AI Use Policy

Generative AI tools may assist an author. They may not stand in for the author's judgement, and they cannot be a source.

For authors

Permitted, with disclosure

  • Language editing, grammar and style correction of text you wrote.
  • Improving the readability of a passage whose argument is your own.
  • Formatting references, tables or bibliographies.
  • Translating your own draft between languages, where you verify the result.

Not permitted

  • Generating the argument, the analysis or the interpretation.
  • Producing a translation of a primary text that is presented as scholarly translation.
  • Generating citations, references or textual references. Tools invent plausible Sanskrit citations — chapter and verse numbers that do not exist, editions that were never printed, commentaries attributed to the wrong author. Every reference must be verified against the physical or digital source.
  • Generating or altering data, images, manuscript readings or field material.
  • Writing an abstract or conclusion that the author has not verified as accurate.

Authorship

An AI tool cannot be an author and cannot be listed as one. It cannot take responsibility for the work, and responsibility is what authorship means. The named authors are accountable for every word of the submission, including anything a tool helped produce.

Disclosure

Where a tool was used in any permitted way, say so at submission and in a short statement before the references:

“The author used [tool] for language editing of the manuscript. All scholarly content, analysis, translations and references are the author's own and have been verified against the sources.”

Undisclosed use that is later discovered is handled as misconduct under Publication Ethics.

For reviewers

  • A manuscript must not be uploaded to any AI tool. A manuscript under review is confidential, and uploading it is a breach of that confidence regardless of the tool's stated policy.
  • The review must be the reviewer's own reading and judgement.
  • A tool may be used to correct the language of a report the reviewer has written.

For editors

  • Editorial decisions are made by people. No decision is delegated to a tool.
  • Manuscripts are not uploaded to external tools at any stage.
  • Similarity and integrity checks run on systems contracted by the journal under confidentiality.

Why the journal is strict here

The material this journal publishes is unusually easy to fabricate convincingly. A false verse reference in IAST is indistinguishable from a true one to most readers, and a fluent invented translation can survive several readings. The verification burden therefore sits with the author, and it is not transferable.