Satsang Diksha Symposium at University of Cambridge, UK

A full-day symposium on the Satsang Diksha was held at the University of Cambridge on Friday 17 January 2025.

Distinguished scholars as well as advanced students were invited to present their research and engage in academic dialogue on various aspects of this vital scripture of the BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu tradition.

Invited scholars joined from around the UK as well as from Finland, Germany, India, the Netherlands, and the USA.

The event was supported by Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, the Sanskrit Department at Heidelberg University, the BAPS Swaminarayan Research Institute in London, and the Cambridge Interfaith Programme.

The symposium sought to facilitate research and dialogue in a number of disciplinary areas directly related to this primary revelatory scripture, authored by the guru of BAPS, His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj. With the text serving as an important foundation of the Swaminarayan tradition’s distinctive school of Vedanta, namely, Akshar-Purushottam Darshan, and its adherents’ spiritual, devotional, and moral way of life, the symposium provided a forum for exploring the vitality and relevance of a contemporary Sanskrit scripture along with an opportunity to engaging with some key articulations of lived Hinduism.

The papers covered a number of contemporary subjects, such as civil law, domestic life, ethical finance, and religious pluralism, as well as some classical topics of theology, philosophy, philology, pedagogy, material culture, textual studies, and others.

James Hegarty, Professor of the Religions of South Asia at Cardiff University and one of the convenors of the symposium, explained, “For a text so recent, the extensive range of global public engagement – from the thousands of people, young and old, who have been memorising its 315 Sanskrit verses, to the thousands joining weekly for an in-depth online course – makes the Satsang Diksha especially worthy of academic study.”

Professor Alice Collet, Academic Editor of the Hinduism and Buddhism sections of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, reflected, “It was a pleasure to attend the symposium, which was a good balance of academic rigour and a positive collegiate environment.”

Dr Ankur Barua, Senior Lecturer in Hindu Studies at the University of Cambridge, appreciated the symposium’s collaborative focus: “The symposium brought together doctoral students, established academics, and scholar-practitioners in a series of discussions on how a recently composed scriptural text distils the essence of various Hindu religious themes and presents it in a manner that would be accessible to devotees at the grassroots.”

In his keynote address, delivered online, Mahamahopadhyay Bhadreshdas Swami demonstrated the universal scope of the Satsang Diksha and explained how it is, at once, a Darshan Shastra, Dharma Shastra, Bhakti Shastra, and much more.

Overall, the symposium provided a multidisciplinary exploration of the Satsang Diksha, critically engaging with its theological, ethical, linguistic, and material dimensions while situating it within the broader contexts of Hindu studies and global religious thought.

For further details about the symposium, please see the report on Cambridge University’s Faculty of Divinity website here.