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New Books in Indian ReligionsInterviews with Scholars of Indian Religions about their New Books Author: Marshall Poe
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150 channels and browse our 28,000 episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions Language: en Genres: Hinduism, Religion & Spirituality Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Aleksandar Uskokov, "Deciphering the Hidden Meaning: Language and the Highest Good in Early Advaita Vedānta" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Thursday, 20 August, 2026
Deciphering the Hidden Meaning: Language and the Highest Good in Early Advaita Vedānta (Oxford UP, 2026) presents a transformative history of one of the most significant ideas in Indian philosophy: liberation. Taking the great philosopher Śaṅkara as the focal point, Aleksandar Uskokov analyzes the relationship between liberation, language, and scripture. While modern portraits of Śaṅkara often cast him as a mystic or a religious reformer, the book paints a more complex portrait of the historical Śaṅkara. As a theologian of liberation, Śaṅkara was a maverick within the prevailing Brahmanical ideology of his time. In an intellectual landscape dominated by Mīmāṁsā ritualists and Vedāntic practitioners of meditation, Śaṅkara introduced a radical claim: that the paraṁ śreyas ("highest good") is attained not through action, ritual, or prolonged meditation, but through the immediate, intellectual understanding of the Upaniṣadic identity statements. Uskokov shows that the birth of the mahā-vākya or "great statement"--such as tat tvam asi ("You are That")--was not the work of Śaṅkara himself, but rather his tenth-century follower Sarvajñātman who used the structural logic of the Mīmāṁsā school. The book meticulously traces the evolution of this soteriological model, exploring how early Advaitins navigated complex debates over language, ritual causality, and the nature of the Self. In doing so, it argues that Śaṅkara's most significant contribution was his intervention against Vedic theologians who viewed scripture as a guide for action and meditation rather than primarily informative. Open Access here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
