SV: [INDOLOGY @ ] JNU Rejects Indology/classical studies

[Guest guest]

Bharat Gupt [sMTP:abhinav] skrev 21. april 2001 13:58:

> It may be of interest to scholars and students of Indian and other

> classical studies

> that a few days ago the Academic Council of the Jawaharlal Nehru

> University,

> New Delhi rejected a proposal to establish a School of Indology and

> Classical

> Studies offering regular courses and degrees in such subjects as may

> fall in its ambit.

 

I am surprised to hear that there was no institute of Indology *before*! It

is good that Greece is funding Greek studies (it is certainly better than

nothing), but what about Latin? Are there any Indian universities where

Latin is offered?

 

Lars Martin Fosse

 

 

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse

Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,

0674 Oslo

Norway

Phone: +47 22 32 12 19

Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45

Fax 1: +47 22 32 12 19

Fax 2: +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)

Email: lmfosse

[Guest guest]

It's really sad to see the classical languages of India

get neglected at the Indian universities in Delhi

and elsewhere.

 

South Indian classics are given a deserving study and analysis

in Europe and America than in India :-(

 

Edwin Bryant once noted that Linguistics, a study

of comparison between Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Munda, Tibeto-Burman

language families are NOT part of the research in Indian

universities!

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

 

 

INDOLOGY, Lars Martin Fosse <lmfosse@o...> wrote:

> Bharat Gupt [sMTP:abhinav@d...] skrev 21. april 2001 13:58:

> > It may be of interest to scholars and students of Indian and other

> > classical studies

> > that a few days ago the Academic Council of the Jawaharlal Nehru

> > University,

> > New Delhi rejected a proposal to establish a School of Indology

and

> > Classical

> > Studies offering regular courses and degrees in such subjects as

may

> > fall in its ambit.

>

> I am surprised to hear that there was no institute of Indology

*before*! It

> is good that Greece is funding Greek studies (it is certainly better

than

> nothing), but what about Latin? Are there any Indian universities

where

> Latin is offered?

>

> Lars Martin Fosse

>

>

> Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse

> Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,

> 0674 Oslo

> Norway

> Phone: +47 22 32 12 19

> Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45

> Fax 1: +47 22 32 12 19

> Fax 2: +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)

> Email: lmfosse@o...

[Guest guest]

<South Indian classics are given a deserving study and analysis<BR>

in Europe and America than in India >

This is equally true ofSanskritic and other branches of Indological scholarship

, even if (now and again) one

detects sinister motivations and intentional misrepresentations in some of

these.

In any event, for the good and the bad, these are the consequences of the

pioneering work of 19th century European Indologists who are, with or without

reason, bashed right and left by many newly awakened Hindu thinkers.

 

VVRaman

[Guest guest]

The process which began at Nehru's time was denounced by indologists such

as Alain Danielou already in the fifties and sixties.Shri Gopala Shastri,

with whom I studied paninian grammar in the seventies was in his youth

strongly engaged in the struggle to preserve the traditional teaching

methods as well as the very study of traditional Indian culture at the

Universities. In his early eighties he seemed to be quite pessimistic in

face of the trends he observed.That in the 70's.

The whole process is a package and globalisation is just its most recent,

radical and all pervading face. Un miroitment de surface as Foucault would

say is what is expected to come out of all this heritage eroding "paideia"

being put at work everywhere in the so called third world.

 

Jesualdo Correia

_______________________

Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

[Guest guest]

Dr Raman rightly points out that we must thank western Indologists

during the colonial period for working so hard. But does one also

thank the Indologists for the self-hate mentality among 'modern'

Indians that causes JNU to ban Indic linguistics and culture, while

promoting Greek, English literature, etc, ? Or is there some other

theory of self-hate? I wonder if members here agree with Ronald

Inden, who dissected Indology over the past 200 years in this

book 'Imagining India'.

 

R. Malhotra

[Guest guest]

<Dr Raman rightly points out that we must thank western Indologists <BR>

during the colonial period for working so hard. But does one also <BR>

thank the Indologists for the self-hate mentality among 'modern' <BR>

Indians that causes JNU to ban Indic linguistics and culture, while <BR>

promoting Greek, English literature, etc, ? >

 

1. I don't recall saying we should be <thankful> to Western Indologists or to

anybody for that matter, if only because I don't think whatever they did was to

serve US. I was merely pointing to what struck me as an irony of Hindu

cultural history in which the same forces that played mischief on the Hindu

world also played (quite unwittingly) a positive role in some respects.

 

2. Nor do I feel that every Hindu/Indian who benefited from any of the efforts

of Western Indologists developed a self-hate. Many pre-independence Hindu

thinkers (Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Radhakrishnan, Sri Aurobindo, for

example) developed a far greater appreciation of and respect for India's

ancient culture in spite of (if not as a result of) reading the works of

Western Indologists.

 

3. This <self-hate> phenomenon (among Western-educated Hindus) is often a

result of NOT studying anything about one's own culture and heritage, rather

than because of studying the works of Western Indologists.

 

4. In other words, we should not confuse ignorance of one's own

culture/heritage (which certainly was a consequence of English education in

Indian schools and colleges) with a study of the works of ancient Hindu

thinkers via the English medium or as interpreted by some Indologists.

 

5. Then again, I cannot speak for self-haters for whom I have little respect

and great pity. But I for one came to know a good deal about my own Sanskritic

heritage initially via English and French books by Hindu as well as Western

scholars, although (in my case) I did not need the English vehicle for deriving

knowledge and enrichment from my Tamil heritage. I am not a self-hater,

whatever that phrase may mean. Nor am I recommending that anybody be <thankful>

to Max Mueller or Monier Williams or Louis Renou or Eliade or Staal or

Danielou, oreven to Elst or Gautier.

 

V. V. Raman

April 21, 2001

[Guest guest]

I agree with Dr. Raman that BOTH ignorance of truth (of own heritage)

and superimposing of falsity (avidya: sometimes part of an agenda and

sometimes unintentional) are responsible for the prevailing

perspectives. These two forces (of ignorance and false

superimposition) mutually reinforce each other and together shape the

perspective. The remedy for this cultural maya must then involve

getting rid of both and not just either/or.

 

R. Malhotra

[Guest guest]

JNU academic committee may be well within their rights to reject

Indology studies. It may be good for Indology not to be at JNU, as

Tulsi Das said..

 

Avat hi harshai nahin, nainan nahin saneh

Tulasi vahan na jAyiye kanchana barse megh.

 

There is no pleasure in reaching there, no friendship seen in eyes,

Tualsi, dont go there, even if gold is raining from clouds.

 

So Indology institute may be set up elsewhere. But now after this,

can JNU still claim to have any authority over Indian History? Is it

possible to reject a study of Indology but retain a say in History?

Will they depend on second hand sources for their updates or do they

want to teach history "as taught by Jawaharlal Nehru"?

 

Regards

Bhadraiah