Mag. Dr. Himal Trikha

Himal Trikha studied Indology at the University of Vienna. He graduated in 1999 on the concept of prescriptive speech acts (vidhi) in Viśiṣṭādvaitavedānta with Gerhard Oberhammer. He completed his doctorate in 2009 on the concept of inherence (samavāya) and other tenets of the Vaiśeṣika in Jaina Sanskrit works with Karin Preisendanz.

Trikha was employed at the ISTB in various research, teaching and project positions from 1999 to 2011, at last within the project The Sanskrit manuscripts of the Woolner collection, Lahore. He then worked at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Vienna, initially within the project Fragments of Indian Philosophy, then within his Erwin-Schrödinger project Perspectivism and intertextuality in Vidyānandins works. The latter was carried out in part at the Institute Mondes iranien et indien, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris. He returned to the ISTB in 2020.

Trikha is interested in the interaction of Jaina philosophers with other traditions of Indian thought. His research focus lies on the history of the epistemological model that the Jainas provide for this interaction (→ anekāntavāda).

He further studies distinct textual references to philosophical tenets of other philosophical traditions in Jaina Sans­krit works. Material for this research is collected in the online applications Biobibliography of Digambara Philosophers (www.dipal.org/bbdp) and Digital Corpus of Vidyānandin's Works (www.dipal.org/dcvw). His publications are available at academia.edu.