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PUBLICATIONS

The project’s publications include a couple of articles related to the narrow goal of the project, the articles produced by the Paper Incubator grantees, a Handbook of Concepts of God in Indian Traditions, to be published by Oxford University Press, an Anthology entitled "Concepts of God and the Variety of Theisms in Indian Traditions," to be published in the Springer book series Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, and two journal special issues: a special issue of Religious Studies on Consciousness in Indian Theistic Traditions: Analytic Perspectives, and a special issue of Sophia on Concepts of God in Underrepresented Religious Traditions. Below is a list of works that have been published to date:

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handbook

The Oxford Handbook of Concepts of God from Indian Traditions 

Edited by Alan Herbert, Ricardo Silvestre and Benedikt Göcke

Forthcoming with Oxford Universty Press, 2027

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The Oxford Handbook of Concepts of God from Indian Traditions offers a comprehensive exploration of the diverse ways divinity has been conceived across Indian philosophical and religious traditions. Designed for scholars of philosophy, theology, and Indian Studies—as well as for general readers interested in comparative conceptions of God—it brings Indian thought into conversation with contemporary philosophical inquiry. Addressing the relative lack of philosophical engagement within Indian Studies, the Handbook features forty-seven chapters that critically examine key notions of God and divinity while probing their broader implications. Alongside detailed analyses of major Indian traditions, contributors explore intersections between Indian conceptions of the divine and modern debates in areas such as gender, politics, science, and management, thereby highlighting the continuing philosophical vitality of India’s diverse understandings of the sacred.

Table of Contents​

Handbook Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction

Alan Herbert, Ricardo Silvestre, and Benedikt Göcke

Part I: Vedānta Traditions

Chapter 2 The Concept of God in Madhusūdana Sarasvatī’s Advaita Vedānta 

Jacqueline  Suthren Hirst (University of Manchester)

Chapter 3 The Concept of God in Rāmānuja's Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta 

Christopher Bartley (University of Liverpool)

Chapter 4 The Concept of God in Mādhva's Dvaita Vedānta

Christopher Bartley (University of Liverpool)

Chapter 5 The Concept of the Ultimate in Bhedābheda Vedānta

Jessica Frazier (University of Oxford)

Chapter 6 The Concept of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa as Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Tattva 

Alan Herbert (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies)

Part II: Tantra Traditions

Chapter 7 Parsing The Relationship of Śiva to the World in Early Dualism Śaivism

Luke Whitmore (University of Wisconsin)

Chapter 8 God in Non-Dual Śaivism 

Gavin Flood (University of Oxford)

Chapter 9 Further Thoughts on Pratyabhijñā Nondual Tantric Śaiva Concepts of God in an Intercultural Context

David Peter Lawrence (University of North Dakota)

Chapter 10 The Śākta Conceptualisation of Devī as More Than the Feminine Divine 

Anway Mukhopadhyay (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur) 

Chapter 11 The Aghori, the Goddess, and Śiva-Śakti

Prema Goet & Alan Herbert (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies)

Part III: Traditional Indian Philosophical Schools

Chapter 12 Brahman and Īśvara as First Principle in Vedānta

Aleksandar Uskokov (Yale University)

Chapter 13 From Global to Local Atheist Conceptions of "God" in Mīmāṃsā

Elisa Freschi (University of Toronto)

Chapter 14 The Doctrine of Īśvara in Pātañjala Yoga and Śaṅkara’s Response

Karen O’Brien (King's College)

Chapter 15 Non-theism and Divinities and Other Extraordinary Beings in the Sāṃkhya Tradition

Knut A. Jacobsen (University of Bergen)

Chapter 16 The Nature and Knowledge of God in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system

Ionut Moise (Independent Researcher)

Agnieszka Rostalska (Ghent University)

Chapter 17 Concept of God in Navya-Nyāya

Agnieszka Rostalska (Ghent University)

Chapter 18 The Concept of God in Bhartrhari

Vincenzo Vergiani (University of Cambridge)

Part IV: Religious Dharma Traditions

Chapter 19 Refiguring ‘God’ in Modern Sikh Thought

Arvind Mandair (University of Michigan)

Chapter 20 Mahāvīra, the Isolated Maximally Great Being of the Jains

Marie-Helene Gorisse (University of Birmingham)

Chapter 21 The Agency of Bodhisattvas

Monima Chadha (Monash University and University of Oxford)

Part V: Abrahamic Traditions in India

Chapter 22 Akbarian Sufism and Abd al-Rahman Chishtī’s Islamised Krishna

Muhammad Sami (University of Oxford)

Chapter 23 The Indian Face of the Christian God

Nishant Upadhyay (University of Texas at Austin)

Chapter 24 Hindu God and Judaism - From Bible to Kabbalistic Judaism

Alan Brill (Seton Hall University)

Part VI: Modern Indian Religious Traditions

Chapter 25 Concepts of God in the Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda

Jeffery D. Long (Elizabethtown College)

Chapter 26 The Concept of the Mother in Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga

Raquel Ferrandez (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia)

Chapter 27 Pantheism and Panentheism in the Theological Poetry of Tagore

Ankur Barua & Hina Khalid (University of Cambridge)

Chapter 28 Gandhi on Truth and God

Bindu Puri (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Chapter 29 Hindu Polycentrism, Modern Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Style

Kenneth Valpey (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies)

Part VII: Philosophical Traditions and Categories

Chapter 30 Varieties of Theism from Polytheism, Monism, to Monotheism in Indian Traditions

Purushottama Bilimoria (San Francisco State University)

Chapter 31 Atheism and Indian Traditions of God

Nishant Upadhyay (University of Texas at Austin)

Chapter 32 Phenomenology and Indian Concepts of God

Gavin Flood (University of Oxford)

Chapter 33 Contradiction, Paraconsistency and Dialetheism in Indian Accounts of the Divine

Ricardo Silvestre (Universidade Federal de Campina Grande)

Part VIII: Indian Concepts of God in Dialogue with Western Tradition

Chapter 34 Western Scholastic and Indian concepts of God in Conversation

Martin Ganeri (University of Oxford)

Chapter 35 Panentheism in German Idealism and Pratyābhijña

Klara Hedling (University of New Mexico) & Benedikt Göcke (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

Chapter 36 Christian Mysticism and the Concept of Brahman: A Philosophical Investigation

Stephen Priest (University of Oxford)

Part IX: Indian Concepts of God in Dialogue with Other Disciplines

Chapter 37 Women Speaking to God in Indian Religions

Karen Pechilis (Drew University)

Chapter 38 God and the Nation: Political Theologies of the Bhagavad-Gītā in Modern India

Sachi Patel (King's College)

Chapter 39 From Secular Appropriations to Theologically Respectful Engagement: Reframing the Bhagavad Gītā in Management Studies

Ace Simpson (Center for Compassion Studies)

Chapter 40 God as Mechanism: A Cognitive Science Approach to Buddhist Critiques of God and Causation

Jed Forman (Simpson College)

Chapter 41 “Third Space” Contemplative Science and the Divine as Mirror to the Self

Brendan R. Ozawa-de Silva & Arthur Gene Linton Jr. (Emory University)

Part X: Philosophical Foundations for a Comparative Philosophy

Chapter 42 A Bare Theism for a Fully General Comparative Philosophy of Religion

Mike Ashfield & Ravi Gupta (Utah State University) 

Chapter 43 Varieties of Theism 

Stephen Priest (University of Oxford) & Benedikt Göcke (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) 

Chapter 44 Divine Properties 

Rebecca Chan (San Jose State University) 

Chapter 45 Classical Theism, Panentheism, and Perfect Being Theology

Ryan T. Mullins (University of Lucerne)

Chapter 46 Theistic Monism, Human Consciousness, and Scientific Cosmology

Timothy O’Connor (Indiana University Bloomington)

Part XI: Afterword

Chapter 47 Critical Reflections on the Handbook

Niharika Sharma (Indian Institute of Technology)

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