Dr McComas Taylor

Associate Professor, Reader in Sanskrit

College of Asia and the Pacific

The Australian National University

Email: McComas.Taylor@anu.edu.au

Phone: + 61 2 6125 3179

Room: e424 Baldessin Precinct Building

Sanskrit at the ANU

• • Watch our promotional video

  • Course information

  • Experience the ANU 'living-tradition' of Sanskrit yourself: Sanskrit Class

Awards and Nominations

• • 2016 ANU CAP Award for Teaching Excellence nomination

  • 2016 ANU CAP Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching Excellence nomination

  • 2016 ANU CAP Award for Excellence in Language Teaching nomination

  • 2014 ANU Strategic Communications & Public Affairs Award

  • 2013 William Jones Visiting Fellow, Cardiff University, UK

  • 2013 'Australia's Top Five Innovators in Higher Education' Campus News

• 2012 ANU Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Education

  • 2012-13 ANU University Education Scholar

  • 2012 ANU Commendation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning

  • 2012 Nominated for OLT Australian Award for University Teaching

  • 2011 ANU CAP Award for a Program that Enhances Student Learning

  • 2010 ANU CAP First Wattle Oscar for best LMS sites

  • 2010 ALTC National Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student learning

  • 2008 ANU VC's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning

  • 2008 ANU Students' Award for Excellence in Teaching Distinguished dozen: Students name the best at Festival of Teaching

  • 2008 College of Asia and the Pacific Award for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning

  • Vice-Chancellor's Excellence in Teaching Award, 2007 (two nominations)

  • College of Asia and the Pacific Teaching Awards, 2007 (three nominations)

  • Vice-Chancellor's Excellence in Teaching Award, 2006 (nomination)

  • Nominated for ANU Dean of Student's 'Last lecture', 2010

  • Nominated for ANU Dean of Student's 'Last lecture', 2008

  • Nominated for ANU Dean of Student's 'Last lecture', 2007

Research interests

• • The construction of truth in the Sanskritic episteme

  • The ideas of social division in Sanskrit narrative literature

  • Purāṇic narratives and their empowerment

  • Role of Sanskrit texts in contemporary Hindu practice

  • Flexible delivery of small-enrolment languages

Teaching responsibilities

• • Sanskrit language and literature, Spoken Sanskrit (2006--) Interested in enrolling?

Recent media

• Spoken Sanskrit in Three Minutes!

  • Treasures of the De Jong Collection: Wilkin's Bhagavad Gita (18 May 2018)

  • 'If you listen carefully, you will be someone else' - Why Sanskrit? Sanskrit Review 9: 7-9 (August 2017)

  • 'Teaching the oldest language with the newest technology' (in Hindi) (Garbhanala Magazine, January 2016, read online)

  • 44th Conference on South Asia, Madison Wisconsin, a quick report'. (SARI Blog, 9 Nov 2015, read online)

  • 'Sanskrit -- Isn't that a dead language?' (Sanskrit Review, No. 7, August 2015)

  • 'iPads and yoga mats' (ANU CAP news, 19 Aug 2015)

  • 'Tigers vs. Goats': Rajiv Malhotra's Battle for Sanskrit (Asian Currents, 14 Aug 2015)

  • 'He who vowed to learn Sanskrit' (SBS Radio, 21 July 2015)

  • 'World's first online course in Hindi and English' (SBS Radio, 28 May 2014)

  • ANU delivers the world's first Hindi-English MOOC' (ANU News, 29 April 2014)

  • 'Don't throw out the script' (ANU CAP news, 11 March 2014)

  • 'ANU's Bilingual MOOC a hit in India' (Australian Financial Review 4 March 2014)

  • 'Thousands sign up for ANU online MOOCs' (Canberra Times 17 February 2014)

  • 'Hindi [and Sanskrit] in Australia' (The Hindu 17 February 2014)

  • 'ANU joins edX online revolution' (ANU News 25 Feb 2103)

  • 'Learning from Legends: McComas Taylor discusses the Indian epic' (ANU Reporter November 2012)

  • 'Behind a Cultural Pathway', (The Australian, 4 Feb 2012)

  • 'India Shining?', (ABC Radio Southeast, 16 Sept 2010)

  • Naxalite insurgency, India (SBS Radio World View, 9 April 2010)

  • Faculty teachers awarded Vice-Chancellor's Citation (ANU Blog Aug 2009)

  • Book review: 'The Hindus: An Atlernative History (Wendy Doniger) (South Asia Masala Blog 7 August 2009)

  • 'And now, a passage from India' Interview, (Canberra Times, 22 March 2009)

  • 'Hindi Teachers Loss Hurts Tongue' (The Australian 2 April 2008)

  • 'Distinguished dozen: Students name the best at Festival of Teaching' (ANU News 2008)

  • 'Ancient stories find new life' (ANU News 2008)

  • 'Six Easy Lessons in Sanskrit' (ANU Reporter 2008)

  • 'Simla Conference Re-enacted' (FAS News 16 Sept 2008)

  • 'Friend in Asia' (The Australian 12 Sept 2007)

  • 'Eye on South Asia's giants' (The Australian 12 Sept 2007)

  • 'The Perfection of Sanskrit' - ABC Radio 'Linga Franca' (8 December 2007)

  • 'First National Sanskrit festival' ABC Radio National (Canberra), 17 November 2007

  • 'Funding for Asian Studies', ABC Radio National, 8 March 2007

  • 'Sanskrit, the language of life' (Canberra Times 22 May 2006)

Publications

• • Taylor, M. (in press). The Viṣṇu Purāṇa and its Narrative Structure. (Accepted 3 June 2020)

  • Taylor, M. (2021). The Viṣṇu Purāṇa: Ancient Annals of the God with Lotus Eyes. ANU Press. Free download.

  • Balkaran, R, and Taylor, M. (eds) 2019. Purāṇic Studies: Proceedings of the Purāṇa Section of the 17th World Sanskrit Conference. Vancouver: University of British Columbia. Read online

  • Taylor, M. (in press). 'Time is born of his eyelashes': purāṇic measurement and concepts of time.' (Submitted 29 March 2019)

  • Taylor, M. (under review). 'Medieval Katha Literature'. Oxford Handbook of Hindu Literature. Oxford University Press. (Submitted 27 May 2018)

  • Taylor, M. 2019. 'The Panchatantra: World Literature before "World Literature" '. Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature.

  • Taylor, M. (in press). 'Muddying the waters: text, source and oral performance'. In. Text and Source: Non-western Modes of Historical Narrative. (accepted 22 Nov 2017)

  • Taylor, M. 2016. Seven Days of Nectar: Contemporary Oral Performance of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa. Oxford University Press. Order here. Read review here

  • Taylor M. 2016. 'Textual strategies, empowerment and 'true' discourse in the Bhāgavatapurāṇa'. DICSEP 5: 339-372. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2015. 'Rattling the Indological cage: fifty years of Doniger'. Journal of Religious and Political Practice 1(1): 107-109. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2015. 'How to do things with Sanskrit: Speech act theory and oral performance of sacred texts'. Numen 62: 519-537. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2014. 'Hindu activists and academic censorship in India'. South Asia. Read online

  • Taylor, M. and Scotellaro, G. 2014. The Joy of Sanskrit: A First-year Syllabus for Tertiary Students. ANU ePress: download here

  • Taylor, M. 2014. 'From web-based learning to eText learning: Teaching Sanskrit with an electronic textbook'. International Journal of Mobile Learning 8(1): 16-27. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2013. 'Stories of God: Contemporary performance of Bhāgavata-kathā'. International Journal of Hindu Studies 17(3): 262-288. Read online

  • Taylor, M and Ye Shaoyong (translators). 2013. Ji Xianlin: 'My heart is a Mirror' and 'Life in the Cattle Yard'. Asian Literature and Translation 1(1): 1-64. Read online

  • Taylor M. 2013. Purāṇic masculinities and transgender adventures in the garden of the Goddess. International Journal of Hindu Studies 17(2): 153-179. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2012. 'Heavenly carrots and earthly sticks: How phalaśruti paratexts empower purāṇic discourse'. Journal of Hindu Studies 5:92-111. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2012 'Rādhe, Rādhe! -- Continuity and change in the contemporary oral performance of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa. Religions of South Asia 6(1):83-101. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2012. 'Empowering the Sacred: How a text creates discourse in a contemporary oral performance of the Bhāgavatapuāṇa' In. Orality and Literacy: Composition and Performance: Brill: 129-149. Read online.

  • Taylor, M. 2011. 'Village deity and sacred text: Power relations and cultural synthesis at an oral performance of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa in a Garhwal community'. Asian Ethnology 70(2): 197-221. Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2011. 'Purnabhadra's Pancatantra: Jaina tales or Brahmanical outsourcing?' International Journal of Jaina Studies 7(1): 1-17. read online

  • Taylor, M. 2011. 'Mythology Wars: The Indian Diaspora, 'Wendy's Children' and the Struggle for the Hindu Past'. Asian Studies Review 35(2): 149-168 Read online

  • Taylor, M. 2010. Indian idol: Narrating the story of Krishna in Globalising contexts. Report to POSCO TJ Park Foundation read online here or here

  • Taylor, M. and Beckmann. E. 2009. 'Skilful methods can achieve what power cannot': Flexible Delivery of Sanskrit at the Australian National University as a Model for Small-enrolment Languages. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 6(1): 245--253 read online

  • Taylor, M. 2008. 'What enables canonical literature to function as 'true'? The case of the Hindu purāṇas'. International Journal of Hindu Studies 12(3): 309-328. read online

  • Taylor, M. 2008. 'This is the truth, the truth without doubt': Textual authority and the enabling of 'true' discourse in the Hindu narrative tradition of the Śivapurāṇa. Religions of South Asia 2.1: 65-82. read online

  • Taylor, M. 2007. The Fall of the Indigo Jackal: The Discourse of Division in Purnabhadra's Pancatantra. Albany NY: SUNY Press.

  • Taylor M. 2007. "Perfumed by golden lotuses: literary place and textual authority in the Brahma- and Bhāgavatapurāṇa". Acta Orientalia Vilnensia 8(1): 69-81. read online

  • Taylor, M. and Lama Choedak Yuthok (translators). 1996. The Clear Mirror: A Traditional Account of Tibet's Golden Age. Snow Lion. order online

Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering discuss Spoken Sanskrit...