STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

My name is Kaustubh Das and I am a resident of Delhi, India. The driving force behind my engagement with academics is an attempt to bridge the seeming gulf between the speculations of Indian Philosophy as an academic discipline and the practical aspects of Indian religion. I feel a Ph.D in religious studies will allow me to both engage with texts and manuscripts as well as with the various practical aspects of religious mysticism. I completed my bachelors from t. tephen!s "ollege, Delhi #niversity, in $%%&, ma'oring in Philosophy. There for the first time, I was introduced to texts of Indian , (ree) and "ontinental philosophy, and it was then that I learnt to thin) independently and *uestion everything that we ta)e for guaranteed, including my own+presuppositions. ,t this point while I had learnt to appreciate complex ideas, I still had not considered academics as my long term goal- influenced by the study of aesthetics in our final year, I began to draw and prepare for admission into a fine+arts college in order to become an artist. ,s a result, my academic performance deteriorated and I scored very badly in the third year of my bachelors which caused an noticeable deterioration in my overall grades. #nfortunately at this time I also was unable to pass the .indi subsidiary exam for three years in a row which resulted in me being awarded a /.,. Pass degree without division instead of a /.,..ons. In Philosophy with second division. The reasons for failing .indi are still unclear to me as it has always been my preferred language. Then for the purpose of training myself for an art+school entrance I went to /hubaneshvar to learn to draw from an artist living there. It was there at the caves of Khandagiri+#dayagiri 0which would later become the focus of my M.Phil dissertation1 that I met interacted with sadhus on a regular basis. ,fter having conversations regarding 2edanta and 3oga, I began to realise that what I had studied on an academic level in college was a lived practice for them. It then dawned on me that true )nowledge of Indian Philosophy could not come from merely reading boo)s but by practicing their disciplines consistently and faithfully. 4rom there I 'oined the 4aculty of 4ine ,rts at Mahara'a aya'irao #niversity of /aroda, (u'rat-

instead of ta)ing up painting, I was encouraged to do my masters in ,rt .istory and ,esthetics. In that department, as we were introduced to a whole new pantheon of thin)ers and writers, there I began to appreciate history, it5s associated social sciences and their methods. .owever at the end of the first year of my Masters the entire ,rt .istory department was rendered dysfunctional when 6ight+7ing .indu fundamentalists disrupted the annual students display and brought in Police to arrest a masters print+ma)ing student for drawing the (oddess in the nude. In the ensuing aftermath, the .ead of Department along with 8 other ,rt .istory teachers were indefinitely suspended by the #niversity. The tudents called for a stri)e which lasted practically for a whole year- as a result of ta)ing initiative in the stri)e, my grades suffered, particularly the mar)s for the dissertation and the viva+voce. .owever the incident did ma)e me )eenly aware of the )ind of roles religion could be made to play in the realms of the social. 7hile it was evident that misrepresentation of religion led to such conflicts, I became more concerned than ever to find out what !real! religion was. 4inally after much consideration I decided that I wanted to do research and 'oined the "entre 4or tudies in ocial ciences in "alcutta. There my academic performance improved considerably as my own motivation found the support and presence of great teachers and dedicated scholars. .ere, the wor)load ensured that I would read a lot and across a whole range of scholarly disciplines also an open environment allowed me to as) *uestions and ta)e positions which were coming from a very personal engagement with religion. /eing based in "alcutta also allowed me to visit many /auls, adhus, and 4a)irs in various melas across 7est /engal. My MPhil dissertation carried out under the guidance of Prof. Tapati (uha+Tha)urta, was entitled !Khandagiri+#dayagiri9 The many histories of a site!. The wor) attempts to disrupt the standard archaeological+ historical narrative around the site by positing it against the devotional, oral, textual, and occupational histories of the site- it also traces the career of the site in the modern period where it negotiates between it!s roles as a historical monument, a touristic site, pilgrimage site and a hermitage. I was able to show how the nexus between archaeology and tourism can replace anti+orthodoxical religious practices with dogmatic orthodoxies.

7hile this pro'ect relied mostly on an art+historical framewor), my course+wor) during the M.Phil, particularly the course dealing with cience tudies, made me thin) of miracles, and how one could go about theorising and historicising them. Thin)ing along these lines made me move away from my engagement with sites and deal with practices in a much more frontal manner for my PhD. /riefly put it is an attempt to write a genealogy of :uro+,merican interest in occult and miraculous phenomenon in India. tarting from the early encounters in the second half of the ;<th century, writing a pre+history of Theosophy to the first half of the twentieth century and the establishment of parapsychology in India- this study see)s to trac) several institutional = discursive sites that deal with miraculous phenomenon in India. (oing beyond the realm of myth and oral traditions where tal) of these phenomenon was traditionally understood to operate, this study shall be on the :uro+,merican scholarship, scientific and otherwise- on tantra, religion, occult, magic)al and paranormal phenomenon in India. the primary ob'ective is to examine the ways by which the study of paranormal phenomenon in this period created something of an epistemic crisis in western )nowledge by blurring disciplinary boundaries between the discourses of religion, occult, and science- also between !hard! sciences such as physics and psychology and !pseudo! sciences such as parapsychology. /y the early $%th century, several :uro+,merican occultists had also begun to blur boundaries between cabalistic+hermetic occult and eastern occultic systems such as lama+ism and Patan'ali yoga. ,lso e*ually, my attempt shall be to examine what )ind of manoeuvres were re*uired then to re+establish the disciplinary boundaries of these !hard! sciences and protect them from incursions by sacred and !native! )nowledges i.e. the occultists and the !pseudo!+ sciences such as parapsychology. I feel that this )ind of research could be very fruitfully carried out in the #niversity of "hicago5s Divinity chool under the guidance of experts such as Professor 7endy Doniger, as many of her more well )nown students are researching along similar lines . It here I feel that I can benefit li)e nowhere else from the expertise of the faculty and ta)e this pro'ect to a level where it could ma)e a noticeable contribution to social science research in this age.