Research

GCSAS (Ghent Centre for South Asian Studies)

The interdisciplinary research group Ghent Centre for South Asian Studies aims to offer a platform where UGent researchers working on South Asia meet and interact. The members of GCSAS focus on varied aspects of South Asian society and culture, ranging from its rich literary history (Literary studies), to its diverse religious traditions (Religious studies), its material cultures (Archaeology and Art History), its numerous languages (Linguistics), its rapid developments in cinema (Media), etc. Their studies address both historical and contemporary issues, as well as local and transnational perspectives. They do so employing diverse research methods and theoretical backgrounds current in the Humanities and Social Sciences. All GCSAS members are committed to the highest academic standard by engaging with sources in South Asian languages (especially Sanskrit and Hindi), be it in communication with people during field work, texts, or other media

More details can be found on the research portal of the faculty.

Projects

Multiresearcher project

• Dynamics of buddhist Sūtra literature. Text, translation, and transmission (2024 – 2028)
• Corpora in Greater Gandhāra. Tracing the development of Buddhist textuality and Gilgit/Bamiyan manuscript networks in the first millennium of the common era (2024 – 2029)
• The mosques of Kerala. Artistic vocabularies in the identity-building of muslim communities (2023 – 2028)
• Nilgiri Archaeological Project: Culture and environment in the upland forests of South India from Antiquity to Early Modernity (2021 – 2026)
• Archaeological explorations and investigations in the Gangetic Plains and neighbouring regions (2021 – 2025)
• Excavations at Bodhgaya, the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment: the Mahabodhi temple, Taradih monastery and Bakraur stupa (2021 – 2024)

Postdoc research

• The Popular Scholastic: Religious Reading and Textual Communities of the Bhagavad Gītā in Early Modern North India (2024-2027)
• Lost Horizons: Histories and Memories of Unsettlement in the Jain Diaspora (2023 – 2026)
• Nalanda in the history of philosophy: An investigation of the textual and material sources (2022 – 2025)
• Waking Prithviraj: the subversive poetics of the past in North Indian historical literature (2021 – 2024 ongoing)
• When the king does philosophy. The Vedantic writings of Jasvant Singh of Mārvāḍ (1626–1678) (2022 – 2025)
• Political authority and social justice. A philosophical study of Arthaśāstra (2022 – 2025)
• Coexistence, Conflict and Calamity: Entangled Worlds of Hinduism and Islam in the Heart of India (2023 – 2026)

PhD research

• Ignorant brahmins and lusty monks. The satirical depiction of religious figures in classical Sanskrit literature (2023 – 2027)
• Evangelists and epigones. Sanskrit adaptations of Mahābhārata by Jains in 13th-century Gujarāt (2021 – 2025)
• The Jains in contemporary Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore). Their distinctiveness and identities (2022 – 2025)
• Bhadrakali and the Bhadrotpatti. A comparative study of a regional goddess and her puranic narrative tradition (2012 – 2016 ongoing)

Websites

• Jaina Studies
• Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies (GCBS)
• The Nilgiri Archaeological Project
• South Indian Kali Studies

Member publications