Theme & Scope
What the current call is looking for, and how an abstract is judged against it.
Issue theme
Each issue carries a theme set by the editorial board and announced with the call. Themed submissions are read first, but the issue is never filled by theme alone: strong work within the journal's general scope is accepted in every issue.
Scope areas
- Darśana and philosophical reasoning
- Vyākaraṇa, Nyāya and the methods of textual analysis
- Jyotiṣa, gaṇita and the exact sciences
- Āyurveda and the life sciences
- Sthāpatya, śilpa and the applied arts
- Dharmaśāstra, polity and social organisation
- Kāvya, alaṅkāra and literary theory
- Manuscript studies, editions and translation
- Transmission, pedagogy and curriculum
- Comparative and cross-cultural knowledge systems
What makes an abstract competitive
- A question, not a topic. State what you are asking and why it is open.
- Named sources. Say which texts, editions, manuscripts or field material the argument rests on.
- A method. Textual, historical, comparative, philological, ethnographic — name it, and say why it suits the material.
- A claim. Say what you expect to show. A finding you can state in one sentence is a good sign.
What is normally declined at abstract stage
- Summaries of existing scholarship with no new question
- Arguments that rest on the authority of a source rather than on evidence from it
- Claims of scientific priority for a classical text that are not argued from the text
- Devotional or polemical writing
- Work already published or under consideration elsewhere
After selection
Selection of an abstract is an invitation to submit a full paper. It is not an acceptance: every full paper goes through technical screening and double-anonymous peer review, described under Review & Revision.