The State of Indology
Thursday, 18. January 2007 - 11:44 AM
Recall my series on Indology? Dr. N.S. Rajaram throws more light on the pathetic state of this discipline, which is all but extinct in the Western academia.
WITHIN THE past year, the Sanskrit Department at Cambridge University and the Berlin Institute of Indology, two of the oldest and most prestigious Indology centres in the West, have shut their doors. The reason cited is lack of interest. At Cambridge, not a single student had enrolled this year for its Sanskrit or Hindi course. Other universities in Europe and America are facing similar problems.
Coming at a time when worldwide interest in India is the highest in memory, it points to structural problems in Indology and related fields such as Indo-European Studies. What is striking is the contrast between this gloomy academic scene and the outside world.
Anything built on weak foundations will eventually collapse. Indology is simply another name for racism or more accurately, White supremacy. Let’s not mourn its death.
19. January 2007 - 12:13 AM
True. I saw some mails in which the Indology “researchers” were looking for funding from wealthy NRIs. I should probably fund some of them, if they eat their words.
19. January 2007 - 10:00 AM
JK,
Absolutely, JK. These researchers are looking to maintain their status quo as “interpreters” and not for any noble purpose of finding out the truth. Ask them, if they will eat their words.
21. January 2007 - 4:37 AM
Though I love to study Indology as a hobby and mourn its demise in Western Academia, I beg to differ with your analysis.
Just calling it racism and white hegemony is stupidity. Tell me how many people in India study Sanskrit today?!? The Mysore maharaja’s sanskrit college is another victim. Is that also racism? If there is no one enrolling in their courses, obviously the departments will shut down. I recently met Prof. Sheldon Pollock of the University of Chicago(sanskrit dept) at a lecture. He said that the lowest form of interest regarding Sanskrit and Indology in the world was exhibited in India itself. In that lecture I attended, I was the lone Indian face in a crowd of about 80-100. Can you explain that?!?
22. January 2007 - 10:27 AM
Pratap,
Your points are valid and let me try to address them. The linked article provides info ONLY on the collapse of Indology in the West.
>>Just calling it racism and white hegemony is stupidity.
How or why is it stupidity despite tons of evidence that prove otherwise?
>>Tell me how many people in India study Sanskrit today?!? The Mysore maharaja’s sanskrit college is another victim.
I agree. But I’m sure you know that Sanskrit and in the larger sphere, Hinduism was itself actively discouraged starting right with Nehru. It was–and is still–considered a “dead” language on very flimsy bases. If the State actively discourages a field of study, why would people pursue it, especially if there was no means to earn their living by studying it? Even today, anybody wanting to learn Sanskrit would be branded as “elitist,” “casteist,” and other slur-words. But fundamentally, the reason people no longer learn Sanskrit is because it does not help them earn a living.
Does that explain it?
22. January 2007 - 3:10 PM
Pratap,
I think Indology is not Sanskrit. AFAIK, Indology deals with – Aryan theories, Indian customs (particularly the bad ones), indians living like savages, “peaceful” muslim invasions, secularism of mughals, the british raj, etc.
27. January 2007 - 7:31 AM
Sandeep ,
Whether one beleives in Hindutva or not, it is not too hard to understand why the present
school of indology is doomed to fail.
By clinging on tenaciously to outdated paradigms , many of these people (some of
these people have a policial axe to grind
back here in India) have actually increased
superstition and blind faith.
It works like this:
Nobody beleives school textbooks anymore. To satiate their hunger for knowledge, people
rely on alternative sources of information
Sujay Rao Mandavilli
28. February 2010 - 12:28 PM
Here is the complete , comprehensive solution to the so-called Aryan problem
Part one is a high level overview. Part two is much more interesting
This is one of the longest research papers published in a peer-reviewed journal since independance.
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/27103044/Sujay-NPAP-Part-One
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/27105677/Sujay-Npap-Part-Two
> Mirror:
> http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25880426/Sujay-NPAP-Part-One
> http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25865304/SUJAY-NPAP-Part-Two
Links to the journal
Part one http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1324506
Part Two http://ssrn.com/abstract=1541822
SUJAY RAO MANDAVILLI