THE SAGE Gargi Vachaknavi

Are public debates like the feuds we see on Twitter and Facebook a product of modern society? Gargi Vachaknavi has long been remembered in India for her brilliant performance in a public debate 2,700 years ago. Her story offers a refreshing model for how to engage in heated ideological discussions: she didn’t just throw down an epic victory, humiliating her opponent. She did something much more clever!

Katie’s guest is Ravi M. Gupta, the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies and Director of the Religious Studies Program at Utah State University and Permanent Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies in England.

Note: Dr Gupta credits the recognition of the moment when Gargi Vachaknavi pivots from contestant to judge to Brian Black, in his book, “The Character of the Self in Ancient India: Priests, Kings, and Women in the Early Upanisads” (SUNY Press).

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Ravi M. Gupta holds the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies and serves as Director of the Religious Studies Program at Utah State University. He is the author or editor of four books, including an abridged translation of the Bhagavata Purana (with Kenneth Valpey), published in 2017 by Columbia University Press. Gupta has received four teaching awards, a National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowship, and two research fellowships at Oxford. He is a Permanent Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a past president of the Society for Hindu Christian Studies. He received his PhD from the University of Oxford. His current research focuses on the Bhagavata Purana’s Sanskrit commentaries. He enjoys teaching World Religions, Hinduism, Sanskrit, and Religious Studies Theory and Method.

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Music featured in this episode included

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