2023-03-31-accounts

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Charity Registration No: 1074458

Trustees’ Report and Financial Statements

for the year ended

31 March 2023

Wenn Townsend

Chartered Accountants

Oxford

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Legal and Administrative Details

Registered charity number	1074458
Trustees:	Prof Diwaker Acharya (Humanities Division representative)
	Prof Francis X Clooney
	Mr Shaunaka Rishi Das
	Lord Dholakia, OBE, DL
	Dr Mark Edwards (Theology Faculty representative)
	Dr S Bhattacharya-Ford
	Prof Richard Gombrich
	Mr Pujan H Patel
	Mr Ajay Piramal
	Mrs Madhu Ruia
	Mr Azad Shivdasani
	Prof Mark Smith (Oriental Studies representative)
	Mr Ramesh Venkataraman
	Prof Himan Shruprabha Ray
Director:	Shaunaka Rishi Das
Auditors:	Wenn Townsend
	30 St Giles
	Oxford
	OX1 3LE
Registered office:	15 Magdalen Street
	Oxford
	OX1 3AE
Bankers:	Barclays Bank plc
	P O Box 333
	Oxford
	OX1 3HS

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023

The Trustees present their report and the audited financial statements of the Charity for the year ended 31 March 2023. The Trustees have adopted the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) “Accounting and Report by Charities” (FRS102) in preparing the annual report and financial statement of the Charity.

Structure, government and management

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS) is governed under a Trust Deed dated 1 February 1999 as amended by a Declaration of Trust dated 28th June 2006. Its registered charity number is 1074458. The Trustees of the Charity are shown on page 1.

Trustees’ meetings are scheduled each year, with extra meetings called if required. The Director deals with the day-to-day management of the OCHS.

All decisions concerning policies and appointment of advisors and Trustees are referred to the Trustees. The Trustees keep the activities of the OCHS under regular annual review, identifying risks and mitigating them through internal controls and insurance. They approve the risk register annually.

Objectives and activities of the Charity

The OCHS is an academy for the study of Hindu culture, society, philosophies, and languages, in all periods and in all parts of the world. The OCHS is dedicated to preserving India’s cultural heritage and promoting better understanding of it through a comprehensive programme of education, publishing and research. The OCHS is also a Recognised Independent Centre of Oxford University.

Achievements and performance of the charity

Teaching

Fellows of the Centre continued teaching students of the University, from undergraduates to doctorate students. Prof. Gavin Flood is currently supervising three DPhil students, Dr Jessica Frazier is supervising two DPhil students, and Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen and Dr Rembert Lutjeharms each one DPhil student.

Dr Lutjeharms gave the lectures for the papers Hinduism: Sources and Formations and Modern Hinduism. Dr Frazier offered two lectures for the Religion & Religions paper, and both she and Dr Lutjeharms also lectured for the MSt in Study of Religions core course. Dr Wernicke-Olesen continues to teach the Sanskrit and Pāli Prelims course for the Faculty of Theology & Religion, which had 8 students this year. Together, fellows from the OCHS tutored 11 students in classical Hinduism, 5 in modern Hinduism, 20 in the first-year paper Religion & Religions, 3 students for the paper The Nature of Religion, as well as 4 students for the MSt in the Study of Religion. In addition, Dr Frazier taught 6 students Indian Philosophy for the Philosophy Faculty.

Especially encouraging has been the increase in students choosing to write their undergraduate dissertation on a Hinduism topic and the third-year students choosing the paper Further Studies in Hinduism, which allows them to research a topic of their choice. This year, fellows of the OCHS supervised 4 undergraduate dissertations and 4 students for the Further Studies paper.

Research

Below you can find an update on the developments on our research programmes and research projects.

The Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Research Programme Project Leaders: Dr Måns Broo, Dr Rembert Lutjeharms, Prof. Kiyokazu Okita, and Dr Lucian Wong

This academic year saw the launch of two new research projects: The Vaiṣṇava Sensorium, led by Prof. Ayesha Irani and Dr Lucian Wong; and a new project on the development of the concept of bhakti-rasa—central to Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava theology—led by Prof. Kiyokazu Okita. There were also two significant publications, with a third being in press. Details about the progress and output of individual projects in the research programme can be found below.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Prof. Kiyokazu Okita applied for and received a four-year research grant (4,68 million yen, approx 25,700 British pounds) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The project explores the historical development of the concept of rasa and bhakti-rasa in medieval India (i.e. after Abhinavagupta). Together with Dr S. Bhuvaneshwari he has also been editing and translating Vopadeva’s Harilīlā, with Hemādri’s commentary. With Dr S. Bhuvaneshwari and Dr Tomohiro Manabe he has been editing and translating Madhusūdana Sarasvatī’s commentary on the first verse of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and with Dr Naba Gopal Roy, Prof. Niwa Kyoko, and Dr Rembert Lutjeharms he has been translating the rāslīlā section in Maladhar Basu’s Śrīkṛṣṇavijay.

Gauḍīya Patrikā Digital Database Project Leaders: Dr Lucian Wong and Dr Sumantra Rudra

The Bhaktivedanta Research Centre (BRC), Kolkata, holds one of the richest standalone Bengali Vaiṣṇava periodical collections in the world. Dr Lucian Wong, co-director of the OCHS’s Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism Research Programme, and Dr Sumanta Rudra, Dean of Academic Affairs at the BRC, have been leading an initiative to build a state-of-the-art, fully text-searchable digital database of the BRC’s periodical collection. Earlier this year, the project entered into an official collaboration with Jadavpur University’s School of Cultural Text’s and Records (SCTR). The SCTR team, led by former SCTR Director, Prof. Sukanta Chaudhuri, FBA, will oversee the technical work of building the database, which is already underway.

Bengali Vaiṣṇavism in the Modern Period Project Leaders: Dr Ferdinando Sardella and Dr Lucian Wong

This project, which was launched in 2015, undertakes the mapping, collection, translation and investigation of literature and any other relevant material related to, or dealing with, the modern development of Bengali Vaiṣṇavism from the mid-18th century to the mid-twentieth century.

The project recently published Indian edition of their 2020 publication The Legacy of Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal, edited by project co-directors Dr Ferdinando Sardella and Dr Lucian Wong.

The Vaiṣṇava Sensorium: Experiencing the Divine in Eastern India Project Leaders: Dr Ayesha Irani and Dr Lucian Wong

This Working Group, led by Dr Ayesha Irani (University of Massachusetts Boston) and Dr Lucian Wong (OCHS), brings together scholars from the fields of textual studies, literature, philosophy, anthropology, ritual studies, and art history, to share and inspire research that focuses specifically on the Vaiṣṇava sensorium. So far, some scholars have been directly working on the sensorium in the context of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, others have been working on it less consciously. This is an attempt to bring these scholars, working in various disciplines, into conversation with each other around the central focus of the Vaiṣṇava sensorium as it is understood in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava philosophy, poetry, drama, aesthetics, and practices of ritual and interiority. In this endeavor, we aim to bring together scholars who work on eastern India—erstwhile Mithila, Assam, greater Bengal, and Orissa, and scholars who work on the early modern, colonial, or the modern (and contemporary) periods. The aim is to look at both the roots of the Vaiṣṇava sensorium as it was understood in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava canon but also to consider the ripple effects of this doctrine in the ways in which groups inspired by ideas seeded by the Gauḍīyas moved their understandings into new and fecund directions. A critical dimension of this project is to define the sensorial ontology of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism. Ultimately, the aim is to chart a new poetics of perception and experience of the divine, among the Gauḍīyas and beyond.

The aim of the conveners of this Working Group is to eventually, and organically, pull together an edited volume on the Vaiṣṇava sensorium that would showcase the writings of these various scholars in a single volume. The project will be holding a symposium at the Annual Conference of South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin, in October 2023.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Haribhaktivilāsa

Sanātana Gosvāmin’s Haribhaktivilāsa (ca. 1540) describes the normative ritual life of a Vaiṣṇava devotee. As it is one of the first Sanskrit texts of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition begun by Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1486–1533) it presents a fascinating meeting between this ecstatic new religious movement and older, Brahminical tradition. On the basis of eleven manuscripts, Dr Måns Broo has been working for some years on a critically edition of the text and its commentary, together with an annotated translation. This year, the first volume of this project has been published by Brill, under the title Haribhaktivilāsa of Sanātana Gosvāmin, Volume 1: Mantras, Initiation and Preparing for Worship (Chapters 1–5). Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. The entire book is available, through open access, as a free download from the publisher’s website. Dr Broo is currently working on the next volume in the series.

The Building of Vṛndāvana

The Building of Vṛndāvana: The book brings together scholarship on the early modern history of Vṛndāvana, the temple town devoted to Kṛṣṇa, exploring in particular how the physical buildings were located in the theological, ritual, artistic, and literary worlds of its devotees.

Gauḍīya Study Programme

In June 2023, the tenth cohort of students completed the Gauḍīya Study Programme, an online tutorial programme in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Studies. The programme, launched in Trinity Term 2020, introduces current academic research on Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism to Vaiṣṇava students from the UK, North America, India, Australia, and Asia. The programme is led by Dr Rembert Lutjeharms, and includes among its teachers Dr Måns Broo, Shaunaka Rishi Das, Anuradha Dooney, Prof. Ravi Gupta, Dr Kenneth Valpey, and Dr Lucian Wong. An inperson study retreat is planned for September 2023.

The Śākta Traditions Research Programme Project Leaders: Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen and Prof. Gavin Flood

The Śākta Traditions research project, which was officially launched in 2011 with a two-day international conference in Oxford and subsequent publication with Routledge, has developed into a research programme encompassing a number of interdisciplinary projects, publications, and a growing international research network. The research programme aims to carve out space for Śāktism as a major Hindu tradition within the South Asian religious context by defining its theology, textual lineages, historical evolution, and its relationship to parallel traditions such as Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism. It has produced several international symposia, workshops, and seminars in Oxford as well as numerous volumes and articles.

Dr Wernicke-Olesen convened a Netratantra Seminar at Campion Hall and the OCHS on Tuesday, 28th February 2023, 10.00-15.30. Amongst the contributors were Prof. Gavin Flood, Dr Rajan Khatiwoda, Dr Ulrik Lyngs, Mr Michael Elison, Dr Wernicke-Olesen, and Dr Silvia Schwarz Linder.

New projects include a translation project of the Ṣaṭcakranirūpana aiming at a full English translation and annotated edition of the text. The project is led by Dr Wernicke-Olesen and Dr Silje Lyngar Einarsen and forms part of the newly established Scandinavian Indological Society.

In 2022 a high-profile research and publication project with Prof. Alexis Sanderson, Prof. Gavin Flood, and Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen was added to the Śākta Traditions research programme. The project is now seeing its first results:

Tantra in South Asia: Śākta and Śaiva Religion from Kashmir and Beyond Project Leaders: Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen, Prof. Alexis Sanderson, and Prof. Gavin Flood

The Sākta and Śaiva tantric traditions are found in various places in India and Nepal. They form the ritual and philosophical core of many yogic and tantric traditions and movements that were exported to the rest of the world, and they have now become part and parcel of global religious history. Thus, an understanding of the Sākta Śaiva traditions, especially as they developed in Kashmir and beyond, is crucial for an understanding of the history of Indian religions as well as an understanding of modern yoga and tantra as it is practiced today in many places around the world.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

These traditions can be traced back many centuries but until recently, tantric worship in Kashmir had been understood simply as ‘Kashmir Śaivism’, the worship of the god Śiva including all deities related to him. But it is now evident that this understanding does not suffice to describe the actual practices and forms of religion found in the texts and lived by people. At the core of Śaiva worship and Śaiva philosophy, we find that Śākta worship, or worship of the Goddess, plays a prominent role. This insight means that much in our understanding of Indian religions is about to change, and the publications included in this project will contribute to the rewriting of the history of Indian Religions that Prof. Sanderson’s work has precipitated. The Śākta and Śaiva Religion from Kashmir and Beyond project will therefore establish the OCHS as a central institution for Tantric and Śākta studies in the UK. The project outputs are:

A fully annotated translation of the Netratantra with an introduction in three volumes by Prof. Gavin Flood, Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen, and Dr Rajan Khatiwoda to be published in the Routledge Studies in Tantric Traditions series. The first volume is currently being edited and will be submitted for publication in 2023. Consultants: Prof. Alexis Sanderson and Prof. Diwakar Acharya.

The lecture series Readings in the Tantrāloka I-VIII by Prof. Alexis Sanderson recorded at the OCHS has been edited and published online in Michaelmas 2022.

A multi-volume critical edition and translation of Abhinavagupta’s Tantrāloka by Prof. Alexis Sanderson (forthcoming).

Weekly Netroddyota online reading sessions by Prof. Alexis Sanderson (July 2020 - July 2021) are currently being edited.

Weekly Netratantra translation seminars at the OCHS in Michaelmas Term every year by Prof. Gavin Flood and Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen for the Theology and Religion Faculty.

An international conference in Oxford on Śākta and Śaiva religion from Kashmir in 2024.

A volume on Śāktism and the Tantric Traditions (ed. Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen) in The Oxford History of Hinduism series (General Editor: Gavin Flood) based on the Śākta Traditions online lectures series (forthcoming).

OCHS Kathmandu Office and Summer University in Nepal

In 2018, Dr Wernicke-Olesen and other affiliates of the research programme established a study and research centre for the Śākta Traditions programme in Kathmandu with a focus on manuscript digitisation and fieldwork. While the work in Nepal came to a halt in the spring of 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, the facilities have been secured and manuscript and fieldwork in Nepal has resumed, including visiting DPhil students and interns from Oxford. Gitte Poulsen continues as our Kathmandu Office Manager and Dr Rajan Khatiwoda as the office leader.

The highly successful OCHS Summer University in Kathmandu with a focus on Śākta Hinduism in the Kathmandu Valley (summeruni.co.uk) will take place again this year at the Hyatt Hotel from the 31st of July to 13th of August 2023. Around 20-25 international students are going and many of the participants are Oxford students (including DPhils) that are or have been taught and supervised by Fellows of the OCHS. The OCHS Summer University combines lectures and workshops with excursions and fieldwork experiences in rituals, religious spaces, and traditional practices, i.e. understanding through participation. Lecturers and tutors include Prof. Gavin Flood (Oxford), Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen (Oxford), Dr Rajan Khatiwoda (Heidelberg), Dr Silje Lyngar Einarsen (Oslo), Dr Ulrik Lyngs (Oxford), Prema Goet (SOAS), Gitte Poulsen (Aarhus and Oxford), and Laura Anderson (Oxford) as well as local scholars including Prof. Kashinath Nyaupane from the Nepal Sanskrit University. The Summer University is ECTS accredited through a collaboration and Memorandum of Understanding with the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society facilitated by Dr Silje Lyngar Einarsen and Tanja Louise Jakobsen. The Summer University is managed by Gitte Poulsen and Laura Anderson with Dr Wernicke-Olesen and Tanja Louise Jakobsen as consultants. Tanja Louise Jakobsen is also responsible for web design and social medias assisted by Surabhi Acharya.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Śākta Traditions Online Lecture Series

Conveners: Ms Lena Molin and Ms Tanja Louise Jakobsen

The academic year further saw the continuation of the highly successful Śākta Traditions Online Lecture Series supervised by Dr Wernicke-Olesen. The list of speakers in 2022/23 included renowned scholars in the field of Śākta Studies such as Prof. June McDaniel, Prof. Shaman Hatley, and Prof. Diwakar Acharya. Previous speakers include Prof. Alexis Sanderson, Prof. Gavin Flood, Dr Wernicke-Olesen, Prof. David White, Prof. James Mallinson, Prof. Knut Jacobsen, Dr Silvia Scwharz Linder, Dr Bihani Sarkar, Prof. Mandakranta Bose and Prof. Harunaga Isaacson.

The Project aims to carve out space for Śāktism as an area of research in its own right. The project is a compilation of the most prominent research already done in the field of Śākta Traditions, which can serve as educational material as well as a point of departure for further research on the subject. The Series comprises four related online lecture series presented during the academic years of 2020-2023. The main goal of the project is to open up the academic field of Śākta Studies to a wider audience. Due to the online format of the lecture series, these contributions (including downloadable handouts) are preserved and archived for the future and serve as an important resource for the public as well as for researchers and students in the field of Śākta Studies.

Amṛtānanda’s Saubhāgyasudhodaya and Cidvilāsastava

This research project, led by Dr Silvia Schwarz Linder, focuses on the work of Amṛtānanda (ca. 1325-1375), a learned exponent of the Tantric Śākta tradition of Tripurā, also known as Śrīvidyā. His most important work is his commentary (Dīpikā, “The Lamp”) on the Yoginīhṛdaya, one of the Srīvidyā seminal sources; he explains and interprets the speculative, esoteric teachings of this work in the light of the Śākta-Śaiva dynamic nondualism of the Trika system. Amṛtānanda also authored a paddhati, the Saubhāgyasudhodaya, and a stotra, the Cidvilāsastava.

The aim of the project is to produce a monographic study with annotated translations of Amṛtānanda’s Saubhāgyasudhodaya and Cidvilāsastava. Dr Silvia Schwarz Linder has already produced the first annotated translation of the Cidvilāsastava (Eulogy of the Playful Manifestation of [the Supreme] Consciousness, forthcoming, Vienna 2023) which, like Abhinavagupta’s hymns, can be classified in the category of the speculative stotras. This text of forty verses appears to be a work written by an erudite initiate and was intended for his peers. Since its concise allusions to speculative and ritual elements are in several places difficult to interpret, the translation is a preliminary, tentative effort to unravel this rich and complex text. Given its relevance, it would therefore be worth studying the other extant work of this author, the Saubhāgyasudhodaya (The Rising of the Nectar of Happiness), a paddhati composed of 142 verses and divided into six “developments” (prapañca). While the contents of this text may also shed light on some controversial passages of the Cidvilāsastava, an annotated translation would add to our knowledge of Amṛtānanda’s contribution to the South Indian Śrīvidyā textual tradition.

The Phenomenology of Religion as Philosophical Anthropology Project Leader: Prof. Gavin Flood

The research project, Phenomenology as Philosophical Anthropology launched in September 2021 with an international online conference, and which resulted in a publication (see below), was followed up by a further colloquium on Theology and Contemplation funded by Campion Hall on 29 May 2023. This colloquium focused on the work of the poet and philosopher Prof. Kevin Hart. Responding to his work was Father Jean-Vyes Lacoste, an important philosopher in Phenomenology from Paris, along with two colleagues from Paris, Dr Stephanie Rupza and Dr Murray Littlejohn. The colloquium also featured an excellent opening lecture by Prof. Mark Wrathall from the Philosophy Faculty. It was well attended by about thirty-five people, one of whom came from Australia for it and another from Leiden. Dr Philip Moller, who did the practical arrangements, co-organized the colloquium with Prof. Flood and organized an excellent colloquium dinner. Prof. Flood will formulate a follow up conference in a couple of years on theology and contemplations, broadening the scope of the enterprise while retaining its high standard and quality of participants.

This year, Prof. Flood also completed a book, entitled Naming Invisible Light: A History and Phenomenology of Holiness, which, at 200,000 words, will be a significant book with impact. This has been submitted to Chicago University Press.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa Research Project Project leaders: Prof. Ravi Gupta and Dr Kenneth R. Valpey

In the past year, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa Research Project has made progress in several areas: Prof. Shrikant Bahulkar (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute), working with a small research team, procured funding for, and successfully published, the first volume of the much-awaited Bhāgavata Purāṇa bibliography. Prof. Bahulkar will present his work at the 10th Dubrovnik International Conference on Sanskrit Epics and Puranas.

Prof. Daniel Ehnbom, Dr Neeraja Poddar, and Prof. Ravi M. Gupta have been editing a volume on the art history of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, with contributions from scholars who work on illuminated manuscripts, textiles, scrolls, and film.

Dr Kenneth R. Valpey and Prof. Ravi M. Gupta have been developing an introductory course on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, to be hosted by OCHS Continuing Education Department.

Dr Jivnesh Sandhan is beginning a project to digitize the Bhāgavata’s Sanskrit commentaries and enable wordsearch capabilities, using Krishnashankar Shastri’s edition as a starting point. Dr Sandhan’s PhD at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was focused on leveraging natural language technology to enhance the accessibility of Sanskrit literature.

Rethinking Hinduism in Colonial India Research Project Project Leaders: Dr Lucian Wong, Dr Avni Chag, and Dr Arun Brahmbhatt

The Rethinking Hinduism in Modern India project is a dedicated platform for the consolidation and coordination of research that critically investigates intellectual, ritual, social, and other kinds of development within sampradāyic Hindu formations across colonial India. The project aims to generate a critical mass of scholarship that deploys these oft-neglected communities as a vital entry point onto the colonial Hindu landscape. In doing so, it aims to establish a model for studying Hinduism in modern India that neither conflates this potentially rich subject area with an attenuated notion of ‘Modern Hinduism’, nor is predetermined from the outset to reproduce variations on a well-worn ‘tradition-modernity’ motif.

All recordings from the project’s successful 2022 virtual lecture series, New Direction in the Study of Modern Hinduism, are now available on the project website: https://rethinkinghinduism.org/lecture_schedule/. Project leaders, Dr Brahmbhatt, Dr Chag, and Dr Wong are currently in the process of editing a volume based on research presented at its 2022 virtual conference, Rethinking Hinduism in Colonial India.

Comparative Philosophy Projects Project leader: Dr Jessica Frazier

This year saw the inauguration of a Senior Seminar in Indian Philosophy series of invited work-in-progress seminars linking graduate students across the Philosophy, AMES, Classics and Theology & Religion Faculties, with senior scholars. In 2022-2023 speakers included Prof. Jan Westerhoff, Prof. Szilvia Szanyi, and Prof. Gavin Flood. These followed the Arguments in Indian Philosophy seminars in 2022, and the Against Infinite Nothingness series in 2023. Meanwhile the Indian Philosophy course in the Philosophy Faculty has continued. In November, Dr Jessica Frazier will be a project supervisor for the Anatman conference planned and run by Alicehank Winham, Aamir Kaderbai, and Kassandra Dugi. We also look forward to welcoming Prof. Alex Watson and Prof. John Nemec as visiting scholars in Autumn of 2023.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

This academic year Dr Silvia Schwarz Linder, a research fellow at the OCHS, also developed a new research project:

From the Greek Art of Living to the Indian Liberation in This Life Project Leader: Dr Silvia Schwarz Linder

This research project deals with certain ideals of human existence propounded in different cultural traditions, namely, the ancient Greek philosophical teachings about the art of living, and the Indian concepts of liberation while still alive (jīvanmukti).

The research takes its primary inspiration from the work of Pierre Hadot, who shows how for certain philosophical schools of the Greco-Roman late Antiquity – particularly Stoicism and Epicureanism – philosophy consisted not so much in the elaboration of theoretical systems or textual exegeses, as in a way of life itself; the aim of these ancient philosophers was to teach the art of leading a good and virtuous life, with the help of spiritual exercises envisaged as a therapy for the soul. Some scholars have discussed the possibility of applying Hadot’s model of interpretation to certain Buddhist schools, and have highlighted – particularly the former – the limits and difficulties of adopting Hadot’s perspective in these fields of Indian thought. In fact, unlike his Greek counterpart, the Buddhist philosopher is not concerned with the present life and the occurrence of death, his vision and final goal being projected beyond the circuit of mundane existence.

The working hypothesis of this research is that Hadot’s interpretative method may have some bearing on the Tantric ideal of jīvanmukti propounded by the non-dualistic ŚāktaŚaiva traditions. The latter may provide a more appropriate touchstone for the relevant Greek philosophical schools: in fact, the jīvanmukta, who has recognized the ultimate identity between his own self/soul and the supreme Self/Soul, thereby attaining the liberating knowledge, is nonetheless an individual active in the real world, who continues to take part in ordinary life, while maintaining an attitude of detachment and equanimity. In particular, it will be highlighted how the combination of non-dualism and realistic idealism characterizing the Śākta-Śaiva traditions – unlike the illusionistic Advaita Vedānta which envisages jīvanmukti in a world devoid of ontological substance and value – enables the reconciliation and harmonization of the spiritual state of final emancipation with a fulfilled human life in this world.

Body and Embodiment in the Middle Bengali Imaginary Project Leaders: Dr Robert Czyżkowski and Dr Lucian Wong

Although the Middle Bengali (or madhyajuger bangla) corpus is one of the most expansive premodern Indic vernacular spheres, it remains curiously neglected in Western scholarship. The corpus reflects a multiplex religious milieu that encompasses Śākta, Vaiṣṇava, Yogic, Tantric, and Sufi currents, among others. Texts within the corpus ubiquitously deploy body symbolism that, while evincing a diverse spectrum of attitudes toward embodied existence, invariably portrays the body as an indispensable site for human transformation.

Body and Embodiment in the Middle Bengali Imaginary, co-directed by Dr Robert Czyżykowski (Jagiellonian University) and Dr Lucian Wong (OCHS), is a 2-year research project that aims to bring a varied team of specialists together to examine how ideas of body and embodiment take shape in premodern Bengal’s rich and multi-religious corpus of vernacular literature, dating from c. 1400 CE to c. 1800 CE. This collaborative project, which was recently awarded a €50,000 grant by Jagiellonian University’s Strategic Program Excellence Initiative, will collect, translate, and critically analyse a representative sample of this body discourse. The project will result in an international research network; a series of workshops; an international conference panel; and an Open Access volume of high-quality translations and critical essays.

The project held its inaugural workshop at Jagiellonian University’s Institute for the Study of Religions in January 2023. Members of the project have since been meeting virtually on a monthly basis as a working group engaged in the close reading, translation, and discussion of Middle Bengali body-related literature. Project members will next be travelling to the Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions, in September 2023, where they will participate in a double-session panel on Bodily Technologies in the Middle Bengali Religious Imaginary.

For more info about the project, go to: ochs.org.uk/body-and-embodiment.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Digital Humanities & Hindu Studies Project Leaders: Dr Bjarne-Wernicke Olesen; Consultant & Data Science Lead: Dr Ulrik Lyngs

The Digital Humanities and Hindu Studies / Śākta Database project is led by Dr Ulrik Lyngs and Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen. Dr Ulrik Lyngs (Department for Computer Science, Oxford University) has been a Visiting Fellow at the OCHS in 2022/23 and continues as a Research Fellow at the OCHS working together with Michael Elison (MPhil, Oxon) as a Digital Curator, and the researchers Dr Rajan Khatiwoda and Dr Silje Lyngar Einarsen on the Śākta dimension of the database. The Bengal database dimension is led by Dr Lucian Wong and is currently being developed with a number of digital curators, including PhD Fellow Siddharth Chhabra.

The database project aims at establishing a state-of-the-art open-access database, providing a new and original user interface for browsing and interacting with manuscript materials. The database establishes the primary research material for Śākta traditions in South Asia as an emerging field of studies and makes large amounts of unknown research material widely available and searchable for the first time. The database uses the advanced Mirador 3 viewer and a custom-made OCHS viewer, and will be made public in the summer 2023. Compared to existing major manuscript databases such as the Cambridge Digital Library and the NGMCP, the OCHS database offers a more advanced interface allowing users to see transliterated and translated texts sideby-side with images of the original manuscripts, and download specific views of text data in structured form (e.g. CSV), overlay text on top of the manuscript image to compare (e.g. transliteration or translation with the original Sanskrit text), and add comments or suggest corrections for text or image material.

The project has greatly expanded its manuscript and E-text volume (now counting appr. 8000 entries). Agreements concerning online publishing of manuscripts are being made with the National Archives of Kathmandu and other institutions including the ASA Archives specialising in Newar Hindu and Buddhist Śākta material. Manuscript digitalisation of unknown source material in Nepal continues in 2023 after the Covid pandemic has caused a long pause to our work at the OCHS Kathmandu Office. Dr Ulrik Lyngs continues as our Digital Humanities Consultant for the research programme and in collaboration with Michael Elison and other computer specialists and researchers, the project has entered a new phase producing:

New workflows for use of computational tools in Hindu Studies, including a ‘Book builder’ with the possibility to automatically generate formatted HTMLs, PDF, or Word files with customised content of specific manuscripts (e.g. choosing to include the original Sanskrit, transliteration and translation in language of choice).

A ‘Text explorer’ that makes it easy to perform textual analysis and concordance (e.g., count and compare the frequency of specific words or phrases across manuscripts, including identifying parallel passages).

A ‘Text analyser’ that can count word frequencies, analyse how often specific words occur close together, and more.

The Beginnings of the Hindu Temple: Material Foundations of Indian Culture in Early Historic Deccan Project Leader: Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray

This academic year, the Beginnings of the Hindu Temple project produced two books.

The first, edited by Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray, Dr Salila Kulshreshtha and Dr Uthara Suvrathan is the Routledge Handbook of Hindu Temples: Materiality, Social History and Practice (Routledge, 2023). This handbook is a comprehensive study of the archaeology, social history and the cultural landscape of the Hindu temple. Perhaps the most recognizable of the material forms of Hinduism, temples are lived, dynamic spaces. They are significant sites for the creation of cultural heritage, both in the past and in the present. Drawing on historiographical surveys and in-depth case studies, the volume centres the material form of the Hindu temple as an entry point to study its many adaptations and transformations from the early centuries CE to the 20th century. It highlights the vibrancy and dynamism of the shrine in different locales and studies the active participation of the community for its establishment, maintenance and survival. The illustrated handbook takes a unique approach by focusing on the social base of the temple rather than its aesthetics or chronological linear development. It fills a significant gap in the study of Hinduism and will be an indispensable resource for scholars of archaeology, Hinduism, Indian history, religious studies, museum studies, South Asian history and Southeast Asian history.

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The second book, The Hindu Temple and its Sacred Landscape, written by Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray (Mandala Publishing, 2023). The Hindu Temple and Its Sacred Landscape illustrates how careful attention to the Hindu temple, its social history, and cultural landscape allows us to better appreciate how Hinduism has been practised and lived throughout history. The book provides a breadth of educational knowledge as a supplement to both academic coursework and the independent study of Hinduism. With the integration of discussion questions, suggested further reading, a glossary of key terms, and images throughout, The Hindu Temple and Its Sacred Landscape offers an accessible introduction to studying the history and significance of Hindu temples.

Hinduism in Modern Secular Society Project Leaders: Dr Ace Simpson, Dr Angela Burt, Dr Cecilia Bastos, and Dr Alan Herbert

The project’s online lecture series, in which scholars discuss and share research related to the experiences of contemporary Hindu communities and adherents in their intersections with their host communities, hosted two more talks this academic year. On 2 March 2023, Prema Goet presented ÒThe Shakta Aghoris in Kamakhya”, based on his experiences and ethnographic research with the Shakta Aghoris during the Ambubachi Mela at the Kamakhya Temple in Assam. On 6 July 2023, Jens Augspurger gave a talk entitled “In Yoga, We are Connected!” Examining the Fabric that Makes Belonging”, in which he explored how spiritual tourists often grappled with reflecting on their own impact and identity during their travels, and discussed the diverse ways in which such persons have sought to maintain their connections to India, or Yogaland, whether through the computer camera-lens, their personal yoga practice, or imaginative acts of connection.

The research team is also actively amassing a database of scholars interested in the field, to facilitate international collaboration in the future.

A Philosophical Approach to the Vaiṣṇava Concept of God Project Leaders: Prof. Benedikt P. Gšcke, Dr Alan C. Herbert, Prof. Ricardo Silvestre

The Hindu Vaiṣṇava tradition is often viewed as a monotheistic tradition. We find evidence for this in many of its scriptural sources (such as Bhavagad-gītā, Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Viṣṇu Purāṇa, some Upaniṣads and many Pāñcarātras and Āgamas) as well in the teachings of its theologians. It might be argued, however, that this is too hasty a conclusion. Vaiṣṇavism addresses the concept of God within several contexts. First, it supports the idea that the Supreme Personal God Viṣṇu manifests himself in different divine forms (usually referred to as “avatāras”), such as Kṛṣṇa and Rāma, often with an ontological hierarchy existing between them. Second, Vaiṣṇavism traditionally accepts the existence of other deities in the Hindu pantheon, such as Brahmā, Śiva, Durgā, Indra, Varuṇa and the Goddess Lakṣmī. Third, the relation between Viṣṇu and some of these deities, notoriously Śiva and Lakṣmī, is ambiguous, sometimes being described as one of identity and sometimes as one of difference. And fourth, the relation between Viṣṇu and His potencies (prakṛti, in sāṅkhya terminology, and śakti, in Purāṇic terms)—these encompassing entities ranging across deities like Lakṣmī, individual souls and the world—is a major theme, which has brought about its own set of controversies. While Madhva (13th century) emphasizes a dualism whereby Viṣṇu differs from His potencies (although he is their source), others such as Rāmānuja (11th century), Nimbārka (12th century) and Jīva (16th century) argue, with slightly different implications, that in some sense Viṣṇu is both different (bheda) and non-different (abheda) from them.

Given all this, we might wonder: is Vaiṣṇavism really a monotheistic tradition? Or, to put it in conceptual terms, is the Vaiṣṇava concept of God a monotheistic one? More importantly, how can the Vaiṣṇava concept of God be philosophically characterized? What divine properties does the Vaiṣṇava God possess? Can it be described in a consistent way? Or is it a contradictory concept of God? If so, how would this affect its intelligibility? Does the Vaiṣṇava concept of God have some advantage over traditional philosophical accounts of God? How does it relate to more well-known accounts of God, such as classical theism, pantheism, panentheism, process theism, open theism, etc.? What are the difficulties peculiar to it? Is there a positive-conceptual basis for rationally accepting the Vaiṣṇava account of God, i.e., is the Vaiṣṇava concept of God fruitful?

The general goal of this project is to answer these questions and approach the Vaiṣṇava concept of God from a contemporary philosophical perspective. Although the project is plural in the sense of taking into account all Vaiṣṇava traditions, it has a specific goal, which is to philosophically reconstruct through a divine attribute approach the concepts of God found in two Vaiṣṇava texts: Jīva Gosvāmī’s Ṣaṭ-sandarbhas (sixteenth century) and Bhavagad-gītā . Whereas the latter text is central for all Vaiṣṇava traditions, the former belongs to one tradition, Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism, that is both unique and interdependent with the other Vaiṣṇava traditions due to its dialogical composition.

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This John Templeton Foundation funded project was publicly launched last year, with a two-day online conference on Indian Religions and the Concept of God . Papers from that conference will be published by Routledge in 2024, under the title Vaiṣṇava Concepts of God: Philosophical Perspectives.

In February 2023, a second online conference on God & Vaiṣṇavism was held, with participants from the UK, Europe, Brazil, India, Australia, and the USA.

Publications

Journal of Hindu Studies

In the academic year 2022-23 there were three issues of the Journal of Hindu Studies , published by Oxford University Press in collaboration with the OCHS: one issue containing open submissions, and two themed issues, “The Buddha and the Banyan Tree”, guest edited by Joel Bordeaux, and an issue on “Vaiṣṇava Material Culture”, guest edited by Elisa Freschi.

Routledge OCHS Hindu Studies Book Series

This series intends primarily the publication of constructive Hindu theological, philosophical and ethical projects aimed at bringing Hindu traditions into dialogue with contemporary trends in scholarship and contemporary society. The series invites original, high quality, research level work on religion, culture and society of Hindus living in India and abroad.

The following new volume appeared in the last year:

The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya , edited By Daniel Raveh, Elise Coquereau-Saouma.

Archaeology and Religion in South Asia

Two new volumes were published in the Archaeology and Religion in South Asia Series, edited by Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray and published by Routledge India:

The Archaeology of the Nātha Sampradāya in Western India, 12[th] to 15[th] century, by Vijay Sarde.

Religion, Landscape and Material Culture in pre-modern South Asia, edited by Tilottama Mukherjee and Nupur Dasgupta.

Fellows’ Publications

Prof. Shrikant Bahulkar

“Modern Vedavyāsa: Pandit Satavalekar”, in Paṅkajaśrīḥ: Dr Pankaj Chande Felicitation Volume, edited by Shriniwas Varkhedi and Nanda Puri. Ramtek: Kavi Kulaguru Kalidas Sanskrit University, 2022, pp. 207–215.

Dr Måns Broo

Haribhaktivilāsa of Sanātana Gosvāmin, Volume 1: Mantras, Initiation and Preparing for Worship (Chapters 1– 5). Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Leiden: Brill, 2023. Prof. Francis X. Clooney

St. Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi’s Tēmpāvaṇi. Publications of the de Nobili Research Library Series. Volume XXXIX. Wien: Verein, 2022.

“On the Power of Imperfect Words: An Inquiry into the Revelatory Power of One Hindu Verse”, in Sophia , 2022.

“Restoring Faith, Curing Doubt: Kṛṣṇa’s Instruction in the Bhagavad Gītā”, in Faith, Hope, and Love: The Theological Virtues and Their Opposites. Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion, and Public Life, edited by M. David Eckel. Springer, 2022, pp. 27-46.

“Tread softly! all the earth is holy ground’: A Comparativist Responds Constructively to Terrence Merrigan’s Sacramental Theology of Religions”, in Answerable for Our Beliefs: Reflections on Theology and Contemporary Culture Offered to Terrence Merrigan, edited by Peter De Mey, Kristof Struys, and Viorel Coman. Peeters, 2022, pp. 489-508.

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“Teaching and Learning Interreligiously in a Time of Change: Beginning (But Not Ending) with Primary Texts”, in Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies, edited by Lucinda Mosher. Georgetown University Press, 2022, pp. 281-290.

“Mimamsa as Introspective Literature and as Philosophy”, in Hinduism and Tribal Religions, by edited by Pankaj Jain, Madhu Khanna, Jeffery Long, and Rita Sherma. Springer Publishing, 2022, pp. 939-948.

“God, God’s Perfections, and the Good: Some Preliminary Insights from the Catholic-Hindu Encounter,” in The Monist 105, 2022, pp. 420-433.

“Comparative Theology’s Interesting Asymmetries with Receptive Ecumenism,” in Receptive Ecumenism as Transformative Ecclesial Learning: Walking the Way to a Church Re-formed, edited by Paul Murray and Gregory A. Ryan. Oxford University Press, 2022.

“Catholic Roots for the Discipline” and “The Hindu-Catholic Encounter: A Natural Home for Comparative Theology,” in The Brill Companion to Comparative Theology . Edited by Pim Valkenberg. Brill, 2022.

“The World and the (Non)Transcendent: A Reflection on Some Abundant and Elusive Possibilities from the Brahminical Traditions,” in God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, between Personality and Impersonality, edited by Bernhard Nitsche and Marcus Schmücker. De Gruyter, 2023, pp. 283302.

“On the Meeting of Wisdom and Religions: Reflections Marking the 100th Birth Anniversary of Dr Radha Burnier,” in Brahmavidya, 2023.

“Intense Love of God, Tireless Service of the Neighbour,” in Prabuddha Bharata 128.1, 2023. 125th Anniversary of the Ramakrishna Math, Special Issue, pp. 248-251.

Dr Santanu Dey

Sri Srimat Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinod Thakurer Svalikhita Jivani (1245-1301): Ek Adhunik Vaishnava sadhaker Atmakathan, Dey’s publishing and Bhaktivedanta Research Center, Kolkata, 2023 (ISBN: 9788119033546).

Prof. Gavin Flood

(Editor) “Phenomenology as Philosophical Anthropology” in The Heythrop Journal , vol. 64 (2), 2023. “Phenomenology as Philosophical Anthropology,”in the Heythrop Journal vol 64 (3), 2023, pp. 155-61.

“Eastern Philosophy and Idealism”, in The Routledge Handbook of Idealism and Immaterialism, edited by Joshua Farris and Benedikt Paul Göcke. London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 13-23.

Dr Jessica Frazier

Being and the Divine . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

“Solitude in Indian Philosophies”, in Solitude (Oxford Philosophical Concepts), edited by Aaron Kachuck Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

“Indian Philosophies of Being”, in Philosophy Compass, forthcoming.

“The Metaphysics of Omnipresent Powers in Vedāntic Satkārya Philosophy”, in Omnipresence, edited by Anna Marmodoro, Ben Page, Damiano Migliorini. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

“A ‘New Humanism’: Hindus, Christians and Scholars in Rome”, in Pro Dialogo: Journal of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue , forthcoming.

“The Metaphysics of Creative Powers: Divine Play in Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Philosophy”, in Divine Play, edited by Daniel Soars, forthcoming.

“A Little History of the Fierce Goddess” & “The Vedic Canon”, in Engelsberg Ideas, June 2022 & April 2023.

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“Emotion as Indian Philosophy of Value: From Pleasure and Pain to Rasa in Hindu Ethics”, in Global Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by Yujin Nagasawa and Mohammad Saleh Zarepour. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.

“Pluralistic Epistemologies: Knowledge, Inference, and Virtue in the Caraka Saṃhitā”, in Pluralism in South Asia, edited by Brian Black and James Madaio. Routledge, 2023.

“The Ground of All: Spinoza and Bhedābheda Vedānta on Substance, Aseity and Modes”, in Panentheism in Indian and Western Thought, edited by Swami Medhananda. Routledge, 2023.

“The Destiny of Phenomenology”, in The Heythrop Journal 64.3, 2023.

Prof. Ravi M. Gupta

“The Makings of a Successful Sanskrit Commentary: Śrīdhara Svāmī’s Bhāvārtha-dīpikā and the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Tradition,” in Bhakti in the Vaishnava Tradition, edited by Shakuntala Gawde. Mumbai: Dev Publishers, 2023.

Dr Alan Herbert

“The Art of Visualising Reality: Jīva Gosvāmī’s Aesthetics and the Role of Ritual Imagination”, in Journal of Hindu Studies 16.1 (2023), pp. 1-32.

Prof. Dermot Killingley

Review of A Sanskrit Treasury: A Compendium of Literature from the Clay Sanskrit Library, edited by Camillo A. Formigatti (Bodleian Library, 2019), Religions of South Asia 17, pp. 109-110. Dr Rembert Lutjeharms.

“The Perfection of All Beauty and Joy: A Gauḍīya Vedāntic theology of devotional love”, in ISKCON Communications Journal 13 (2022), pp. 125-149.

Prof. Kiyokazu Okita

“A Response to (1) ‘Entrapping the Elusive’ by Sajjad Sharif (2) ‘Bhāvanā theke kavitāya’ by Srijato Bandyopadhyay”, SASC International Conference Series Vol.1, 2023, pp. 26-30.

Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray

The Hindu Temple and Its Sacred Landscape. Mandala Publishing, 2023.

(Edited, with Salila Kulshreshtha and Uthara Suvrathan) Routledge Handbook of Hindu Temples: Materiality, Social History and Practice. Routledge, 2023.

“Colonial Archaeology in South Asia: Epigraphic Research” in Oxford Research Encyclopaedias, Anthropology, 2022.

“Sacred Landscapes and Spaces: Sacred Architecture Before Walls,” in A History of Hindu Architecture in India, edited by Cathleen A. Cummings. Ebverlag, Gottingen, 2022, pp. 243–254.

“Where the Ganga Meets the Sea: Coastal Archaeology and the Fluvial Network of Bengal”, in Down by the Water: Interdisciplinary Studies in Human-Environment Interactions in Watery Spaces, edited by Veronica Walker Vadillo, Emilia Mataix Ferrándiz and Elisabeth Holmqvist, BAR Publishing, Oxford, 2022, pp. 67–76.

Dr Silvia Schwartz Linder

“Amṛtānanda’s Cidvilāsastava / An Annotated Translation”, in To the Heart of Truth: A Felicitation Volume for Eli Franco on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, edited by Hiroko Matsuoka, Shinya Moriyama, & Tyler Neill. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Arbeitskreis fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universitaet Wien, Vienna 2023.

“The Dynamic Non-Dualism of the Śrīvidyā”, in The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Non-duality in Indian Thought, edited by Jonathan Duquette and James Madaio. Bloomsbury, London. Forthcoming.

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Prof. Patrick Olivelle

Collected Essays III: Reading Texts and Narrating History. Delhi: Primus Books, 2022.

Bālakrīḍāvyākhyā Vacanamālā: A Sub-Commentary on Viśvarūpa’s Commentary Bālakrīḍā on the Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications, 2022.

“The Pañcatantra as a Nītiśāstra and its Relationship to Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra.” in Of Thieves and Therīs, Potters and Pativratās: Essays on Early Indian Social History for Kumkum Roy, eds. Uma Cakravarti, Naina Dayal, Bharati Jagannathan, and Snigdha Singh, pp. 65–80. Delhi: Primus books, 2023.

“Mining the Past to Construct the Present: Some Methodological Considerations from India.” in Bridging Two World: Comparing Classical Political Thought and Statecraft in India and China,” eds. Amitav Acharya, Daniel A. Bell, Rajeev Bhargava, and Yan Xuetong. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2023, pp. 39–58.

“To Kill or Not to Kill: The Hermeneutics of the Ethical Axion ahiṃsā.” in Science and Society in the Sanskrit World. Ed. Christopher Fleming, Toke L. Knudsen, Anuj Misra, and Vishal Sharma. Leiden: Brill, 2023, pp. 263– 275.

“How to Change Law in Classical India: Hermeneutics in the Service of the Legal Profession”, in Religon of South Asia 17-1 (2023), pp. 6–22.

Dr Neeraja Poddar

“Materiality and Narrative in an Early Mewar Bhāgavata”, in The Long Arc of South Asian Art: Essays in Honour of Vidya Dehejia, edited by Annapurna Garimella. New Delhi: Women Unlimited, in association with Mumbai: The Marg Foundation, 2022, pp. 50-61.

Prof. Ferdinando Sardella

“Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī”, in Oxford Bibliographies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.

“Vinode Vani Dasi (Daisy Cecilia Bowtell): A Little Known Gaudiya Pioneer in the West”, in Journal of Vaishnava Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, 2022.

Prof. Amiya P. Sen

(Editor) Special issue on “Hinduism and Hindu Nationalism” for the journal Religions, 2023.

Review of Hindu Nationalism in India, by Tanaika Sarkar (Hurst & Co. 2021), New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 22.1 (2022).

Review of Tagore’s University, by Swati Ganguly (Permanent Black, 2022), India Quarterly (2023).

Review of The Widows of Colonial Bengal, by Aishika Chakraborty (Primus Books, 2022), New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies (2023).

Review of Guru to the World: The Legacy of Swami Vivekananda, by Ruth Harris (Harper Collins, 2022), Biblio (2023).

Dr Kenneth R. Valpey

“Whither Bovinity? Hindu Dharma, the Indian State, and Conflicting Moral Perspectives over Cow Protection”, in Animal Ethics and Animal Law, edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey. Lexington Books, 2023.

“In the Service of All that Lives: Gandhi’s Vision of Engaged Nonviolent Animal Care”, in Animal Theologians, edited by Andrew Lindzey and Clair Lindzey. Oxford University Press, 2023.

Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen

Haṭhapradīpikā (extended edition), Højbjerg: Forlaget Univers, 2023.

Tantra in Medieval India and Nepal: An annotated edition and translation of the Tantra of the Eye, the Netra Tantra, Vol. 1, Oxford: Routledge, forthcoming.

Classical Sanskrit Grammar and Reader, 2 vols. (English translation of Gudernes Sprog – Klassisk Sanskrit på Dansk), forthcoming.

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Dr Lucian Wong

The Legacy of Vaiṣṇavism in Colonial Bengal, edited by Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong, New Delhi: Routledge, 2023.

“Bengal Renaissance”, in Oxford Bibliographies: Hinduism. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

Visiting Fellow’s Report

Valters Negribs J.P. And Beena Khaitan Fellow, Michaelmas term 2022

I benefitted greatly from being the J.P. and Beena Khaitan Visiting Fellow during Michaelmas term 2022. The fellowship allowed me to carry on with new research while I was waiting for my doctoral viva which I passed shortly afterwards.

My work focused on the Sanskrit epics, early history of yoga, and the links between early Hindu and Buddhist traditions. I received valuable feedback on my work in progress after delivering two lectures entitled “The luminous ātman within: Beliefs about afterlife and voluntary death of sages in the Sanskrit epics” and “The relationship between āsana (posture), sukha (bliss), and meditation in early yoga”.

I started drafting two research articles based on the two talks and will continue working on them in early 2023.

I also co-organised a Pali reading group with Shree Nahata from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. As my research seeks to demonstrate, reading the Sanskrit epics alongside early Buddhist texts in Pali and other languages can generate new insights. The reading group complemented the Pali teaching provided at the OCHS to further promote the study of this language.

The OCHS remains an invaluable resource for scholars of Hinduism. It is a place where one can meet and interact with a variety of people, including the permanent members of the OCHS, professors and students from other Oxford institutions, as well as other visiting fellows and religious practitioners.

Dr June McDaniel Shivdasani Fellow, Michaelmas term 2022

I was the Shivdasani Visiting Research Fellow during the Michaelmas term of 2022 at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. My visit had a dramatic beginning. As I was about to leave for England, a hurricane hit Charleston, and the airport was closed down. I got to Oxford, but later than I had planned. This was one challenge- there was also illness, and then on the way back to the USA, there was a ‘security situation’ at Heathrow airport, with sirens and orders to evacuate. However, the plane left on time, and I returned safely.

I gave two lectures during my time at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. One was “Visualization in Some Bengali Hindu Contemplative Traditions: Vaishnava Bhakti, Shakta Tantra, Baul Songs and Raja Yoga.” It illustrated techniques of meditative visualization used by these groups, with over one hundred images. It showed the ways that Hindu meditation techniques work with images and symbols, and it is part of my broader research on Hindu mysticism. The lecture had a good turnout, and the audience was enthusiastic and interested.

The second lecture was on a very different topic, my last book. It was on “Lost Ecstasy: Its Decline and Transformation in Religion.” In this book, I examine the ways that ecstatic experience has been condemned in modern academia- in the fields of Religious Studies, Theology, Philosophy, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, and other areas. It discussed how this has narrowed our ability to understand some of the deepest and most powerful experiences that people can have. The paper also included some suggestions for future directions for the OCHS. This lecture also had a large crowd, with many interesting questions.

I also gave two other lectures during my time at Oxford. One was an invited Zoom lecture for a conference in Kalimantan, Indonesia, on “Ideals of Love and Wisdom in Some Major World Religions. The other was on Contemplative Psychedelic Psychology: Some Eastern, Western and Visionary Models of the Mind,” for the Oxford Psychedelic Society.

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I was able to do research at the Bodleian library for several writing projects, including two papers on Hindu Shaktism (in modern and folk traditions) for journals, and a broader project on Hindu mysticism. I appreciate the invitation for the Shivdasani Visiting Fellowship, and for the opportunity to meet the OCHS scholars and learn how the study of Hinduism in the USA compares with this study in Britain. I look forward to a long intellectual and professional relationship with the OCHS community.

Dr Rajan Khatiwoda Shivdasani Fellow, Hilary Term 2023

The Oxford Centre for Hinduism (OCHS) is a prestigious institution dedicated to the study and comprehension of Hindu traditions. Serving as a platform for academic research and knowledge dissemination, the centre encompasses various aspects of Hinduism. As a visiting fellow, my primary responsibilities focused on editing the Netratantra (a Śākta text that has been distinctly preserved in a Nepalese recension). Concurrently, I contributed to the development of an online manuscript database. The Netratantra offers profound insights into the mystical and spiritual practices of the Śākta path, encompassing topics such as deity worship, meditation techniques, and ritual observances. During the editing process, meticulous examination of the original manuscripts was undertaken, with close collaboration with esteemed experts Prof. Gavin Flood and Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen to ensure accuracy and consistency.

In addition to editing the Netratantra, I had the opportunity to review other significant Śākta texts, such as the Niśvāsatatattvasaṃhitā, which is one of the earliest lay Śaiva canons, and the Svacchandatantra. I was also actively involved in the development of the OCHS Online Manuscript Database, with a specific focus on tantric texts. This digital platform aimed to enhance accessibility and preservation of valuable tantric manuscripts. Serving as a repository of digitized manuscripts, the database aims at providing scholars, researchers, and enthusiasts with a user-friendly resource that facilitated easy searching and navigation.

I contributed to develop a comprehensive and scientifically grounded cataloguing scheme for the manuscripts, as well as sharing my expertise in the digitization process to ensure high-quality imaging, accurate metadata tagging, and appropriate measures for digital preservation. Collaborating with experts in the field of digital archiving, I helped in establishing standardized protocols for metadata management and to the development of a user-friendly interface that allowed users to explore manuscripts, access translations and commentaries, and engage in scholarly discussions and annotations.

The combined experience of editing tantric texts and contributing to the development of the manuscript database provided me with invaluable insights into the Śakta traditions and the broader field of tantric studies. I am deeply grateful to the Oxford Centre for Hinduism for granting me the opportunity to serve as a visiting fellow, which has significantly enriched my understanding and expertise in the field of Śākta traditions.

Prof. Chris Dorsett J.P. And Beena Khaitan Fellow, Hilary Term 2023

It has been a privilege to hold the J.P. and Beena Khaitan visiting fellowship. The position allowed me to dedicate Hilary term 2023 to researching the work of the British authority on Indian art, Philip Rawson (1924-1995). As a result, the term was transformed into an extremely useful opportunity to test and extend my ideas about the approach Rawson took to curating the 1971 Tantra exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery. For museum and gallery audiences in the UK this show was a groundbreaking moment in the reception of Indian religious and philosophical thought. However, Tantra’s impact is curiously under-researched and the process of preparing and presenting two lectures at the Centre for Hindu Studies consolidated a topic that has long influenced me both as an academic and as an artist-curator.

My lectures compared Rawson’s exhibition-making to my own experiments at the interface between contemporary art and the museum world. The feedback I received was, as one would expect, deeply insightful and extremely stimulating. Indeed, the informal conversations that followed, often occurring during the weekly lunches at OCHS, encouraged me to take a further, more speculative step in which I set Rawson’s ambitions as an art educator alongside his curatorial practices. Consequently, in my second lecture, I was able to link the life-long interest Rawson had in teaching drawing to his innovative use of exhibition design and, by extension, his practice-based engagement with the aesthetic theories of the tantric sage Abhinavagupta. I believe it is the first time anyone has brought these different dimensions of the Tantra exhibition together and I will now write-up my findings with a view to publication. I am very grateful to the Centre and the sponsors for providing the platform for this new work.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Dr Ulrik Lyngs Visiting Fellow, Hilary Term 2023

It was a delight for me to be an OCHS visiting fellow in Hilary term 2023. The purpose of my visiting fellowship was to continue development of the OCHS Manuscript Database project, which will make tools from the digital humanities easily available for scholarly analysis in Hindu Studies. The project vision is to make thousands of manuscripts available, drawn from the OCHS Kathmandu digitisation project, the National Archives of Nepal, the ASA archives, and more. Compared to existing major manuscript databases such as the Cambridge Digital Library, our database will offer a more advanced interface which, for example, allows users to see transliterated and translated texts side-by-side with images of the original manuscripts. The database will also include computational tools for easy textual analysis and concordance, and automatic generating of formatted PDFs or Word files with customised content of specific manuscripts.

With assistance from digital curator Michael Elison, we made substantial progress on this project during my fellowship. On Tuesday 28th February, we presented our work-in-progress at Campion Hall in Oxford, using the Netra Tantra as an example. The database now includes more than 1700 manuscripts and includes functionality to view photos and text side-by-side. All photos are documented according to the International Image Interoperability Framework standards (iiif.io) and can be viewed with the open-source IIIF viewer Mirador (projectmirador.org) or our own OCHS Viewer. The website also includes a ‘Book builder’, which generates formatted books in PDF, Word, or HTML format; a ‘Text explorer’, which can search for sequences of text across our manuscripts; and a ‘Text analyser’ that can count word frequencies, analyse how often specific words occur close together, and more.

The OCHS Manuscript Database has significant potential to augment traditional scholarly workflows, and I am excited to be part of its development.

Professor Indrani Chatterjee Shivdasani Fellow, Trinity Term 2023

The Oxford Center of Hindu Studies provided me the most salubrious environment for my intellectual growth. First, it allowed me to completely draft and revise a paper that I had sketched out briefly at a seminar led by Dr. Lucian Wong on Modern Hinduism in 2021-22. The holdings of the library as well as the intellectual stimulation from colleagues and fellow visitors to the center provided the stimulation not merely to write the first draft, but also receive feedback from both Dr. Wong and Dr. Stewart, and revise the paper for final submission. Titled ‘‘Unseeing’ Monastic Subjects”, the essay uses inscriptions dated to the late seventeenth-early nineteenth century. The inscriptions speak of groups of villagers dedicated to serve the temples of the founders. I argue that the dates of these ‘gifts’ of people to the temples coincides with warfare that rippled through the region. The likelihood is great that these gifted villagers were either prisoners-of-war or refugees from war. However, when the English East India Company defeated the Burmese armies and annexed the Brahmaputra river valley to their Indian colony in 1826, the Company government imposed a regime of taxation that actually degraded the temple servants further. But the most important result was administrative and ideological: the very concept of ‘monastic subjects’ became illegible to the state.

In addition to submitting the paper above for review, I also delivered the Visiting Fellow’s lecture on May 11. My talk was titled ‘Gendering Jajmani, Re-Casteing Capital’ to the assembled audience of OCHS fellows. It was based on re-reading a collection of old Bengali language documents dated to the same period as the earlier essay: between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth century. But the terrain on which the events unfolded was that of western and plains Bengal, in the vicinity of the early colonial capital of Kolkata. The talk dilated on the relationships between non-brahman patrons and their poorer brahman clients. Though the former became increasingly enmeshed in colonial capitalist networks, they maintained their ritualized obligations towards their client brahmans. This persistence of vertical and unequal relationships also amplifies and refines a theory about caste propounded by Louis Dumont in 1971.

In the course of the eight weeks that I was at OCHS, I also advanced my research by working at the Bodleian Library, especially in the Weston Reading Room in manuscript materials, especially locating the files of one of Bengal’s earliest indigo merchants-cum-bankers, John Palmer. In the course of collecting this evidence, I also found sources that suggest another collaborative project in the future with other scholars of the OCHS – such as Dr. Prema Goet.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

It is a measure of the success of the OCHS personnel and programming that a stranger to Oxford such as myself found herself at home within the first week. Apart from making me personally welcome at the Wednesday lunches held at the Center, the Directors and other Fellows went out of their way to include me in various other social occasions. Everyone – from Tanja Jacobsen the administrator to Professor Flood, the academic director – ensured that my needs were attended to quickly, and they went out of their way to involve me in ways that made me feel like an ‘insider’ very quickly. I am very grateful for the range and depth of the intellectual, financial and social support that the OCHS provided to me, and can never praise its work enough. I wish it a very long and happy future.

Professor Tony Stewart J.P. And Beena Khaitan Fellow, Trinity Term 2023

Lectures

‘Challenging Expectations: Interpreting the Bengali Satya Nārāyaṇ Puthi of Kavivallabh.’ In this exercise in interpreting a curious text that shows the main character Satya Pīr to be alternately a Sufi, Khodā, or Allah, Nārāyaṇ, Kṛṣṇa, and Śiva. Participants read the translation that just six weeks ago appeared in my anthology of unabridged translations titled Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Bengali Tales from the Land of the Eighteen Tides (University of California Press, 2023). In last year’s Trinity Term—also as a Khaitan Visiting Fellow—I finished up the translation and dispatched it to the press, so it was only fitting that we examine one of those tales in a seminar setting at OCHS. I donated a copy of the anthology to the OCHS library.

‘Alternatives to the Gosvāmī Master Narrative: Vernacular Explorations in the Vaiṣṇav Imagination of the 16th18th centuries.’ In this completely new work, I surveyed more than fifty unpublished Bangla manuscripts on various aspects of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava and related traditions of Bengal. The works were chosen from more than 150 manuscripts I had initially read in 1981-82 during dissertation research in Calcutta and only recently rediscovered after my retirement from teaching at Vanderbilt University. My goal was to look for ‘fault lines’ in the hegemonic narratives of the tradition established by Kṛṣṇadās Kavirāj in his magisterial biography of Caitanya Caritāmṛta with the idea that there were theological and ritual issues detailed in these manuscripts that were not totally resolved by the mainstream tradition.

Research: Three closely related projects

As I had done last year, I continued to investigate the nature of the close associate of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (14861533) who is known in the early biographies as Jaban Haridās or Haridās Ṭhākur. In early modern Bangla, Jaban indicates a foreigner of indeterminate provenance, though usually designating a Musalmān. Haridās is famous in the tradition as the greatest exponent and teacher of chanting the names of god (kīrtan, jap), and the textual evidence suggests that Jaban Haridās was a Chishti Sufi who practised dhikr/zikir using Kṛṣṇa as his preferred name for god. Often referred to as a ‘converted’ Muslim, there is no evidence that was so, rather till his death he remained a Sufi who loved Kṛṣṇa. I retranslated one major tale and developed a complete outline of the monograph.

I translated passages from the first Bangla biography of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya by Vṛndāvan Dās, originally known as the Caitanya Maṅgal but now famous as Caitanya Bhāgavat. The exercise was to determine the viability of undertaking such a massive translation which would likely take the most of a decade. No final decision has been taken.

Relevant to both projects was the material that constituted the manuscript presentation noted above.

Publication

I completed and submitted an article titled ‘Dancing in Shackles: On Translating the Caitanya Caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadās Kavirāj.’ The article will appear in a special issue of The Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies.

Student Advising

I worked with Utsa Bose, OCHS scholarship student, who was making his first professional presentation at the Annual American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) Conference. He is investigating the ways epidemics and pandemics were presented in English and Bengali books, medical journals, and newspapers. The popular and scientific etiologies of various ailments, often with connections to Hindu mythology, provided a fruitful comparison with today’s Covid pandemic reporting. It should be noted that I have worked on Śitalā, goddess of smallpox, including translations of portions of the Śitalā Maṅgal of Kṛṣṇarām Dās, and translated the Olābibī Jagaraṇ Pālā of Iśvaracandra Sarkār that tells the story of the Musalmāni matron of Cholera, Śitalā’s ‘sister.’

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Other activities

I participated in a number of activities around James Fitzgerald’s Radhakrishnan Lectures at All Souls (04, 11, 18 May); Fitzgerald was my first Sanskrit instructor with whom I have worked closely over the last forty-five years.

I attended the public lectures by Indrani Chatterjee, the Sivdasani Visiting Fellow (11 May) and reviewed one of her unpublished articles titled ‘Satrubali and the Forgotten Past of Oblations to Temples.’ I attended the OCHS lecture by visitor, Robert Czyżykowski (03 May), and met with him frequently to discuss his published and planned work on the sahajiyā traditions.

I met several times each week with Lucian Wong, whose own work dovetails with mine. In addition to his work on the Vaṃśī Śikṣā of Premdās Miśra and the Bāghnapāḍā school (I was able to give him an old print version of the text), we assessed at length the proposed contributions to The Oxford Handbook of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Studies. We also explored the possibility of including short translations in The Journal of Hindu Studies. I agreed to participate in his joint project with Robert Czyzykowski titled ‘Bodily Technologies in the Middle Bengali Religious Imaginary,’ with participation in the European Association for the Study of Religion in Vilnius, 04-08 September 2023.

On several occasions, I met to discuss current projects with Faisal Devji (St. Antony’s College) and Mallica Landrus (Keeper of Asian Art, Ashmolean Museum), the latter of whom continues to generate exciting new exhibition ideas about South Asian art. At her request, I am slated to examine previously unpublished photographs of 19th-century religious and ethnic groups in South Asia as part of a planned exhibition.

And of course, I sojourned at the Bodleian. I think it important to add that the library at OCHS has an increasingly rich collection of materials, including many Bangla titles not found in the Bodleian but essential to my work. And in spite of cramped space, Rembert Lutjearms has proved very resourceful in locating things for me. I will also be meeting Rembert to discuss his important paper, ‘A Temple of Stone and a Temple of Love: Govindadeva in the Religious Imagination of the Early Gauḍīyas in Braj,’ which he is presenting at the 39th Annual Sanskrit Traditions Symposium later today, but unfortunately which I will not be able to attend in person.

Conferences, Seminars and Workshops

Inaugural Workshop of the Body and Embodiment in the Middle Bengali Imaginary 16-18 January 2023, Jagiellonian University, Poland

The Body and Embodiment in the Middle Bengali Imaginary project held its inaugural workshop, funded by the OCHS, on 16-18 January 2023 at the Institute of Religious Studies at Jagiellonian University. Participants presented papers examining the theme of the body and embodiment in such diverse religious currents as Ṣūfism, Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, Śāktism, regional epic literature, Hāṭha-yoga, and Tantra. Over the next 2 years, this working group will continue to develop these papers through monthly virtual meetings, an EASR conference panel, and a second workshop in Krakow in June 2024. The project will culminate in an Open Access volume of critical essays and translations, which will make some of this fascinating premodern Bengali body-discourse available in the English language for the first time.

Workshop participants (in the order of presentation):

Joel Bordeaux (Leiden University) Keith Cantu (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) Rebecca Manring (Indiana University Bloomington) Mriganka Mukhopadhyay (University of Amsterdam) Naba Gopal Roy (Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University) Ayesha Irani (University of Massachusetts) Lucian Wong (Oxford Center for Hindu Studies) Robert Czyżykowski (Jagiellonian University) Ishan Chakrabarti (University of Chicago)

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

God & Vaiṣṇavism 13-14 February 2023, held online

This second workshop of the research project A Philosophical Approach to the Vaiṣṇava Concept of God was held online. The purpose of this workshop was to approach the concepts of God found in Vaiṣṇava traditions and texts in order to locate them within a global philosophical framework. The speakers of the workshop were invited to answer the following question What is the Vaiṣṇava concept of God? Or more specifically: What attributes does God possess according to particular textual sources and traditions in Vaiṣṇavism? The workshop brought together scholars from around the globe. The following scholars presented papers:

Graham Oppy (Monash University) Rebecca Chan (San José State University) Benedikt Göcke (Ruhr-University Bochum) Gavin Flood (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies & University of Oxford) Edwin F. Bryant (Rutgers University) Ricardo Sousa Silvestre (Federal University of Campina Grande) Angelika Malinar (University of Zurich) Suganya Anandakichenin (University of Hamburg) Frederick M. Smith (University of Iowa) Shrinivasa Varakhedi (Central Sanskrit University) Swami Medhananda (Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education) Alan Herbert (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies) Kenneth R. Valpey (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies) Vijay Ramnarace (Georgetown University)

Theology and Contemplation 29 May 2023, Campion Hall

This colloquium, part of Prof. Gavin Flood’s The Phenomenology of Religion as Philosophical Anthropology project, focused on the work of the poet and philosopher Kevin Hart. Responding to his work was Father JeanVyes Lacoste, an important philosopher in Phenomenology from Paris, along with two colleagues from Paris, Dr Stephanie Rupza and Dr. Murray Littlejohn. The colloquium also featured an excellent opening lecture by Prof. Mark Wrathall from the Philosophy Faculty. It was well attended by about thirty-five people, one of whom came from Australia for it and another from Leiden. Dr. Philip Moller, who did the practical arrangements, coorganized the colloquium with Prof. Flood and organized an excellent colloquium dinner.

The 39th Sanskrit Traditions Symposium 2 June 2022, Trinity College, Oxford

The 39th session of the Sanskrit Traditions Symposium took place on Friday 2 June, at Trinity College, Oxford - for the first time in person since the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Although coinciding with a rail strike, the symposium brought together scholars from Oxford, Cambridge, and London, and, from further afield, the Netherlands and India. The papers discussed covered ancient Indian asceticism, the development of the pilgrimage sites in Vārāṇasī as well as Vṛndāvana, and early modern Vedāntic debates. The speakers and respondents were Dr Jessica Frazier, Olli-Pekka Littunen and Prof. Gavin Flood, Dr Vinoth Murali and Dr Jonathan Duquette, and Dr Rembert Lutjeharms and Dr Christopher Fleming.

Netra Tantra Seminar

Tuesday 28th February, Campion Hall and Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Convenor: Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen

Welcome by Professor Gavin Flood

The Netratantra: Its Vision and Themes by Professor Gavin Flood

Tradition of Manuscript Production: Nepalese Recension of the Netratantra in the National Archives of Nepal by Dr Rajan Khatiwoda

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Readings in the Netratantra: Chapter 7 on Subtle Visualising Meditation (sūkṣmadhyāna) by Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen

Digital Humanities and Hindu Studies: Building a Śākta Manuscript Database by Dr Ulrik Lyngs and Michael Elison

Goddess Traditions in India: Theological Poems and Philosophical Tales in the Tripurārahasya (Routledge Hindu Studies Series) by Dr Silvia Schwarz Linder

Graduate Seminars

Convenor: Dr Jessica Frazier

The Senior Seminars in Indian Philosophy have thrived this year; they bring together professional scholars and graduate students in shared discussion. Topics this year included the philosophy of idealism, consciousness, topography and perception, modal grounding and ultimate truths. Speakers included Jan Westerhoff, Gavin Flood, Szilvia Szanyi and a number of students across different Faculties sharing their research in a lively environment. The seminars were well attended, and will continue bringing together Oxford’s Indian Philosophy community in the coming year.

Investment Strategy

These funds are managed on behalf of the OCHS by Sanderson Financial Limited. They are invested in a mix of equity, fixed income, and property funds. The investment adviser is mandated to recommend investments which conform to ethical investment principles as much as is possible and or available within specific asset classes and apply a cautious risk strategy to the overall portfolio, which over the long term provide steady positive income and capital growth.

The investment advisers approach to ethical investment principles is to try, as much as possible, within each asset class to recommend funds to the portfolio which undertake “negative screening” of their investments, thereby minimising the potential of the portfolio being invested in so called “sin stocks” such as companies which profit from the sale of tobacco, gambling and weapons.

Investment Performance and Target Returns

The Committee are happy to report that since the first investment made in October 2016 the Investment Portfolio has seen a net capital growth of 19.62%.

This capital growth has allowed the committee to distribute £61,825 of funds since 2019 to the OCHS to support its scholarship and research activities.

The committee aims to return 3.5% of the total Investment Portfolio on an annual basis to the OCHS to fund scholarships and research activities. This requires it to target annual net capital growth of 5%.

Public benefit

The Trustees have complied with their duty to have due regard to the guidance on public benefit published by the Charity Commission in exercising their powers and duties and have carried out an annual review of their activities in this regard.

Financial Review

A statement of financial activities (‘SOFA’) for the year has been produced on page 25 showing movements on unrestricted, restricted and endowment funds. The OCHS received donations of £884,304 (2022: £340,468) during the year. Fee income of £159,872 (2022: £222,155) was received and the charity had costs of £630,974 (2022: £570,722). The net surplus for the year was £670,023 (2022: net surplus of £40,646).

Funds and reserves policy

Unrestricted reserves at 31st March 2023 are showing a surplus of £765,765 (2022: £114,566) with designated reserves showing a surplus of £278,880 (2022: £238,960). After adjusting for fixed assets free reserves are £683,177 (2022: £83,599). The OCHS has plans to increase this surplus with the acquisition of new premises, which will reduce costs and ensure the charity’s long term sustainability.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Trustees' report on the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

Future Plans

The OCHS continues to expand and the charity continues to campaign for funds to enable the purchase of new premises in Oxford. This will ensure the OCHS can continue to develop its facilities and increase its student numbers.

Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities

The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

The law applicable to charities in England & Wales requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

• select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

• observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;

• make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

• state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements;

• prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011, the Charity (Accounts Reports) Regulations 2008 and trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the charity and financial information included on the charity’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Auditors

Wenn Townsend were re-appointed auditors to the OCHS at the Trustees’ meeting.

This report was approved by Trustees on …18/01/2024

______ Shaunaka Rishi Das

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Independent Auditor’s Report to the Trustees of The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (the ‘charity’) for the year ended 31 March 2023 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Balance Sheet, the Cash Flow Statement and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion the financial statements:

• give a true and fair view of the state of the charity’s affairs as at 31 March 2023, and of its incoming resources and application of resources, for the year then ended;

• have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and

• have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011.

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charity in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in the trustees’ annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 require us to report to you if, in our opinion:

• the information given in the financial statements is inconsistent in any material respect with the trustees’ report; or

• sufficient accounting records have not been kept; or

• the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records; or

• we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Independent Auditor’s Report to the Trustees of The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement set out on pages 20 and 21, the trustees are responsible for the preparation of financial statements which give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charity or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

We have been appointed as auditor under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 and report in accordance with regulations made under section 154 of that Act.

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The specific procedures for this engagement and the extent to which these are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:

• Enquiry of management and those charged with governance around actual and potential litigation and claims;

• Reviewing minutes of meetings of those charged with governance;

• Reviewing financial statement disclosures and testing to supporting documentation to assess compliance with applicable laws and regulations;

• Performing audit work over the risk of management override of controls, including testing of journal entries and other adjustments for appropriateness, evaluating the business rationale of significant transactions outside the normal course of business and reviewing accounting estimates for bias.

Because of the inherent limitations of an audit, there is a risk that we will not detect all irregularities, including those leading to a material misstatement in the financial statements or non-compliance with regulation. This risk increases the more that compliance with a law or regulation is removed from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, as we will be less likely to become aware of instances of non-compliance. The risk is also greater regarding irregularities occurring due to fraud rather than error, as fraud involves intentional concealment, forgery, collusion, omission or misrepresentation.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charity’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with Part 4 of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charity’s trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity and the charity’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Wenn Townsend Chartered Accountants, Statutory Auditor 30 St Giles Oxford

18/01/2024

Wenn Townsend is eligible to act as an auditor in terms of section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006.

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The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Statement of financial activities for the year ended 31 March 2023

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|||||||||||||| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |Note|Unrestricted|Designated|Restricted|Endowment|Total|Unrestricted Designated|Restricted|Endowment|Total| |Funds|Funds|Funds|Funds|Funds|Funds|Funds|Funds|Funds|Funds| |2023|2022| |£|£|£|£|£|£|£|£|£|£| |Incoming from:| |Donations| |-|Other donations|2|720,519|153,604|10,181|-|884,304|242,774|76,718|20,976|-|340,468| |-|Government grants|2|-|-|-|-|-|40,022|-|-|-|40,022| |-|Legacy|265,000|-|-|-|265,000|-|-|-|-|-| |Charitable activities|3|159,872|-|-|-|159,872|222,155|-|-|-|222,155| |Investments|4|2,220|17|95|205|2,537|515|7|41|84|647| |──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|────── ──────| |Total income|1,147,611|153,621|10,276|205|1,311,713|505,466|76,725|21,017|84|603,292| |──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|────── ──────| |Expenditure on:| |Charitable activities|5|507,161|104,973|11,364|7,476|630,974|528,816|28,567|11,728|1,611|570,722| |──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|────── ──────| |Total expenditure|507,161|104,973|11,364|7,476|630,974|528,816|28,567|11,728|1,611|570,722| |──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|────── ──────| |Net gains/(loss) on investments|10|(2,488)|4,509|(3,128)|(9,609)|(10,716)|4,860|(3,233)|956|5,493|8,076| |Net income/expenditure|637,962|53,157|(4,216)|(16,880)|670,023|(18,490)|44,925|10,245|3,966|40,646| |Transfer between funds|13,237|(13,237)|-|-|-|18,801|(18,801)|-|-|-| |──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|────── ──────| |Net movement in funds for the year|651,199|39,920|(4,216)|(16,880)|670,023|311|26,124|10,245|3,966|40,646| |Total funds brought forward at 1 April 2022|114,566|238,960|404,887|219,925|978,338|114,255|212,836|394,642|215,959|937,692| |──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|──────|────── ──────| |Total funds carried forward at 31 March 2023|765,765|278,880|400,671|203,045|1,648,361|114,566|238,960|404,887|219,925|978,338| |══════|══════|══════|══════|══════|══════|══════|══════|══════ ══════|

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- 25 -

	The Oxford Centre for Hindu	The Oxford Centre for Hindu	Studies
		Balance sheet
		At 31 March 2023
	Note
			2023		2022
		£	£	£	£
Fixed assets
Investments	10	298,304		485,817
Tangible assets	11	266,209		4,035
		──────		──────
			564,513		489,852
Current assets
Debtors	12	65,882		67,459
Cash at bank and in hand		1,097,086		462,614
		──────		──────
		1,162,968		530,073
Creditors
Amounts falling due
within one year	13	(79,120)		(41,587)
		──────		───────
Net current assets			1,083,848		488,486
			───────		──────
Net assets			1,648,361		978,338
			═══════		══════
Funds
Unrestricted funds			765,765		114,566
Designated	14		278,880		238,960
Restricted funds	15a		400,671		404,887
Endowment funds	15b		203,045		219,925
			───────		──────
Total funds			1,648,361		978,338
			═══════		══════

These accounts were approved by the Trustees on 18/01/2024.

Signed on behalf of the Trustees

Shaunaka Rishi Das Director

- 26 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Statement of Cash Flow for the year ended 31st March 2023

	2023	2022
	£	£
Cash flows from operating activities:
Net cash provided by operating activities (analysed below)	722,563	22,320
Cash flows from investing activities:
Interest/dividends received	2,537	647
Net cash (transferred in)/withdrawn from investment account	174,372	(12,500)
Purchase of property, plant and equipment	(265,000)	-
	───────	───────
Net cash provided by/(used in) investing activities	(88,091)	(11,853)
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the reporting period	634,472	10,467
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the reporting period	462,614	452,147
	───────	───────
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the reporting period	1,097,086	462,614
	═══════	═══════
Note:
Reconciliation of net movement in funds to net cash flow from operating	activities
	2023	2022
	£	£
Net movement in funds for the reporting period (as per the statement of
financial activities)	670,023	40,646
Adjustments for:
Interest/dividends received	(2,537)	(647)
Depreciation charges	2,825	3,366
(Gain)/loss on investments	10,220	(8,076)
Gifted shares into investment portfolio	-	-
Investment management fees	2,922	3,124
Decrease/(increase) in debtors	1,577	1,545
(Decrease)/increase in creditors	37,533	(17,638)
	───────	───────
Net cash provided by operating activities	722,563	22,320
	═══════	═══════

- 27 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023

1 Summary of significant accounting policies

a) General information and basis of preparation

• The financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis as the Trustees believe that no material uncertainties exist. The Trustees have considered the level of funds held and the expected level of income and expenditure for 12 months from authorising these financial statements. They have concluded that the budgeted income and expenditure is sufficient with the level of reserves held for the charity to be able to continue as a going concern.

These accounts have been prepared on an accruals basis and include income and expenditure as they are earned or incurred, rather than as cash is received or paid. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland issued in October 2019, the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102), the Charities Act 2011, and UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice.

The charity constitutes a public benefit entity as defined by FRS 102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy note.

b) Fund accounting

The Charity's total funds consist of:

• I. Unrestricted funds are general funds which are available for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of the charity and which have not been designated for other purposes.

• II. Designated funds comprise unrestricted funds that have been set aside by the trustees for particular purposes. The trustees may move funds between unrestricted and designated funds.

• III. Restricted funds are funds which are used in accordance with specific restrictions imposed by donors or which have been raised by the charity for particular purposes.

• IV. Endowment funds represent those assets which must be held permanently by the charity, principally the Giri Scholarship. This fund will be used to grant scholarships that the Centre deems appropriate, with the request that the Centre considers projects aimed at Bhakti traditions. Income arising on the endowment is to be used to fund the scholarships and is included in restricted income. Any capital gains or losses arising on the investments form part of the fund. Investment manager’s advice and legal advice relating to the fund are charged to the fund.

c) Incoming resources

All incoming resources are included in the statement of financial activities when the charity is entitled to the income and the amount can be quantified with reasonable accuracy. The following specific policies are applied to particular categories of income:

Voluntary income is received by way of donations and gifts and is included in full in the Statement of Financial Activities when receivable. Gifts donated for resale are included as income when they are sold. Donated assets are included at the value to the charity where this can be quantified and a third party is bearing the cost. The value of services provided by volunteers has not been included.

Income from charitable activities is CED online course fees.

Income from investments is included in the year in which it is receivable.

- 28 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

1 Summary of significant accounting policies (continued)

d) Resources expended

Expenditure is recognised on an accruals basis as a liability is incurred. Expenditure includes any VAT which cannot be fully recovered, and is reported as part of the expenditure to which it relates. Resources expended are recognised in the year in which they are incurred.

Resources expended comprise the following:

• I. The costs of generating voluntary income relates to costs incurred to promote fundraising.

• II. The costs of charitable activities comprise expenditure on the Charity’s primary charitable purposes as described in the Trustees’ report.

• III. Governance costs reflect the costs incurred which are directly attributable to the management of the Charity’s assets, organisational procedures and the necessary legal procedures for compliance with statutory requirements.

e) Tangible assets and depreciation

Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write off the cost less residual value of each asset over its expected useful life, as follows:

Fixtures, fittings and equipment - 20% straight line / 25% reducing balance Motor vehicles - 25% reducing balance basis

f) Investments

Investments are recognised initially at fair value which is normally the transaction price excluding transaction costs. Subsequently, they are measured at fair value with changes recognised in net gains/(losses) on investments in the SOFA if the shares are publicly traded or their value can otherwise be measured reliably.

g) Pension costs

The charity makes contributions to a defined contribution scheme for certain employees. The pension cost charged to the income and expenditure account represents contributions payable to the scheme in respect of the accounting period.

h) Operating leases

Rentals applicable to operating leases are charged to the SOFA over the period in which the cost is incurred.

i) Going concern

The accounts have been prepared on a going concern basis. The trustees can only consider with reasonable certainty a budgetary period of 12 months from the year end due to the difficulty in securing voluntary income for unrestricted funds.

2 Donations

Unrestricted Designated Restricted Endowment Funds Funds Funds Funds £ £ £ £ Deed of covenants 20,392 - - - Individual donations 700,127 153,604 10,181 - Government grants receivable - - - - _ _ _ _ 720,519 153,604 10,181 - ═════ ═════ ═════ ═════	2023 Total £ 20,392 863,912 - _ 884,304 ═════	2022 Total £ 22,153 318,315 40,022 _ 380,490 ═════

Included within Government grants receivable for the charity is £Nil (2022: £40,022) of Government grants relating to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

- 29 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

3 Income from charitable activities

Income from charitable activities
Unrestricted Designated Restricted Funds Funds Funds £ £ £ Weekend Schools 19,480 - - BAP’s lunches 3,479 - - Online course 135,616 - - Book Publishing 1,297 - - _ _ _ 159,872 - - ═════ ═════ ═════	2023 Total £ 19,480 3,479 135,616 1,297 _ 159,872 ═════	2022 Total £ 25,243 - 195,663 1,249
		_ 222,155 ═════

4 Income from investments

Unrestricted Designated Restricted Endowment Funds Funds Funds Funds £ £ £ £ Interest receivable 462 2 10 45 Dividends receivable 1,758 15 85 160 _ _ _ _ 2,220 17 95 205 ═════ ═════ ═════ ═════	2023 Total £ 519 2,018 _ 2,537 ═════	2022 Total £ 34 613
		_ 647 ═════

5 Charitable activities

Charitable activities	Charitable activities
Unrestricted		**Designated **	**Restricted **	Endowment	2023	2022
	Funds	Funds	Funds	Funds	Total	Total
	£	£	£	£	£	£
Staff costs	235,717	-	-	-	235,717	238,753
Lectures, scholarships and grants	150,038	100,358	11,000	6,060	267,456	171,743
Consultancy fees	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rent, rates and service charges	56,197	2,457	-	-	58,654	61,884
Insurance – professional indemnity	541	-	-	-	541	541
Insurance – general	2,572	-	-	-	2,572	2,166
Repairs and maintenance	1,087	-	-	-	1,087	1,389
Printing, postage and stationery	1,097	-	-	-	1,097	1,359
Telephone	1,336	-	-	-	1,336	1,765
Travelling and motor expenses	3,742	-	-	-	3,742	2,348
General expenses	18,413	194	-	-	18,607	12,431
Investment Management Charges	1,078	64	364	1,416	2,922	3,257
Interest and bank charges	2,926	-	-	-	2,926	6,985
Advertising and marketing	7,297	-	-	-	7,297	9,458
Professional fees	-	-	-	-	-	26,073
Governance costs (note 6)	25,120	1,900	-	-	27,020	30,570
	─────	─────	─────	─────	─────	─────
	507,161	104,973	11,364	7,476	630,974	570,722
	═════	═════	═════	═════	═════	═════

- 30 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

6 Governance costs

Unrestricted Designated Restricted Endowment Funds Funds Funds Funds £ £ £ £ Professional fees 20,264 - - - Audit fees 3,930 - - - Depreciation 926 1,900 - - _ _ _ _ 25,120 1,900 - - ═════ ═════ ═════ ═════	2023 Total £ 20,264 3,930 2,826 _ 27,020 ═════	2022 Total £ 24,000 3,204 3,366
		_ 30,570 ═════

7 Trustees and key management personnel remuneration and expenses

No Trustee received or waived any remuneration during the year (2022: £Nil).

The Trustees/director received reimbursement of expenses totalling £1,052 (2022: £2,813).

The Charity considers its key management personnel to comprise the Trustees and the Director, Mr Shaunaka Rishi Das.

Mr Shaunaka Rishi Das did not receive any remuneration during the year (2022: £Nil).

Donations from the trustees totalled £500,000.

8 Taxation

The OCHS is a registered Charity and is not liable to income tax or corporation tax on income derived from its charitable activities as it falls within the various exemptions available to registered charities.

9 Employees

Number of employees

The average monthly numbers of employees (including the trustees) during the year, calculated on the basis of full time equivalents, was as follows:

Administration, Continuing Education and Academic Staff Employment costs Wages and salaries National insurance contributions Pension contributions	2023 8 ═════ 2023 £ 216,294 15,864 3,559 _ 235,717 ═════	2022 10 ═════ 2022 £ 223,985 11,154 3,614
		_ 238,753 ═════

No members of staff received total employee benefits (excluding employer pension costs) of more than £60,000 (2022: nil).

- 31 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

10 Investments

Investment portfolio Cash Quoted Reserves Investments £ £ Market value As at 1 April 2022 15,033 470,784 Cash transferred in (174,372) - Net disposals 167,083 (167,083) Increase/(decrease) in market value - (10,716) Interest Received 97 - Dividends Received 400 - Management Charges (2,923) - ───── ───── As at 31 March 2023 5,319 292,985 ═════ ═════ Market value of UK quoted investments Overseas quoted investments Tangible fixed assets Fixtures, Leasehold fittings and property equipment £ £ Cost At 1 April 2022 - 44,543 Additions 265,000 - ───── ───── Cost at 31 March 2023 265,000 44,543 ───── ───── Depreciation At 1 April 2022 - 40,508 Charge for the year - 2,826 ───── ───── At 31 March 2023 - 43,334 ───── ───── Net book values At 31 March 2023 265,000 1,209 ═════ ═════ At 31 March 2022 - 4,035 ═════ ═════

Total £ 485,817 (174,372) - (10,716) 97 400 (2,923) ───── 298,304 ═════ 298,304 - _ 298,304 ═════ Total £ 44,543 265,000 ───── 309,543 ───── 40,508 2,826 ───── 43,334 ───── 266,209 ═════ 4,035 ═════

11 Tangible fixed assets

The library collection has been gifted to the Charity and has no cost or value in the financial statements. The Trustees deem the value of the library to total £200,000 but no formal valuation has been obtained as the Trustees feel that the cost of such a valuation would outweigh any benefit.

- 32 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

12 Debtors

Debtors
Trade debtors Prepayments and accrued income Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Trade creditors Other taxes and social security costs Accruals and deferred income	2023 £ 13,040 52,842 _ 65,882 ═════ 2023 £ 26,598 5,666 46,856 _ 79,120 ═════	2022 £ - 67,459
		_ 67,459 ═════ 2022 £ - 7,410 34,177
		_ 41,587 ═════

13 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year

Included within accruals and deferred income is £6,805 (2022: £11,092) relating to income received in advance for courses/events held in the year ended 31st March 2024.

14 Designated funds

2023	1 April	Incoming	Outgoing	Transfers	31 March
	2022				2023
	£	£	£	£	£
Shivdasani Fellowship	-	15,232	(10,330)	(4,902)	-
Khaitan Fund	-	20,000	(15,228)	(4,772)	-
Gopal & Elizabeth Krishna Fund	123,705	-	-	-	123,705
Gopal & Elizabeth Krishna Endowment	10,408	(537)	(384)	-	9,487
Gosvami India Trip Fund	1,000	-	-	-	1,000
Sakta Research Programme	2,004	--	(4,994)	-	(2,989)
Library Equipment	141	200	-	-	341
Janaui Judith Claudine Held Fund	15,856	-	-	-	15,856
Gosvami Project	11,720	22,862	-	-	34,581
Research Funds Academics	5,808	-	(2,099)	-	3,709
CED Development Fund	23,627	7,000	-	-	30,627
Academic Research Endowment Fund	20,677	5,063	-	-	25,740
Journal of Hindu Studies Profit Share	4,389	7,125	(1,801)	(3,563)	6,150
Bhagavata Purana Research Project	17,620	-	-	-	17,620
Oxford Kirtan Funds	605	180	(500)	-	285
Nepal Summer School	1,400	38,974	(37,336)	-	3,038
Fellowship – Surender M Bahl	-	7,000	-	-	7,000
E & G Krishna Estate	-	34,757	(32,301)	-	2,456
Nainka’s Bursary for Kashmiri Saivism
and Kashmir Hindu Studies	-	275	-	-	275
	──────	──────	──────	──────	──────
	238,960	158,130	(104,973)	(13,237)	278,880
	══════	══════	══════	══════	══════

- 33 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

14 Designated funds (continued)

2022	1 April	Incoming	Outgoing	Transfers	31 March
	2021				2022
	£	£	£	£	£
Gopal & Elizabeth Krishna Fund	132,705	-	-	(9,000)	123,705
Gopal & Elizabeth Krishna Endowment	10,294	176	(62)	-	10,408
Gosvami India Trip Fund	1,000	-	-	-	1,000
Sakta Research Programme	4,642	-	(2,638)	-	2,004
Library Equipment	99	42	-	-	141
Janaui Judith Claudine Held Fund	15,856	-	-	-	15,856
Gosvami Project	8,661	3,059	-	-	11,720
Research Funds Academics	8,000	-	(2,192)	-	5,808
CED Development Fund	7,500	28,171	(12,044)	-	23,627
Academic Research Endowment Fund	24,079	(3,402)	-	-	20,677
Shivdasani Fellowship	-	9,500	(6,205)	(3,295)	-
Khaitan Fund	-	7,000	(4,882)	(2,118)	-
Journal of Hindu Studies Profit Share	-	8,777	-	(4,388)	4,389
Bhagavata Purana Research Project	-	17,620	-	-	17,620
Oxford Kirtan Funds	-	1,149	(544)	-	605
Nepal Summer School	-	1,400	-	-	1,400
	──────	──────	──────	──────	──────
	212,836	73,492	(28,567)	(18,801)	238,960
	══════	══════	══════	══════	══════

Shivdasani Visiting Fellowship

The Shivdasani Visiting Fellowship is provided to the OCHS by a generous benefaction from Mr Azad Shivdasani, businessman and philanthropist.

The Shivdasani Visiting Fellowship was offered to support study in any area of the arts, humanities, or the social sciences relevant to the study of Hinduism.

This Fellowship was awarded to a scholar of Indian nationality and a holder of an academic position in an institute of higher education, in India or elsewhere; and the applicant needs to be working in an area relevant to the concerns and remit of the OCHS.

J.P. and Beena Khaitan Fellowship

The J.P. and Beena Khaitan Fellowship was provided to the OCHS by a generous benefaction from Mr Ajay and Mrs Mandira Khaitan in memory of Mr Khaitan’s late parents.

This Fellowship was given to scholars who furthered the research, publishing and teaching provided by the Centre and worked in an area relevant to the concerns and remit of the OCHS.

Gopal & Elizabeth Krishna Fund

The Gopal & Elizabeth Krishna Fund is provided to the OCHS by a generous benefaction from Mr Gopal and Mrs Elizabeth Krishna, who are long term supporters of the centre.

It is their desire that these funds are utilised by the centre in carrying out its academic, research and continuing education activities over the next several years.

- 34 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

15a Restricted funds

2023 Scholarship Bhumi project New home for OCHS Ramaiah Alagappan Bursary Opportunity Scholarship Parvathi Foundation Tristan Elby	1 April Incoming Outgoing Transfer 31 March 2022 2023 £ £ £ £ 2,769 10,181 (8,680) - 4,270 334 - - - 334 330,837 - - - 330,837 10,477 (523) (384) - 9,570 13,500 - - - 13,500 38,422 (2,013) (1,242) - 35,167 8,548 (497) (1,058) - 6,993 _ _ _ _ _ 404,887 7,148 (11,364) - 400,671 ═════ ═════ ═════ ══════════	1 April Incoming Outgoing Transfer 31 March 2022 2023 £ £ £ £ 2,769 10,181 (8,680) - 4,270 334 - - - 334 330,837 - - - 330,837 10,477 (523) (384) - 9,570 13,500 - - - 13,500 38,422 (2,013) (1,242) - 35,167 8,548 (497) (1,058) - 6,993 _ _ _ _ _ 404,887 7,148 (11,364) - 400,671 ═════ ═════ ═════ ══════════
		_ 400,671 ═════

2022 Scholarship Bhumi project New home for OCHS Ramaiah Alagappan Bursary Opportunity Scholarship Parvathi Foundation Tristan Elby	1 April Incoming Outgoing Transfer 31 March 2021 2022 £ £ £ £ 5,302 8,145 (10,678) - 2,769 3 331 - - 334 330,837 - - - 330,837 10,363 176 (62) - 10,477 13,500 - - - 13,500 25,492 13,162 (232) - 38,422 9,145 159 (756) - 8,548 _ _ _ _ _ 394,642 21,973 (11,728) - 404,887 ═════ ═════ ═════ ═════ ═════	1 April Incoming Outgoing Transfer 31 March 2021 2022 £ £ £ £ 5,302 8,145 (10,678) - 2,769 3 331 - - 334 330,837 - - - 330,837 10,363 176 (62) - 10,477 13,500 - - - 13,500 25,492 13,162 (232) - 38,422 9,145 159 (756) - 8,548 _ _ _ _ _ 394,642 21,973 (11,728) - 404,887 ═════ ═════ ═════ ═════ ═════
		_ 404,887 ═════

The Scholarship fund and Ramaiah Alagappan Bursary represents monies collected to fund student bursaries and scholarships.

The Bhumi project fund represents monies collected to fund our Bhumi project.

The New home for OCHS fund represents monies donated to the Charity to contribute to the planned purchase of new premises.

The Opportunity Scholarship was established to support a doctoral or post-doctoral student.

- 35 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

15b Endowment funds

2023	1 April	Incoming	Outgoing	Transfers	31 March
	2022				2023
	£	£	£	£	£
Giri Scholarship	219,925	(16,675)	(7,476)	-	203,045
	═════	═════	═════	═════	═════
2022	1 April	Incoming	Outgoing	Transfers	31 March
	2021				2022
	£	£	£	£	£
Giri Scholarship	215,959	5,577	(1,611)	-	219,925
	═════	═════	═════	═════	═════

The Giri Scholarship is an endowment fund established with an initial donation of £200,000. Donations into the fund constitute a permanent and everlasting gift to the Centre towards establishing an endowed scholarship. It is intended that by 2041 the total donations to the Giri Scholarship fund will be £890,000.

16 Analysis of net assets between funds

2023	Unrestricted	Designated	Restricted	Endowment	2023
	Funds	Funds	Funds	Fund	Total
	£	£	£	£	£
Fund balances at 31 March	2023
were represented by:
Fixed assets	266,209	33,241	62,018	203,045	564,513
Current assets	578,676	245,639	338,653	-	1,162,968
Liabilities	(79,120)	-	-	-	(79,120)
	_	_	_	_	_
Total net assets	765,765	278,880	400,671	203,045	1,648,361
	═════	═════	═════	═════	═════
2022	Unrestricted	Designated	Restricted	Endowment	2022
	Funds	Funds	Funds	Fund	Total
	£	£	£	£	£
Fund balances at 31 March	2022
were represented by:
Fixed assets	4,035	197,234	68,658	219,925	489,852
Current assets	152,118	41,726	336,229	-	530,073
Liabilities	(41,587)	-	-	-	(41,587)
	_	_	_	_	_
Total net assets	114,566	238,960	404,887	219,925	978,338
	═════	═════	═════	═════	═════

- 36 -

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Notes to the accounts (continued) for the year ended 31 March 2023

17 Going concern

The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies is reliant on the continued support of its benefactors. The charity’s property fundraising campaign is continuing. The acquisition of new premises will reduce costs and help to ensure the long term sustainability of the charity.

18 Operating leases

A lease on the charity’s charitable premises at 13/15 Magdalen Street Oxford was signed on 8th April 2016, covering a period of 5 years from 24th June 2013, at an annual rate of £45,000. The charity’s total future minimum lease payments are as follows:-

A lease renewal was signed during the 19/20 financial year at an annual rate of £55,035 with a 3 year break clause.

Land & Buildings <1 year Between 2 and 5 years	2023 £ 55,035 45,749 _ 100,784 ═════	2022 £ 55,035 100,784
		_ 155,819 ═════

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