Sankalpana
Sankalpana is an interactive knowledge space dedicated to the literature, music, history and culture of South Asia. It was founded in 2022 by Srinivas Reddy with the hope of promoting and preserving South Asia’s rich cultural heritage through dynamic in-person and online courses, performances, publications and consulting.
Srinivas Reddy
In 2011 Srinivas graduated from UC Berkeley with a PhD in South and Southeast Asian Studies. Under the guidance of Professor George Hart he studied Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu literary traditions and completed his thesis on the Vijayanagara emperor Krishnadevaraya and his Telugu epic Amuktamalyada.
Srinivas has published numerous scholarly articles and four books: Giver of the Worn Garland (Penguin 2010), The Dancer and the King (Penguin 2014), The Cloud Message (2017) and RAYA (Juggernaut 2020). His current book project is an Anthology of Classical India Literature with Bloomsbury Publishing.
Srinivas is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Contemplative Studies at Brown University and Guest Professor at IIT Gandhinagar.
Maihar Gharana
Srinivas began his musical training as a guitarist and composer. In 1998 he graduated from Brown University with a BA in South Asian Studies and completed his senior project entitled NaadaSat, a multi-instrumental ensemble piece that reflected his growing interest in South Asian philosophy and music.
After moving to San Francisco in 1998, Srinivas met his guru Pandit Partha Chatterjee, a direct disciple of the late sitar maestro Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. Srinivas dedicated himself to Indian classical music and trained with his teacher in the traditional guru-shishya style for twelve years. Srinivas is a professional concert sitarist and has given numerous recitals in the US, India and Europe.
Professor Padmanabh S. Jaini
My precious teacher Professor Padmanabh S. Jaini was the foremost scholar of Abhidharma Buddhism and Jainism of his time. Born in 1923 into a humble Digambara Jain family in Nellikar, Karnataka, he studied in a traditional Jaina gurukula in Karanja, Maharashtra before embarking on an illustrious academic career that took him to Ahmedabad University, Benares Hindu University, the School for African and Oriental Studies, the University of Michigan, and finally UC Berkeley in 1972 where he established the Program in Buddhist Studies and remained as Professor Emeritus until his passing in 2021, less than a year after the recording of the present videos. Here Professor Jaini shares his knowledge and life experiences in a free-flowing manner that reflects his expansive and masterful intellect.