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Podcast: New Books in South Asian Studies
Episode: Patrick Olivelle, "Grhastha: The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Description: Today I talked to Patrick Olivelle about his book Grhastha: The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture (Oxford UP, 2019).For scholars of ancient Indian religions, the wandering mendicants who left home and family for a celibate life and the search for liberation represent an enigma. The Vedic religion, centered on the married household, had no place for such a figure. The central finding of these studies is that the householder bearing the name grhastha is not simply a married man with a family but someone dedicated to the same or similar goals as an ascetic while remaining at...