Literary circles

For members outside India, meeting online so the time zones can be made to work. English is the shared language of discussion; the texts are always read first in the original.

Maithili, Bhojpuri and Hindi. Vidyapati anchors the year’s reading, and the chapter collects sung versions from performers across the region.

Kannada, Telugu and Tamil, meeting across the three. The vachana poets and the Alvars are standing subjects; sessions are usually part reading, part discussion of translation.

Marathi and Hindi. The chapter reads the sant tradition — Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Namdev — and hosts the archive’s translation workshop twice a year.

Bengali and Sanskrit, with a particular interest in the Vaishnava lyric and in Jayadeva. Sessions run bilingually and the chapter maintains the Bengali reading list.

Rajasthani and Braj. Meerabai’s padas are read with singers as often as with scholars, and the chapter records what it can for the recitation library.

Awadhi and Hindi, with a long-running seminar on Tulsidas. The chapter also runs the transcription evenings that feed corrected texts back into the archive.

Braj country. The circle works close to the Surdas and Rahim material in the archive, and keeps a standing reading group on the pada form and its music.

The oldest of the chapters and the busiest. A monthly reading that alternates between a classical text read line by line and an open floor for members’ own work. Hindi and Sanskrit lead; Punjabi…