South Asian
Please see the South and Southeast Asian Studies Department for program and degree requirements.
S ASIAN 1A Introduction to the Civilization of Early India 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 6 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
This course offers a broad historical and cultural survey of the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent from the earliest period known to archaeology to the advent of Islam as a major cultural and political force around the 13th century CE. Attention will be paid to the geography and ethnography of the region, its political history, and to the religious, philosophical, literary, scientific, and artistic movements that have shaped it and contributed to its development as a unique, diverse, and fascinating world civilization. Lectures, readings, and class discussions will center on salient texts, broadly defined, that have characterized major cultural, religious, and political formations from the earliest antiquity to the late medieval period. This course is open to all interested students and is required for those majoring or minoring in South Asian Studies.
S ASIAN 1B Introduction to the Civilization of Medieval and Modern India 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 6 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
This course offers a broad historical and cultural survey of the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent from the 12th century to partition of India in 1947. Attention will be paid to the geography and ethnography of the region, its political history, and the religious, philosophical, literary, and artistic movements that have shaped it and contributed to its development as a unique, diverse, and fascinating world civilization. Lectures, readings, and class discussions will center on salient texts, broadly defined, that have characterized major cultural, religious, and political formations from the medieval period to the 20th century. This course is open to all interested students and is required for those majoring or minoring in South Asian Studies.
S ASIAN R5A Great Books of India 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 10 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.
Reading and composition based on 10 classic works of Indian literature ranging from the ancient Sanskrit epics to modern novels by Indian and western authors. Weekly composition on texts and topics read and discussed in class. Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement.
Satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement
Formerly known as 5A.
S ASIAN R5B India in the Writer's Eye 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 10 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.
Reading and composition in connection with eastern and western representations of India, and other Asian cultures, in great works of modern literature. Satisfies the second half of the reading and composition requirement.
Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement
Formerly known as 5B.
S ASIAN C114/BUDDSTD C114/TIBETAN C114 Tibetan Buddhism 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Group in Buddhist Studies; Tibetan
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
This course is a broad introduction to the history, doctrine, and culture of the Buddhism of Tibet. We will begin with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century and move on to the evolution of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist literature, ritual and monastic practice, the place of Buddhism in Tibetan political history, and the contemporary situation of Tibetan Buddhism both inside and outside of Tibet.
S ASIAN 121 Classical Indian Literature in Translation 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks.
Literary works of ancient India are read in English translation and studied critically. The course aims at giving a comprehensive picture of many important areas of the Indian literary heritage.
S ASIAN 122 The Novel in India 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 5.5 hours of Lecture and 1.5 hours of Discussion per week for 8 weeks. 7.5 hours of Lecture and 2.5 hours of Discussion per week for 6 weeks.
Lecture and discussion on the novel as it arose on the Indian subcontinent during the 19th and 20th centuries, using English translations and original works in English. Critical discussion of the novel as a modern genre adapted to local conditions and coexisting with older traditions of writing. Examines the novel as a window on Indian modernities. Interpretation of Indian society, culture, and history through literature.
S ASIAN 124 Modern Indian Literature 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 6 hours of Lecture and 4 hours of Discussion per week for 6 weeks.
Lectures and discussion of 19th and 20th century Indian literature through English translations and original works in English. Interpretation of Indian society and culture through literature.
S ASIAN 127 Religion in Early India 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 8 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
This course is an introduction to the religions that have their origin on the India subcontinent--Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and tribal religions--as well as those that originated in other regions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Organizing this material chronologically rather than teaching it by separate religious traditions facilitates comparisons and promotes an understanding not only of the differences among these religions but also some of their commonalities in philosophy, theology, and praxis.
S ASIAN C127/RELIGST C161 Religion in Early India 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Religious Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 8 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
Designed as a two-semester sequence, these courses are an introduction to the religions that have their origin on the Indian subcontinent--Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and tribal religions--as well as those that originated in other regions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Organizing this material chronologically rather than teaching it by separate religious traditions facilitates comparisons and promotes an understanding not only of the differences among these religions but also some of their commonalities in philosophy, theology, and praxis.
S ASIAN 128 Religious Movements in Modern India 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of Lecture and 2.5 hours of Discussion per week for 6 weeks.
Introduces the history of religious movements in modern India. Examines the dissemination and reinterpretation of sacred texts and religious practices. Includes a reading of spiritual experience and religious authority at mid-century in an influential modern novel. Examines religious conversions, transformations of women's roles, and how the concept of a secular state in post-Independence India shapes religious policy and practice.
S ASIAN C140/RELIGST C165 Hindu Mythology 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Religious Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 8 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
Literary and religious aspects of Hindu myths. Reading of selected mythological texts in translation.
Formerly known as 140. Instructor: Goldman
S ASIAN C141/RELIGST C162 Religion in South India 3 Units
Department: South Asian; Religious Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
The development and practice of religion in South India. Emphasis will be on sources translated directly from Indian languages. Subjects covered include: the indigenous religion, the effect of Brahmanical religion, movements, and the practice of Hinduism in modern South India.
Instructor: G. Hart
S ASIAN C142/RELIGST C166 India's Great Epics: The Mahabharata and the Ramayana 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Religious Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: 5A, 127, 140, or consent of instructor.
The course entails substantial selected readings from the great Sanskirt epic poems--the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in translation, selected readings from the corpus of secondary literature on Indian epic studies as well as lectures on salient issues in both. Discussion will focus on a variety of historical and theoretical approaches to the study of the poems and their extraordinary influence on Indian culture. Readings will be supplemented with selected showings of popular cinematic and television versions of the epics.
Instructor: Goldman
S ASIAN 144 Islam in South Asia 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 5.5 hours of Lecture and 2 hours of Discussion per week for 8 weeks.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
The aim of this course on the culture and history of Muslim communities and institutions in South Asia is to introduce students to the broad historical currents of the expansion of Islam in the Indian subcontinent, the nature of Muslim political authority, the interaction between religious communities, Islamic aesthetics and contributions to material culture, the varied engagements and reactions of Muslims to colonial rule, and the contemporary concerns of South Asia's Muslims. While this is a lecture course, ample time will be set aside for discussion and the active engagement of participants will be expected. Lectures will be supplemented with visual material, music, and movies where possible.
S ASIAN 146 Mughal India through Memoirs, Chronicles and other Texts 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 6 hours of Lecture and 1.5 hours of Discussion per week for 8 weeks.
This course is designed to provide a dual chronological and thematic approach to the study of one of the greatest empires in human civilization: the Mughal Empire. Although the bulk of this course will focus on the Mughal Empire during its heyday between the 1550s and the early 1700s, careful attention will be paid to the larger historical and geographical contexts that both enabled the emergence and, ultimately, decentralization of Mughal power. In so doing, this course will not only study South Asia's complex history on its own terms but also examine the intricate web of political, economic, and social links that connected South Asia to the rest of the world. Simultaneously, this course will also pay particular attention to a series of common misconceptions that dog the study of pre-modern Islamic polities. Among them, the supposedly lesser role played by women in politics; the dogmatic and central role of Islam in "Muslim" states; and the economic and political superiority of Western Europe. Crucial to these questions also is an examination of the historiography and historiographical traditions that have come to define contemporary understanding of the Mughal Empire.
Instructor: Faruqui
S ASIAN 147 Pakistan: An Introduction 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week.
Whenever Pakistan comes up as a subject of sustained conversation in the US it usually is for all the wrong reasons: the worst nuclear proliferator in recent history, the refuge of Osama bin Laden, a major source of regional instability in South and Central Asia. Although Pakistan may be viewed with deep mistrust by US policy planners and the American public alike, this course seeks to remind us that it is also a country of great political, economic, religious, and social complexity. This course will situate Pakistan in its historical, political, literary, religious, economic and social contexts with the hope that students will develop nuanced and deeply grounded perspectives on a country that in fact defies easy stereotypes.
Students will receive no credit for South Asian 147 after completing South Asian 120. Instructor: Faruqui
S ASIAN 148 Religious Nationalism in South Asia 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 6 hours of Lecture and 1.5 hours of Discussion per week for 8 weeks.
This course seeks to interrogate the highly contentious and controversial issue of Hindu and Muslim religious nationalism (otherwise known as "communalism") in South Asia. In so doing, we will interrogate the historical trajectory and development of religious nationalism from the colonial period through to the present. We will examine issues relating to the rise of (non-religious) nationalism outside of South Asia; Hindu and Muslim relations in the pre-colonial period; colonial attempts to construct South Asia's past along religious lines; the dialectical interplay of early Hindu and Muslim religious nationalism; the interplay between secular and religious nationalism; different intellectual attempts to articulate notions of bounded religious communities; the success of religious nationalism in contemporary South Asia; and the implications of religious nationalism for the future of South Asia.
Instructor: Faruqui
S ASIAN 151 A History of Yoga: Origins, Innovations, and Modern Reinventions 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 6 hours of Lecture and 2 hours of Discussion per week for 6 weeks.
This course explores the history of yoga from the late Vedic period to its most recent formulation in American popular and consumer culture. It seeks to make students conversant in the key texts and philosophical innovations of yoga across time. But to better convey the complex nuances of yoga's historical development it approaches the subject in three parts: it explores theories of origin leading up to the formation of yoga as a classical philosophical school; it focuses on specialists and medieval innovators as it examines sects, sadhus, and aberrant modes of practice; it explores the contemporary context as it investigates modern yoga's place in both popular imagination and the marketplace.
Instructor: Little
S ASIAN C154/BUDDSTD C154/TIBETAN C154 Death, Dreams, and Visions in Tibetan Buddhism 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Group in Buddhist Studies; Tibetan
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
Tibetan Buddhists view the moment of death as a rare opportunity for transformation. This course examines how Tibetans have used death and dying in the path to enlightenment. Readings will address how Tibetan funerary rituals work to assist the dying toward this end, and how Buddhist practitioners prepare for this crucial moment through tantric meditation, imaginative rehearsals, and explorations of the dream state.
Instructor: Dalton
S ASIAN 160 Jainism and Other Heterodox Systems 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 7.5 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
Unique among the heterodox religious traditions that were prominent on the Indian subcontinent prior to the common era, Jainism has maintained an unbroken presence of lay and mendicant communities for more than 2,500 years. Throughout this time nonviolence has remained the guiding principle of Jain ethics and practices. This course will examine the teachings and practices of Jainism through selected readings from the Jain scriptures and commentaries (in translation) as well as secondary sources. The rise of later heterodoxies, particularly the Virasaivas in the South and the Nathas and Siddhas in the North, will also be discussed.
S ASIAN C214/BUDDSTD C214/TIBETAN C214 Seminar in Tibetan Buddhism 2 or 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Group in Buddhist Studies; Tibetan
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: unit(s):3 hours of seminar per week; 4 unit(s):3 hours of seminar per week.
This course provides a place for graduate-level seminars in Tibetan Buddhism that rely primarily on secondary sources and Tibetan texts in translation. Content will vary between semesters but will typically focus on a particular theme. Themes will be chosen according to student interests, with an eye toward introducing students to the breadth of available western scholarship on Tibet, from classics in the field to the latest publications.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Instructor: Dalton
S ASIAN 215A Readings in Indian Buddhist Texts 2 or 4 Units
Department: South Asian
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: 215A is prerequisite to 215B. One year of Sanskrit and/or consent of instructor.
This graduate seminar focuses on reading a wide spectrum of Indian Buddhist texts in the Sanskrit (or Pali) original introducing the students to different genres, and different aspects of Indian Buddhism. The students taking the course for 2 units (rather than 4) will be expected to prepare thoroughly every week for the reading of Buddhist texts in the original. They will also be expected to read all related secondary literature that is assigned to supplement the study of the primary source material. In contrast to the students taking the course for 4 units, they will not be expected to write a term paper or to prepare special presentations for class.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
S ASIAN C215A/BUDDSTD C215A Readings in Indian Buddhist Texts 2 - 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Group in Buddhist Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
This graduate seminar focuses on reading a wide spectrum of Indian Buddhist texts in the Sanskrit (or Pali) original introducing the students to different genres, and different aspects of Indian Buddhism. The students taking the course for two units (rather than four) will be expected to prepare thoroughly every week for the reading of Buddhist texts in the original. They will also be expected to read all related secondary literature that is assigned to supplement the study of the primary source material. In contrast to the students taking the course for four units, they will not be expected to write a term paper or to prepare special presentations for class.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Instructor: Rospatt
S ASIAN C215B/BUDDSTD C215B Readings in Indian Buddhist Texts 2 - 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Group in Buddhist Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
This graduate seminar focuses on reading a wide spectrum of Indian Buddhist texts in the Sanskrit (or Pali) original introducing the students to different genres, and different aspects of Indian Buddhism. The students taking the course for two units (rather the four) will be expected to prepare thoroughly every week for the reading of Buddhist texts in the original. They will also be expected to read all related secondary literature that is assigned to supplement the study of the primary source material. In contrast to the students taking the course for four units, they will not be expected to write a term paper or to prepare special presentations for class.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Instructor: Rospatt
S ASIAN C224/BUDDSTD C224/TIBETAN C224 Readings in Tibetan Buddhist Texts 2 or 4 Units
Department: South Asian; Group in Buddhist Studies; Tibetan
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: unit(s):3 hours of seminar per week; 4 unit(s):3 hours of seminar per week.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
This seminar provides an introduction to a broad range of Tibetan Buddhist texts, including chronicles and histories, biographical literature, doctrinal treatises, canonical texts, ritual manuals, pilgrimage guides, and liturgical texts. It is intended for graduate students interested in premodern Tibet from any perspective. Students are required to do all of the readings in the original classical Tibetan. It will also serve as a tools and methods for the study of Tibetan Buddhist literature, including standard lexical and bibliographic references, digital resources, and secondary literature in modern languages. The content of the course will vary from semester to semester to account for the needs and interests of particular students.
Instructor: Dalton
Print this page.
The PDF will include all information unique to this page.
All pages in Academic Catalog.