My main research interests are Hinduism and South Asian Buddhism. Trained as a Sanskritist, I enjoy working with original Hindu and Buddhist texts, both in Sanskrit and in other ancient Asian languages, such as Pali, Prakrits, Tibetan, and Tocharian.

Much of my work has focused on the classical Upaniṣads, a genre of Hindu philosophical and religious texts composed in Sanskrit from around the 8th century BCE onwards. The Upaniṣads are linguistically and conceptually complicated texts, but they are key to understanding the most foundational ideas of Hinduism, such as karma, reincarnation, and salvation through knowledge. My work contributes to my discipline by examining the cultural and historical underpinnings of these religious ideas, which in turn have shaped the social structures of the Indian subcontinent. 

But engaging in a nuanced examination of ancient texts necessitates text-critical tools to establish the most accurate readings amidst the myriad variants found in manuscripts, inscriptions, and oral traditions. More recently, my focus has extended beyond specific text-critical analyses to grapple with fundamental questions in the broader domain of textual criticism itself. My recent book Textual Criticism and Sacred Texts (2023) compares and contrasts methodologies employed in various disciplines, including my own, and proposes a common ground for future advancements in textual-critical scholarship. 

But ancient texts are not just a thing of the past; they also intersect with modern culture in fascinating ways. My secondary research area is the nexus of ancient texts and modern popular culture. I have explored the fascinating subject of automata in Sanskrit and Pali texts in my article “Romancing the Robot” (2003) as well as in my monograph I, Yantra: Exploring Self and Selflessness in Ancient Indian Robot Tales (2024). As it turns out, robots are still very popular in India. My article “Worshipping the Robot: Religion, Fandom, and Enthiran” (2020) analyzes the 2010 blockbuster Tamil language robot film Enthiran in the light of older Indian narratives about automata and the classical rasa theory of Sanskrit poetics. This exploration of modern Indian science fiction is expanded further in my 2022 article “A Posthuman Dharma: Enthiran 2.0”, which analyzes religious, ecological, and post-humanist themes in the film’s 2018 sequel.   

My work in the area of religion and popular culture also includes a comparison of virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa with ancient oracles (2019), a Buddhist reading of the Harry Potter novels (forthcoming), an exploration of alchemical themes in the Harry Potter novels (2018) and an analysis of religious nostalgia in the Harry Potter spin-off film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2021). While this research may at first glance seem rather distant from my main work on ancient Sanskrit texts, I see this part of my work as a natural extension of my training as a Sanskritist, which has taught me the joy of analyzing texts (oral, written, or visual) as cultural artefacts.

A third sub-category of my work is comparative in nature. Since Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, related to Iranian, Greek, Latin, Old Irish, and Old Norse, there are many common motifs in ancient Indian mythology and the mythologies of Iran, Greece, Rome, Ireland, and Scandinavia. In my recent articles “Nine Nights in Indo-European Myth” (2019), “What Do the Gods Call the Sky? Naming the Celestial in Old Norse” (2020), “Heimdallr and Apām Napāt” (2021)  I put deities, myths, and motifs from Sanskrit literature into conversation with their other ancient Indo-European counterparts, which also gives me an excuse to indulge in my love for ancient languages in general.