PhD in Religious Studies- South Asian Religions in Stanford United States | Stanford University

Stanford's South Asian religious studies program explores the region's diverse intellectual heritage and cultural traditions, with faculty expertise spanning Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Key research areas include early modern Hindu practices, Tantric traditions of aiva and kta, South Asian secularism and pluralism, interfaith dynamics, contemporary Islamic movements, religion's material expressions, Buddhist textual transmission, manuscript studies, Tantric Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and the spread of Buddhist thought across Asia. The program employs interdisciplinary approaches from religious studies and related fields (including critical theory, ethnographic methods, philological analysis, philosophical inquiry, ritual studies, and material culture studies). Students develop language proficiency in Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Tibetan, and other regional languages to conduct original research using primary sources.