Dakini Conversations

Introduction This is a Dakini Conversations interview podcast (June 1 2026) with a woman who needs little introduction in India: Maneka Gandhi. She is widely known not only as a former member of the socially and politically influential Gandhi family, but also as a leading animal rights advocate, founder of major animal welfare initiatives, environmentalist, vegan campaigner, author, and former Uni...

For Episode 9 of the Dakini Conversations podcast I am delighted to welcome Deepak Anand, an Indian explorer, writer and researcher and author of several books on Indian Buddhist heritage sites and Buddhist relics, and founder of a remarkable project to film and document important Buddhist sites by personally retracing by foot, the route of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, 7th CE monk scholar Xuanzan...

For the latest episode of Dakini Conversations podcast Episode 8, Adele Tomlin speaks with writer, thinker and philanthropist, Prof. Peter Singer, considered by many to be the “founder of the modern animal welfare movement,” he was recently named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine ( https://content.time.com/time/special... . I first came across Singer’s ideas  a few y...

Here is the seventh episode of the Dakini Conversations podcast, an in-depth discussion with the leading Indian Kālacakra scholar and translator, Niraj Kumar, who was also recently promoted to Joint Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Culture (after being the Director for a couple of years).   Niraj is a commentator on Shakta and Buddhist Tantras, and has been active with various facets of Tibetan...

On Tara Day (20th December 2023) it was a delight and honour to welcome a woman who really needs no introduction within the world of Tibetan Buddhism, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, who is now an unbelievable eighty years old. Jetsunma’s activities are hard to describe in a few words, as she is like an emanation of Noble Tara or Vajrayogini in human form, yet I will try. One of the first western fully ord...

In Episode 5 of Dakini Conversations, Adele Tomlin interviews Dr. Jue Liang, a female scholar and translator originally from China, whose PhD in 2020, from the University of Virginia, was on the life of highly-realised Tibetan yogini, female lineage holder and famous consort of Guru Padmasambhava, Yeshe Tsogyel. Dr. Liang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Wes...

In Episode 4 of the Dakini Conversations podcast, Adele Tomlin speaks with Dr. Geoffrey Barstow, one of the leading scholars and writers in the world today on the topic of vegetarianism and eating animals in Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.  Dr. Barstow spent significant time studying Tibetan language and Buddhist Philosophy in Nepal and his PhD from the University of Virginia (2013) entitled ' Foo...

For the third episode of Dakini Conversations, Adele Tomlin speaks with British journalist and writer, Mick Brown about his important book 'Dance of 17 Lives: The Incredible True Story of Tibet's 17th Karmapa' (originally published in 2004). As Adele mentioned recently in an interview , it was reading this book on a plane to India for the first time in 2005, that led her to meet the Ti...

In this second episode of the Dakini Conversations podcast it is a great delight and honour to welcome Prof. Janet Gyatso, the first and current Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies at the Divinity School of Harvard University. In the Buddhist Studies and Tibetology world, Prof. Gyatso really needs no introduction, and is a prime example of a woman who has reached the peak of the academy, while a...

In the first episode of Dakini Conversations, a new channel for interviews/podcasts, Adele Tomlin (Buddhist scholar-translator-practitioner and founder of Dakini Translations) interviews Karma Dendup, Bhutanese founder of Jangsem Monday (Meatless Monday Bhutan) and an advocate for a more compassionate planet. Karma Dendup is also a media producer who before becoming Head of Production at the Bhuta...