The Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies is pleased to announce an upcoming guest lecture titled “Unmarried Women in Early Indian Texts: From the Ṛgveda to Buddhist Literature” by Prof. Dr. Mau Das Gupta (University of Calcutta), a distinguished scholar of Sanskrit and early Indian religious literature.
This lecture will explore representations of unmarried women across a wide range of early Indian sources, tracing developments from the Ṛgveda to Buddhist texts. The talk will examine changing ideas about women’s autonomy, ritual participation, and spiritual agency, highlighting the complex and non-linear history of gender roles in early Indian religious traditions. The lecture will take place on Monday, March 2nd at 16:00 CET and can be attended both on campus (Blandijnberg 2, room 0.8, Ghent) and online via MS Teams.