthoff is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta with the The AyurYog project.

Love, happiness, and disease. These are a few things that today we call  "contagious." But how did thinkers in the Indian subcontinent, before  the discovery of viruses, understand diseases and their treatment? This  podcast is part one of a two-part interview with Patricia Sauthoff, an  expert in the history of alchemy and medicine in India.  Sources and links  A Planet of Viruses, Carl Zimmer  Patricia Sauthoff is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta with the The AyurYog project.

I want to hear from you. Send me a voice message through Anchor or email me at [email protected] and I might use your messages on an upcoming episode. Be well, everyone.

If you’re going to recline your seat on an airplane, you should do it  gently. And if you’re going to kill your enemy with the shyena ritual,  you should build a brick altar. But should we do either of these things? Mimamsa and the logic of troubling commands. Sources and Links BBC clip from “Corona Virus: What is social distancing?” Kei Kataoka (2011), Kumarila on Truth, Omniscience, and Killing. Elisa Freschi, Andrew Ollett & Matteo Pascucci (2019), "Duty and Sacrifice: A Logical Analysis of the Mimamsa Theory of Vedic Injunctions, History and Philosophy of Logic." Our guest speaker today was Elisa Freschi, currently at the University of Vienna, joining the University of Toronto in fall 2020.

What does an ancient Sanskrit text have to tell us about reasoning about the coronavirus and debating with people about its treatment? Caraka’s Compendium, a medical treatise, gives some guidelines for when to bother debating with people, and whom we should trust with our health. Sources & links Online Searchable Caraka Samhita Translation of Caraka Samhita from the episode    Philosophy and Medicine in Classical India Project BBC Interview with Prof. Robin Shattock, Imperial College London The Trish Regan Show and the coronavirus 

Taylor Swift does it, and so does Kalidasa. How does figurative speech work and why do we enjoy it so much? In this episode, I talk about how figurative language from Sanskrit poetry to William Shakespeare to Taylor Swift. Sources and Links Taylor Swift, “The Man” music video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqAJLh9wuZ0 Yigal Bronner, Extreme Poetry http://cup.columbia.edu/book/extreme-poetry/9780231151603 Kālidāsa, Raghuvaṃśa https://archive.org/details/raghuvamsaofkali00kliduoft/page/n5/mode/2up Malcolm Keating, Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/language-meaning-and-use-in-indian-philosophy-9781350060777/ Richard III Soliloquy https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56973/speech-now-is-the-winter-of-our-discontent Official podcast website