Frederick M. Smith
Professor of Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religions
Department of Religious Studies;
Department of Asian & Slavic Languages and
Literature
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
frederick-smith@uiowa.edu
Frederick Smith’s primary interest lies at the intersection of text and practice, in what
gives cultural and religious traditions their dynamism. As a scholar of Sanskrit and South
Asia, his work includes studies of texts and performances of Vedic sacrificial ritual from
antiquity to the present; studies of religious experience in India, with a primary focus on
the history and phenomenology of deity and spirit possession; the writings of
Vallabhācārya, the founder of the sect of Krishna devotion called Puṣṭi Mārga (Path of
Grace) in the early 16th century, and his successors; and finally, but by no means least of all,
India’s great epic, the Mahābhārata, a text with which every scholar of Indian antiquity
must eventually come to grips. Numerous other interests also rise up occasionally,
particularly in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra, and in the history and practice of Ayurveda, the
indigenous medical system of India. He is currently completing a book length translation of
part of the Mahābhārata (the Āśvamedhika parvan, forthcoming from the University of
Chicago Press), is under contract to write a general book on the Vedas (with George
Thompson, to be published by Cambridge University Press), and am engaged in a major,
book-length study of significant sections of a Buddhist Tantric text, the Mañjuśrimūlakalpa
(with Ronald Davidson).
As a Sanskritist, he teaches all levels of the language, and as a teacher in religious studies,
he teaches Indian (and other South Asian) religion, comparative religion, and ritual
studies.
He tries to bring his experience of living and studying in India for 15 years into his work.
That period includes 7 years in Pune, 3 years in Madras (before it was Chennai) and
elsewhere in South India, and several years in north India, principally in Braj and the
Himalayas, where he presently maintains a house. He has also traveled widely in Tibet and
China.
Selected Publications
Bo o k s
The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2006 (pp. xxxiv + 701).
The Vedic Sacrifice in Transition: A Translation and Study of the Trikāṇḍamaṇḍana of Bhsāskara
Miśra. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1987 (pp. xxxii + 520).
Modern and Global Ayurveda: Pluralism and Paradigms. (With Dagmar Wujastyk). Albany
NY: State University of New York Press, 2008 (pp. 349).
The Mahābhārata: 14. The Book of the Sacrifice of the Horse. Introduction, translation, and
annotations. University of Chicago Press, 2011 (forthcoming).
Ar t i c l es an d Bo o k C h apt er s
Historical Symmetry and Ritual Asymmetry: The interrelations Between Vedic Ritual and
Temple Construction in Modern India. In Axel Michaels (Ed.). Ritual Dynamics and
the Science of Ritual. Stuttgart: Otto Harrassowitz, 2010. [In Press]
Possession, Embodiment, and Ritual in Mental Health Care in India. Journal of Ritual
Studies 2010 [In Press]
Dark Matter in Vārtāland: On the Enterprise of History in Early Puṣṭimārga Discourse.
Journal of Hindu Studies 2.1 (2009): 27-47.
Narrativity and Empiricism in Classical Indian Accounts of Birth and Death: The
Mahābhārata and the Saṃhitās of Caraka and Suśruta. Asian Medicine, Tradition and
Modernity 3 (2007): 85-102.
Vedic and Devotional Waters: The Jalabheda of Vallabhācārya. International Journal of Hindu
Studies 10.1 (2005): 107-136.
The Hierarchy of Philosophical Systems According to Vallabhācārya. Journal of Indian
Philosophy 33.4 (2005): 421-453.
The Recent History of Vedic Ritual in Maharashtra. In Klaus Karttunen and Petteri
Koskikallio. (Eds.).Vidyārṇavavadanam. Essays in Honour of Asko Parpola. Studia
Orientalia 94 (2001): 443-63.
The Current State of Possession Studies as a Cross Disciplinary Project. Religious Studies
Review 27.3 (2001): 203-212.
Indra Goes West: Report on a Vedic Soma Sacrifice in London in July 1996. History of Religions
39.3 (2000): 247-267.
Nirodha and the Nirodhalakṣaṇa of Vallabhācārya. Journal of Indian Philosophy 26.6
(1998): 589-651.
Purāṇaveda. In Laurie Patton (Ed.). Authority, Anxiety, and Canon: Essays in Vedic Interpretation,
pp. 97-139. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
The Identity and Significance of the valmīkavapā in the Vedic Sacrificial Ritual (with Dr. S.
J. Carri, S. J.). Indo-Iranian Journal 38.1 (1994): 30-61.
Śaṅkara, Vedānta, and the Transmission of the Veda in the Ṡaṅkara Tradition. In Dr. S. S.
Bahulkar (Ed.). Festschrift for Prof. C. G. Kashikar. pp. 132-146. Pune: Tilak Maharashtra
Vidyapeeth, 1994.
The Saṃnyāsanirṇaya, a Śuddhādvaita Text on Renunciation by Vallabhācārya. Journal of
Vaiṣṇava Studies 1.4 (1993): 135-156.
Indra’s Curse, Varuṇa’s Noose, and the Suppression of the Woman in the Vedic Śrauta Ritual.
In I. Julia Leslie (Ed.). Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women, pp. 17-45. London: Pinter
Press, 1991.