Dr. Raj Balkaran

Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit storytelling who brings the myths and wisdom teachings of ancient India to yoga students and general audiences. After a master's degree in Toronto and Sanskrit study in Pune, he completed a doctorate in religion at the University of Calgary in 2015. He has since taught Hinduism and Indian mythology at several Canadian universities and, from 2020, on the continuing education courses of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. His academic books for Routledge look at the Goddess and the sun in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, while The Stories Behind the Poses (2022) retells the legends behind fifty yoga postures and is now used in many teacher trainings.

He sees himself as a teacher within a living lineage as much as an academic. In 2021 he started The Indian Wisdom School, an online school whose courses cover the Goddess traditions, the stories of Śiva and Viṣṇu, the Bhagavad Gītā, mantra and yoga philosophy, alongside a free weekly Gītā study circle. He has recorded hundreds of interviews with scholars of South Asia for a New Books Network podcast on Indian religions, guides pilgrimages to temples in India and residential retreats in other countries, and offers one-to-one life guidance online rooted in the Indian texts. He spent four years as chaplain of Indian spirituality at McMaster University.