Simon Winant is a PhD student at UGent working on Jain Sanskrit adaptations of the Indian epic Mahābhārata. His current project focuses on how Jains depicted the character of Kīcaka, a sexual predator in the ‘original’ Mahābhārata of Hindu narrative tradition, either as an irredeemable villain or as a Jain renouncer. Besides Sanskrit epics and Jainism, Simon’s research interests also include early Sanskrit kāvya authors, Prakrit, and historical linguistics.