Tanni Moitra M.A. M.Phil

Forschungsprojekt

Extraordinary Circumstances: A Study of Apad and Apaddharma in the Early Indian Literary Traditions

I, Tanni Moitra, am currently a doctoral student at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. My research interest includes the study of normative exceptions or immunities in Early India with specific focus on Brahmanical and Buddhist texts of the Early Historic period (600 BCE- 600 CE). I am also specifically interested in the Indian epics - the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. My doctoral research attempts to study the concept of āpaddharma- a category of norms formulated for emergency or crisis which also works as legal immunities in the Early Indian context- and also aims to understand the historical processes involved in the formulation of such a category of norms.
My research interest also involves the study of the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent with specific focus on the representation of Gandhara in the Mahābhārata on the understanding that the region being at the crossroads of cultural traditions has a great possibility of incorporating normative exceptions.