In this episode I speak with Daniela Bevilacqua. We cover hindu asceticism, its history, its aims, its culture. We discuss how contemporary ascetics are interacting with a rapidly changing and modernising India.

You can listen to her Wise Studies course, Hindu Asceticism and its Spiritual Disciplines here:
https://wisestudies.com/product/hindu-asceticism-and-its-spiritual-disciplines-with-daniela-bevilacqua/

Daniela Bevilacqua is a South-Asianist specialising in Hindu asceticism, which she investigates through an ethnographic and historical lens. She received her PhD in Civilizations of Africa and Asia from Sapienza University of Rome and in Anthropology from the University of Paris Nanterre. Her PhD research was published by Routledge under the title Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India: The Śrī Maṭh and the Jagadguru Rāmānandācārya in the Evolution of the Rāmānandī Sampradāya. She worked as a post-doc research fellow at SOAS, for the ERC-funded Haṭha Yoga Project (2015– 2020). She has published several articles and book chapters related to asceticism, and yoga studies. She is currently a Research Fellow at SOAS.