Professor Diwakar Acharya
Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics
MA, DPhil
University Academic Fellow since 2016
My research concerns religious and philosophical traditions of South Asia. I study ancient and medieval texts, inscriptions, and other historical documents significant for the cultural history of the Indian sub-continent. I am also interested in the critical examination of rites, rituals, and customs of the Indian religions. I am a keen reader of various genres of Sanskrit literature, starting from the Vedas.
- Associate Professor of Indological Studies, Kyoto University (from 2011 to 2016)
- Visiting Foreign Lecturer, Kyoto University (from 2006 to 2011)
- Research Associate, Hamburg University (from 2003 to 2006)
- Assistant Professor, Nepal Sanskrit University (from 1993 to 2003)
- Evolution of Indian religions and philosophical ideas
- Early history of South Asia (particularly Nepal)
- Early Tantric Vaiṣṇavism. Three Newly Discovered works of the Pañcarātra: The Svāyambhuvapañcarātra, Devāmṛtapañcarātra and Aṣṭādaśavidhāna. Critically Edited from their 11th- and 12th-Century Palm-leaf Manuscripts with an Introduction and Notes. Collection Indologie 129: Early Tantra Series 2. Ecole Française d’Extrême–Orient / Institut français Pondichéry / Universität Hamburg. pp. i-lxxxvi, 1-230, 2015.
- The Issue of Remarriage, Adultery and Child Production in Ancient Nepal: An insight into the Maligaun Inscription of Viṣṇugupta dated in Licchavi Saṃvat 57 (632 AD), Studies in Nepalese History and Society (SINHAS), Vol. 19(2014),3. Kathmandu.
- “This world, in the beginning, was phenomenally non-existent”: Āruṇi’s Discourse on Cosmogony in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. Journal of Indian Philosophy. Print version: volume 44 (2016).5.
- The Upaniṣadic Method of Neti neti and the Jaina Doctrine of Anekānta, in J. Soni, M. Pahlke, C. Cüppers (eds.), Buddhist and Jaina Studies. Proceeding of the Conference in Lumbini, February 2013. LIRI Seminar Proceedings Series, Volume 6. Lumbini: Lumbini Internatioanl Research Institute, 2014, pp. 299–317.
- An Investigation into the Background of the Śaiva Siddhānta Concept of Innate Impurity (mala), in Journal of Indian Philosophy 42 (2014), 1: pp. 9–25.
- How to behave like a Bull? New Insight into the Origin and Religious Practices of Pāśupatas, in Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013), 2: pp. 101–131.
- Néti néti. Meaning and Function of an Enigmatic Phrase in the Gārgya-Ajātaśatru dialogue of Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad II.2 and II.3, in Indo-Iranian Journal 56 (2013), 1: 3–39.
- Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Indian Philosophy (from 2014)
- Member of Advisory Committee, Collection Indologie, Pondicherry (from 2008)