End September 2021 – We hear with great regret that our esteemed colleague Maya Warrier passed away after a long illness on 24.9.2021. An obituary is found in the November 21 issue of the Bulletin of the British Association for the Study of Religions (page 31). 

Maya Warrier was a Reader in Religious Studies at the University of Winchester until her retirement in 2020. Her research explored popular Hindu traditions in modern transnational contexts. Her last research projects focused on Ayurveda (the ancient Indian system of medicine) in the UK.

Her monograph, Hindu Selves in a Modern World: Guru Faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission (Routledge-Curzon, 2005) examines contemporary forms of bhakti (devotion) and seva (service) practised by the urban Indian ‘middle class’ devotees of the transnational guru Mata Amritanandamayi (popularly known as Amma).

Publications

Books

2012. Public Hinduisms (co-edited with John Zavos, Deepa Reddy et al.) Delhi, London: Sage

2005. Hindu Selves in the Modern World: Guru Faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission. London and New York: Routledge-Curzon, South Asian Religion Series (also published in Delhi, India by Foundation Books)

Articles and Book chapters

2021. ‘Ayurveda: The Modern Faces of ‘Vedic’ Healing and Sacred Science’ in Klassen, P., Hetmancyzk, P., Luddeckens, D. & Stein, J. (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Medicine and Health. London and New York: Routledge

2020. ‘Ayurveda in Europe’ in 2020, Handbook of Hinduism in Europe. Jocobsen, K. & Sardella, F. (eds.). Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers

2019. ‘Āyurveda and Mind-Body Healing: Legitimizing Strategies in the Autobiographical Writing of Deepak Chopra . International Journal of Hindu Studies. 23(2): 123-145.

2018. ‘Health and Popular Psychology: Ayurveda in the Western Holistic Health Sector.’ Religions of South Asia. 12(1).

2015. ‘Modernised Ayurveda in India and the West’ in Jacobsen, Knut A. (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Contemporary India. Abingdon: Routledge

2015. ‘Hinduism in the United Kingdom’ in Hatcher, Brian (ed.) Hinduism in
the Modern World. New York: Routledge

2014. ‘The Professionalisation of Ayurveda in Britain: The Twin Imperatives
of Biomedicalisation and Spiritualisation’ in Sax, William et al. (eds) Asymmetrical Conversations: Contestations, Circumventions and the Blurring of Therapeutic Boundaries. Oxford and New York: Berghahn, Epistemologies of Healing Series.

2014. ‘Online Bhakti in a Modern Guru Organisation’ in Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg (eds) Gurus of Modern Yoga.

2012. Public Hinduisms. Co-edited with John Zavos, Deepa Reddy et al. London: Sage.

2011. ‘Modern Ayurveda in Transnational Context’. Religion Compass. 5, 3: 80-93.

2011. ‘Revisiting the Easternisation Thesis: The Spiritualisation of Ayurveda in Modern Britain’ in Paul Heelas (ed) Spirituality in the Modern World: Within Religious Tradition and Within Realms Beyond, Volume 3. Routledge.

2008. ‘Seekership, Spirituality and Self-discovery: Ayurveda Students in Britain’. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity. 4: 423-451

2006. “Modernity and its imbalances: Constructing modern selfhood in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission”. Religion. 36: 179-195

2003. “The Seva Ethic and the Spirit of Institution Building in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission” in Antony Copley (ed.) Hinduism in Public and Private. Delhi: Oxford University Press

2003. “Guru Choice and Spiritual Seeking in Contemporary India”. International Journal of Hindu Studies. 7, 1-3: 31-54

2003. “Processes of Secularisation in Contemporary India: Guru Faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission”. Modern Asian Studies. 37,1: 2