Phyllis Granoff

Telling Tales: Jains and Śaivaites and their Stories in Medieval South India

In this paper, Professor Granoff argues that Jains and Saivaites borrowed liberally from each
other’s stories to create a dense network of allusions and arguments that they used in their efforts to discredit each other and promote their own cause.

Professor Granoff is currently the Lex Hixon Professor of World Religions at Yale University.
She also serves as the editor of the Journal of Indian Philosophy. After receiving a Bachelor of
Arts in Far Eastern Languages from Radcliff College, she earned her Ph.D. in Sanskrit, Indian
Studies and Fine Arts from the Harvard University. She is fluent in numerous Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Ardha Magadhi, Bengali, Hindi, Assamese, Gujarati and Oriya. Professor Granoff’s work has focused on Indian mythology, cults, image worship, art, literature, poetry, and medieval Indian law codes. With her husband, Professor Koichi Shinohara, she has written, translated and edited several books, and has published more than 70 journal articles on various topics.

This lecture is sponsored by the University Lectures Committee