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 Religius Studies on Indian Theistic Traditions and the Philosophical Debate on Consciousness, 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:
-
Klara, H. & Göcke, B. P. Non-Dual Śaivism and the Panentheism of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. Religions 2025, 16, 823, 2025.
-
Sidharth, S.; Vaidya, A. Rāmānuja’s Cosmopsychist: Panentheistic Solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Religious Studies, 2025. (Winner of the Pansychism and the Divine Mind prize, awarded by the Panpsychism and Pan(en)theism Project.)
-
Göcke, B. P. Freemasonry as the Nucleus of the Human League: Karl Christian Friedrich Krause’s Interpretation of Regular Freemasonry as a Precursor of a Cosmopolitan Civil Society. Religions 16, 600, 2025.
-
Silvestre, R. S. The Contradictory God Thesis and Non-Dialetheic Mystical Contradictory Theism. The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 97: 83-105, 2025.
-
Silvestre, R. S. Panentheism and Theistic Cosmopsychism: God and the Cosmos in the Bhavagad Gītā. Sophia 63: 447-469, 2024.

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
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: Theoretical Framework
Chapter 2 A Bare Theism for a Fully General Comparative Philosophy of Religion
Mike Ashfield & Ravi Gupta (Utah State University)
Chapter 3 Varieties of Theism in Indian Traditions
Stephen Priest (University of Oxford) & Benedikt Göcke (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
Chapter 4 Divine Properties and Indian Accounts of the Divine
Rebecca Chan (San Jose State University) & Ricardo Silvestre (Universidade Federal de Campina Grande)
Chapter 5 Theistic Monism, Human Consciousness, and Scientific Cosmology
Timothy O’Connor (Indiana University Bloomington)
Part II: Vedānta Approaches
Chapter 6 The God Illusion and Advaita Vedānta
Nirmalya Guha (Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi )
Chapter 7 The Concept of God in Rāmānuja's Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
Christopher Bartley (University of Liverpool)
Chapter 8 The Concept of God in Mādhva's Dvaita Vedānta
Christopher Bartley (University of Liverpool)
Chapter 9 Imagining the Foundation of Reality in Bhedabheda Vedanta Philosophy
Jessica Frazier (University of Oxford)
Chapter 10 The Concept of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa as Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Tattva
Alan Herbert (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies)
Part III: Tantra Approaches
Chapter 11 Human Relationships with God in Śaiva Dualism
Luke Whitmore (University of Wisconsin)
Chapter 12 The Idea of God in Non-Dual Śaivism
Gavin Flood (University of Oxford)
Chapter 13 Pratyabhijñā Nondual, Tantric Śaiva Concepts of God in an Intercultural Perspective
David Peter Lawrence (University of North Dakota)
Chapter 14 The Śākta Conceptualisation of Devī as More Than the Feminine Divine
Anway Mukhopadhyay (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur)
Chapter 15 The Aghori on Goddesses and Crows
Prema Goet & Alan Herbert (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies)
Part IV: Traditional Indian Philosophical Schools
Chapter 16 Brahman and Īśvara as First Principle in Vedānta
Aleksandar Uskokov (Yale University)
Chapter 17 From Global to Local Atheist Conceptions of "God" in Mīmāṃsā
Elisa Freschi (University of Toronto)
Chapter 18 God, Consciousness, and Dualism in the Pātañjala Yoga Tradition
Karen O’Brien (King's College)
Chapter 19 Divinities and Other Extraordinary Beings in the Sāṃkhya Traditions
Knut A. Jacobsen (University of Bergen)
Chapter 20 The Nature and Knowledge of God in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system
Ionut Moise (Independent Researcher)
Agnieszka Rostalska (Ghent University)
Chapter 21 Concept of God in Navya-Nyāya
Agnieszka Rostalska (Ghent University)
Chapter 22 Bhartrhari
Vincenzo Vergiani (University of Cambridge)
Part V: Approches of Dharma Traditions
Chapter 23 Sikhism and God
Arvind Mandair (University of Michigan)
Chapter 24 Jainism and God
Marie-Helene Gorisse (University of Birmingham)
Chapter 25 The Agency of Bodhisattvas
Monima Chadha (Monash University and University of Oxford)
Part VI: Abrahamic Approaches in India
Chapter 26 Akbarian Sufism and Abd al-Rahman Chishtī’s Islamised Krishna
Muhammad Sami (University of Oxford)
Chapter 27 The Indian Face of the Christian God
Nishant Upadhyay (University of Texas at Austin)
Chapter 28 Hindu Approaches to the Jewish Conceptions of God
Alan Brill (Seton Hall University)
Part VII: Modern Indian Religious Approaches
Chapter 29 Concepts of God in the Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda
Jeffery D. Long (Elizabethtown College)
Chapter 30 Aurobindo and the Concept of the Mother
Raquel Ferrandez (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia)
Chapter 31 Pantheism and Panentheism in the Theological Poetry of Tagore
Ankur Barua & Hina Khalid (University of Cambridge)
Chapter 32 Gandhi on Truth and God
Bindu Puri (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Chapter 33 Hindu Polycentrism, Modern Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Style
Kenneth Valpey (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies)
Part VIII: Philosophical Traditions and Categories
Chapter 34 Monotheism and Polytheism in Indian Traditions
Purushottama Bilimoria (San Francisco State University)
Chapter 35 Indian Traditions, Classical Theism, Panentheism, and Perfect Being Theology
Ryan T. Mullins (University of Lucerne)
Chapter 36 Western Scholastic and Indian concepts of God in Conversation
Martin Ganeri (University of Oxford)
Chapter 37 Phenomenology and Indian Concepts of God
Gavin Flood (University of Oxford)
Chapter 38 Cosmopsychism and God in Indian Traditions
Ricardo Silvestre (Universidade Federal de Campina Grande)
Chapter 39 Analytic Philosophy and Indian Concepts of God
Uwe Meixner (Universität Augsburg)
Part IX: Indian Concepts of God in Dialogue
Chapter 40 Women Speaking to God in Indian Religions
Karen Pechilis (Drew University)
Chapter 41 Indian Politics, Gītā, and Concepts of God
Sachi Patel (King's College)
Chapter 42 Concepts of the Divine in Bhagavad Gita-Inspired Management Studies
Ace Simpson (Center for Compassion Studies)
Chapter 43 Contemplative Science, Mindfulness, and Indian Concepts of God
Brendan R. Ozawa-de Silva (Emory University)
Chapter 44 Cognitive Science and Indian Concepts of God
Jed Forman (Simpson College)
Chapter 45 Concepts of God in German Idealism and Non-Dual Śaivism
Klara Hedling (University of New Mexico) & Benedikt Göcke (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
Chapter 46 Christian Mysticism and the Concept of Brahman
Stephen Priest (University of Oxford)
Part X: Afterword
Chapter 47 Critical Reflections on the Handbook
Niharika Sharma (Indian Institute of Technology)






