The Examination of Religion (Dharmaparīkṣā): A Jain Tradition of Narrative Adaptations with Heleen De Jonckheere (Brill, 2026)

you? So I'll start from answering your first question.

So how did I stumble into this world of Jane narratives? It's not very difficult.

So I did an MA degree and a BA degree as well in Ghent in Belgium.

This is a sort of a classical Indology program that we have there.

Studying with Professor Eva de Klerk, mostly, and some former colleagues of hers, such as Frank van den Bosse.

And their work was focused on Jainism.

So I did my degree and in my MA I asked her, okay, I'm actually interested in doing a PhD after this, what should I do? And so she's like, okay, so let's think first of all about maybe topics that could be interesting to...

also work with me and then for my MA I translated a Prakrit text by an author called Deva Sena which was called Darshanasara and I did this because I was interested in philosophy Now, it turns out the text is not very philosophical, but it's more about polemics and sort of making sure that you are part of the correct group.

It says this group originated then and it's wrong.

It's a short text, some like 50 verses or so, but it is not refuting these other traditions based upon their philosophical points.

And so after that, we talked again.

Okay, what about the PhD? And then this text called Dharmapariksha came up.

Another sort of examination of dharma.

It's going to be about polemics again.

But again, not really philosophy.

A little bit, but not that much.

And a lot of narrative in it.

And so that's how I entered... into the world of of Jane narratives and it worked quite well uh working with Eva because that's really what she does um so yeah all in all it was it was a good choice to do that and

Yeah, it was great seeing her, and I heard her present, not at this recent one, but I think at the Dix set before that, the development conference.

Yeah, really fascinating work.

So there are many interesting facets to this project, and I think one of them is the sources.

What are you looking at?

So I agree with the fact that there are several interesting things about the project.

So what am I looking at? I call it a tradition.

So I'm looking at multiple texts.

you? So I'll start from answering your first question.

So how did I stumble into this world of Jane narratives? It's not very difficult.

So I did an MA degree and a BA degree as well in Ghent in Belgium.

This is a sort of a classical Indology program that we have there.

Studying with Professor Eva de Klerk, mostly, and some former colleagues of hers, such as Frank van den Bosse.

And their work was focused on Jainism.

So I did my degree and in my MA I asked her, okay, I'm actually interested in doing a PhD after this, what should I do? And so she's like, okay, so let's think first of all about maybe topics that could be interesting to...

also work with me and then for my MA I translated a Prakrit text by an author called Deva Sena which was called Darshanasara and I did this because I was interested in philosophy Now, it turns out the text is not very philosophical, but it's more about polemics and sort of making sure that you are part of the correct group.

It says this group originated then and it's wrong.

It's a short text, some like 50 verses or so, but it is not refuting these other traditions based upon their philosophical points.

And so after that, we talked again.

Okay, what about the PhD? And then this text called Dharmapariksha came up.

Another sort of examination of dharma.

It's going to be about polemics again.

But again, not really philosophy.

A little bit, but not that much.

And a lot of narrative in it.

And so that's how I entered... into the world of of Jane narratives and it worked quite well uh working with Eva because that's really what she does um so yeah all in all it was it was a good choice to do that and

Yeah, it was great seeing her, and I heard her present, not at this recent one, but I think at the Dix set before that, the development conference.

Yeah, really fascinating work.

So there are many interesting facets to this project, and I think one of them is the sources.

What are you looking at?

So I agree with the fact that there are several interesting things about the project.

So what am I looking at? I call it a tradition.

So I'm looking at multiple texts.