Registration Open
Authors in Conversation
Exploring The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics
With Keynote Speaker Prof Ruth Vanita
(Moderated by Nilambar Chakrabarti)
Sunday, October 11, 2026
8:00 PM IST
Online (Microsoft Teams)
Free Admission
Academic Discourse Overview & Abstract
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
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
Distinguished Keynote Speaker(s)
Prof Ruth Vanita
Keynote Speaker
Profile →
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.
Session Moderator
Phd research scholar at Jadavpur University, Sylff fellowship recipent, Former Research fellow at Smith College, south Asian studies.