Exploring The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics - Poorvam International Journal
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Exploring The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics

Upcoming Event

Date: October 11, 2026

Time: 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM IST

Location: Online (Microsoft Teams)

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Dharma Justice Sanskrit Epics Animal Ethics Cruelty

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Authors in Conversation: The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics
Violence, Cruelty, and the Question of the Animal

In this session of Authors in Conversation, Prof. Ruth Vanita joins us to discuss her book The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics: Debates on Gender, Varna, and Species (Oxford University Press, 2022), with the conversation centred specifically on violence, cruelty, and the place of animals within the epic imagination of dharma.

While the book more broadly examines how the Mahabharata and Ramayana stage debates over discrimination on grounds of gender, varna, age, disability, and species, this session turns to a thread often left at the margins of epic scholarship: how the Sanskrit epics represent cruelty toward animals, and what this suggests about the boundaries the epics draw, and unsettle, around who or what deserves compassion and justice.

The conversation will be moderated by Nilambar Chakrabarti, followed by an open Q&A with the audience.

Date & Time: Sunday, October 11, 2026, 8:00 PM IST
Mode: Online (Microsoft Teams), free and open to all

Speakers

Prof Ruth Vanita

Prof Ruth Vanita

Speaker
Ruth Vanita is a scholar, writer, and translator whose work spans Indian literary history, gender and sexuality studies, and the classical Sanskrit tradition. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including Same-Sex Love in India (co-edited with Saleem Kidwai), Love's Rite, Gender, Sex, and the City, Dancing with the Nation, and, most recently, The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics: Debates on Gender, Varna, and Species (Oxford University Press, 2022). Her work has been central to establishing the historical and textual study of same-sex desire and gender variance in South Asian literature. She is also a novelist and literary historian of Hindi fiction, with her novel A Slight Angle (Penguin, 2024) and her study On the Edge: 100 Years of Hindi Fiction on Same-Sex Desire (Penguin, 2023) among her recent publications. She co-founded the feminist magazine Manushi and has taught at the University of Montana, Missoula.

Moderator

Nilambar Chakrabarti

Nilambar Chakrabarti

Moderator
Phd research scholar at Jadavpur University, Sylff fellowship recipent, Former Research fellow at Smith College, south Asian studies.
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