Südasien-Institut / South Asia Institute, Heidelberg

The Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia recently hosted a lecture by Sophia Kaiser, PhD Fellow at the University of Potsdam, on 'Narrative Approach in Curating Nepali Portrait Painting'. The lecture explored how curation can serve as a methodological approach to research, focusing on how the selection, organisation, and interpretation of objects shape knowledge production and presentation.

Focusing on Nepali portrait painting, the presentation introduced two approaches to curation: genre-based curation and narrative curation. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives, it explored how a narrative approach can be used to select and interpret Nepali portrait paintings, revealing stories, cultural contexts, and historical relationships within these paintings. The lecture considered how curatorial choices influence the production and transfer of knowledge.

The presentation concluded by highlighting how narrative curation can deepen audience engagement and contribute to new understandings of portraiture.

The recent lecture by Haruki Tsuji, organised by the Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia, explored an Oxford manuscript of Vallabhadeva’s Kumārasambhavaṭīkā, a commentary on Kālidāsa’s Kumārasambhava. Vallabhadeva was a 10th-century commentator, and his work survives in several manuscripts that contain important differences in their readings.

The presentation focused on an Oxford Śāradā manuscript that was not included in M. S. Murti’s 1980 edition. Tsuji showed that this manuscript often shares readings with another manuscript whose readings were largely rejected in the edition. In the opening of Canto I, the two manuscripts contain similar wording, explanations, and interpretations of individual verses.

These similarities offer clues about how Vallabhadeva’s commentary was transmitted and developed over time. While some passages may preserve earlier forms of the text, others may reflect later additions, rearrangements, or material drawn from other sources. By comparing the opening of Canto I with selected passages from elsewhere in the commentary, the lecture showed how manuscripts can help researchers trace changes in a text and distinguish earlier material from later revisions and additions.

Haruki Tsuji is a second-year doctoral student at the University of Tokyo and currently a visiting researcher at the SAI. His research focuses on Sanskrit kāvya, commentarial traditions, and manuscript transmission.

Compact Courses in 8 South Asian Languages: Beginner Courses Starting Winter Semester 26/27

Are you enrolled at Heidelberg University and want to broaden your horizons - with a new language? The SAl is offering compact courses in eight South Asian languages starting in October. You will learn: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Text Production

4 hours per week | Counts towards elective credits
Deadline for Registration: September 30, 2026

Link for registration: https://heico.uni-heidelberg.de/heiCO/ee/ui/ca2/app/desktop/ #/slc.tm.cp/student/courses?$ctx=design=ca;lang=DE&$filter=courseTags-in=SAI-LanguageCompact&$skip=0&$top=20&objTermId=190&orgId=14151&q=

Kompaktkurse in acht südasiatischen Sprachen für Anfänger*innen.

Du bist an der Uni Heidelberg eingeschieben und möchtest deinen Horizont erweitern -mit einer neuen Sprache?

Am SAl starten zum Oktober Kompaktkurse in acht sudasiatischen Sprachen.
Du lernst: Schrift, Aussprache, Grundlagen der Grammatik, einfache Kommunikation.

4 SWS | Anrechenbar im Wahlbereich
Die Frist fur die Anmeldung ist der 30 September 2026

Link zur Anmeldung: https://heico.uni-heidelberg.de/heiCO/ee/ui/ca2/app/desktop/ #/slc.tm.cp/student/courses?$ctx=design=ca;lang=DE&$filter=courseTags-in=SAI-LanguageCompact&$skip=0&$top=20&objTermId=190&orgId=14151&q=

The Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia recently hosted a lecture by Manasicha Akepiyapornchai titled 'The Path Not Taken: Meghānadāri Sūri’s Exclusion of Śūdras'. The lecture examined the relationship between multilingualism, theological authority, and social and institutional eligibility in the medieval Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition.

The presentation focused on Meghānadāri Sūri, a 13th century Sanskrit intellectual, and his exclusion of Śūdras from the practice of self-surrender, one of the community’s central soteriological doctrines. Drawing on Sanskrit and Maṇipravāḷam theological texts from the 12th to 14th centuries, it explored how language shaped theological authority, audiences, and access to religious doctrines.

The lecture further examined Meghānadāri Sūri’s distinctive position, including his restriction of self-surrender to the twice-born and his rejection of the soteriological relevance of the Tamil devotional corpus of the Āḻvārs. His exclusion of Śūdras and women from the doctrines of devotion and self-surrender highlighted the limits of a Sanskritic, Vedic-derived framework at a time when Tamil theology and broader participation were reshaping Śrīvaiṣṇava life.

The presentation demonstrated how multilingual negotiation drove theological change and how individual authors shaped the relationship between linguistic and theological developments.

Manasicha Akepiyapornchai is Assistant Professor of Classical Studies of South Asia at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on the intellectual history of South Asia, particularly religion, philosophy, and multilingualism in medieval and early modern South India.

A delegation of 24 students took part in a three-day visit to Geneva, gaining first-hand insights into diplomacy, multilateral cooperation and international policymaking through meetings with diplomats, United Nations officials and human rights experts. The study excursion was part of the Department of Political Science’s India–China Relations, Changing Geopolitics and Perspectives seminar, taught by Dr. Dieter Reinhardt and Aniruddha Kar (PhD).

The programme included visits to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Permanent Missions of Germany, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as discussions with Prof. Miloon Kothari, Independent Expert on Human Rights and Social Policy. Students also met Mr. Rory Mungoven, Chief of the Asia-Pacific Section at OHCHR, and Mr. Gunnar Berkemeier, Minister-Counsellor for Political Affairs at the Permanent Mission of Germany. These exchanges explored human rights, UN mechanisms, foreign policy, disarmament and the role of multilateral institutions in addressing global challenges.

Highlights of the excursion also included meeting Arindam Bagchi, Permanent Representative of India to the UN, Deputy Permanent Representative Jawad Ali and Counsellor Husham Ahmed from the Permanent Mission of Pakistan, and Ambassador Nahida Sobhan, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UNO, among other international organisations in Geneva. Discussions focused on India–China relations, regional cooperation, climate change, migration, human rights and South Asian foreign policy, providing students with valuable perspectives on contemporary diplomacy.

The excursion offered a unique opportunity for direct engagement with international organisations, giving students a deeper understanding of the institutions and processes that shape global governance.

SAI, in cooperation with Literaturforum Indien e.V., recently hosted an author reading and conversation with Prof. Saikat Majumdar from Ashoka University, India. The event featured a reading from his celebrated novel 'The Scent of God' (2019), which tells the story of love and friendship between two teenage boys in a boarding school run by an order of Hindu monks.

The reading was followed by a discussion of his novels, focusing on their treatment of gender, q***rness, eroticism and contrasting thought worlds. The conversation also explored ideas developed in Prof. Majumdar's non-fiction, including the significance of interdisciplinarity, cross-cultural reading and the role of the humanities in the age of artificial intelligence.

Prof. Saikat Majumdar is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ashoka University, and has taught at different universities in the US and Canada. He is the author of five novels, including 'Silverfish' (2007), 'The Firebird' (2015), 'The Scent of God' (2019), 'The Middle Finger' (2022), and 'The Remains of the Body' (2024). His novels explore a vast range of themes, including gender and sexuality, q***r identities, and the imprint of religiosity, memory, cultural heritage and academia on erotic selfhoods.

The two-day Workshop on Manuscriptology, organised by the Department of Religious and Cultural History of South Asia, took place on July 13-14, bringing together specialists from Paris, Austin and Heidelberg to explore South Asian manuscripts as both physical objects and living texts. Across seven thematic sessions, the workshop examined topics including palaeography, calendrics, critical editing, conservation, and state-of-the-art digital tools reshaping the field of manuscript studies.

The workshop offered participants the opportunity to engage directly with leading scholars and current research in manuscript studies. Discussions followed the journey of texts from palm-leaf manuscripts to critical editions and digital surrogates, while fostering dialogue on the methods, challenges and future directions of the discipline.

Convened as part of the Manuscriptology and Digital Humanities lecture series, the workshop highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to preserving, studying and reinterpreting South Asia's rich manuscript traditions.

The final session of the SAI Colloquium– Summer Semester 2026 took place on 16 July, with a lecture titled “VEGA: Volcanoes as Environmental and Global Actors–A Multispecies History of Tambora in the Central Himalayas.”

The lecture by Dr. Stefan Lüder explored the regional aftermath of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, one of the most significant volcanic climate events of the modern era. While the eruption’s global consequences have received considerable scholarly attention, the presentation highlighted how its impacts in the Central Himalayas remain comparatively underexplored. It examined how climate anomalies were experienced, recorded and interpreted in the region, whose observations shaped the production of environmental knowledge, and how nonhuman life can be read as historical evidence.

Introducing the VEGA project, Dr Lüder outlined its interdisciplinary methodology, combining multi-sited archival research, natural science approaches and digital humanities tools. The project investigates how indigenous, Gorkha, European and Qing Chinese actors produced environmental knowledge in the early 19th century. By bringing these perspectives into dialogue, it seeks to offer a more nuanced understanding of Tambora's aftermath and contribute to broader discussions in South Asian, environmental and global history.

SAI invites you to attend the following events next week.

You can find programs and more information about the events (including links) in sai.uni-heidelberg.de

Students recently travelled to Berlin for an 'Anti-Colonial Walking Tour' led by Dr. Ole Birk Laursen, as part of the Department of History’s 'Sonic Regimes: History and the Politics of Sound in South Asia' seminar. The course is taught by Prof. Dr. K**a Maclean and visiting professor Dr. Aparna Balachandran.

The excursion explored key sites in Charlottenburg, connected to the history of radical South Asian communities- many of them students who were active in anti-colonial movements. The visit formed part of the course’s research-based learning project on a radio play which was critical of the British government, and was broadcast in Berlin in 1930.

Over the following two days, the students also worked alongside Dr. Stefan Lüder at the Bundesarchiv. Working with paper files and microfilms, they translated German-language materials relating to radio policy, gaining first-hand experience of archival research. The group also received a guided tour of the archive’s storage facilities.