Andrew Nicholson
Andrew J. Nicholson is an Associate Professor in Stony Brook University's Department of Asian and Asian American Studies. He holds advanced degrees in Religious Studies (M.A., University of Chicago), Philosophy (M.A., DePaul University), and South Asian Languages and Civilizations (Ph.D., University of Chicago). He has also studied Sanskrit, Hindi, Indian philosophy, and yoga with teachers in India. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright-Hays Program, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, and University of Chicago Committee on Southern Asia Studies. He is also an associate of the Columbia University Seminar on South Asia and a trustee of the American Institute of Indian Studies.
Professor Nicholson's primary area of research is Indian philosophy and intellectual history, recently focusing on Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, and Pasupata traditions. His first book, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History, was published in 2010 by Columbia University Press as part of the South Asia Across the Disciplines book series. It won the 2011 award for Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion. His second book, Lord Śiva's Song: The Īśvara Gītā, was published on SUNY Press in 2014. Professor Nicholson has published articles in numerous edited volumes and scholarly journals, including the Journal of Indian Philosophy, Philosophy East and West, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, and Common Knowledge.
Phone: (631) 632-4030
Address: Department of Asian & Asian American Studies
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5343
Professor Nicholson's primary area of research is Indian philosophy and intellectual history, recently focusing on Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, and Pasupata traditions. His first book, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History, was published in 2010 by Columbia University Press as part of the South Asia Across the Disciplines book series. It won the 2011 award for Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion. His second book, Lord Śiva's Song: The Īśvara Gītā, was published on SUNY Press in 2014. Professor Nicholson has published articles in numerous edited volumes and scholarly journals, including the Journal of Indian Philosophy, Philosophy East and West, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, and Common Knowledge.
Phone: (631) 632-4030
Address: Department of Asian & Asian American Studies
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5343
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Books by Andrew Nicholson
While the Bhagavad Gītā is an acknowledged treasure of world spiritual literature, few people know a parallel text, the Īśvara Gītā. This lesser-known work is also dedicated to a god, but in this case it is Śiva, rather than Kṛṣṇa, who is depicted as the omniscient creator of the world. Andrew J. Nicholson’s Lord Śiva’s Song makes this text available in English in an accessible new translation. A work of both poetry and philosophy, the Īśvara Gītā builds on the insights of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra and foreshadows later developments in tantric yoga. It deals with the pluralistic religious environment of early medieval India through an exploration of the relationship between the gods Śiva and Viṣṇu. The work condemns sectarianism and violence and provides a strategy for accommodating conflicting religious claims in its own day and in our own.
Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy."
Papers by Andrew Nicholson
While the Bhagavad Gītā is an acknowledged treasure of world spiritual literature, few people know a parallel text, the Īśvara Gītā. This lesser-known work is also dedicated to a god, but in this case it is Śiva, rather than Kṛṣṇa, who is depicted as the omniscient creator of the world. Andrew J. Nicholson’s Lord Śiva’s Song makes this text available in English in an accessible new translation. A work of both poetry and philosophy, the Īśvara Gītā builds on the insights of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra and foreshadows later developments in tantric yoga. It deals with the pluralistic religious environment of early medieval India through an exploration of the relationship between the gods Śiva and Viṣṇu. The work condemns sectarianism and violence and provides a strategy for accommodating conflicting religious claims in its own day and in our own.
Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy."