Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism

Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism

Author: Douglas T. McGetchin

Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 083864208X

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He has presented more than a dozen papers at academic conferences in North America, Europe, and South Asia, including Harvard University, Humboldt University, Heidelberg University's South Asia Institute, and the Max Mueller Bhavan in New Delhi, India.


The Making of Western Indology

The Making of Western Indology

Author: Rosane Rocher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-17

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1317579178

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Drawing on new sources, this book evaluates the importance of Henry Thomas Colebrooke, an East India Company civil servant who became the father of modern Indology. Written by renowned academics in the field of Indology, and drawing on new sources, this book shows how he embodies the significant passage from eighteenth century colonial expansion, to the professional, transnational ethos of nineteenth century intellectual life and scholarly enquiry.


Indian Culture and India's Future

Indian Culture and India's Future

Author: Michel Danino

Publisher: D.K. Print World Limited

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788124605677

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Can Indian civilization be compared to a thousand-branched tree? What have been its outstanding achievements and its impact on the world? These are some of the questions this book asks. But it also deals with issues confronting more and more Indians caught in an identity crisis: What does it mean to be Indian? What is specific to the worldview developed by Indian culture? How has it dialogued with other cultures? Is it built on durable foundations, or is it little more than colourful religiosity and quaint but outdated customs? And what are the meaning and application of secularism and tolerance in the Indian context? The French-born author, who has been living in India for 33 years, argues that Indian culture is not some exotic relic of the past, but a dynamic force that still has a role to play in defining India's identity and cohesion, and in proposing solutions to today's global challenges. Written in a crisp and engaging style, this thought-provoking volume challenges received ideas on India's culture and invites us to think afresh. Can Indian civilization be compared to a thousand-branched tree? What have been its outstanding achievements and its impact on the world? These are some of the questions this book asks. But it also deals with issues confronting more and more Indians caught in an identity crisis: What does it mean to be Indian? What is specific to the worldview developed by Indian culture? How has it dialogued with other cultures? Is it built on durable foundations, or is it little more than colourful religiosity and quaint but outdated customs? And what are the meaning and application of secularism and tolerance in the Indian context? The French-born author, who has been living in India for 33 years, argues that Indian culture is not some exotic relic of the past, but a dynamic force that still has a role to play in defining India's identity and cohesion, and in proposing solutions to today's global challenges. Written in a crisp and engaging style, this thought-provoking volume challenges received ideas on India's culture and invites us to think afresh. -- Provided by publisher.


Indology

Indology

Author: Saroja Bhate

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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The Book Is A Compilation Of Seminar Papers In Which Scholars Of India As Well As Abroad Have Discussed At Length The State Of Indology In The Past, Present And Future. Indology Which Has A History Of A Little Over Two Hundred Years, Started And Nurtured In The West. It Arrived In India Along With A Few Other Imported Ideologies With The Package Of Modern Higher Education During The Pre-Independence Period. Since Then, A New Current Of Indigenous Indology Joined The Main Current. Some Papers Of The Volume Dealt With The Fundamental Theme Of Indology And Some Devoted To The Status Reports On Indology In Diferent Countries Such As Usa, Brazil, Russia, Poland, China And Australia. The Topics Selected For The Seminar Offered A Wide Range Of Problems Based On Indology Which Is Not Embracing All Aspects Of Indian Culture. This Collection Will Enable Researchers Of India And West To Work Together Rather Than Against Each Other.


Colonial Indology

Colonial Indology

Author: Dilip K. Chakrabarti

Publisher:

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13:

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Description: This book explores some underlying theoretical premises of the Western study of ancient India. These premises developed in response to the colonial need to manipulate the Indians' perception of their past. The need was felt most strongly from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, and an elaborate racist framework, in which the interrelationship between race, language and culture was a key element, slowly emerged as an explanation of the ancient Indian historical universe. The measure of its success is obvious from the fact that the Indian nationalist historians left this framework unchallenged, preferring to dispute it only in some comparatively minor matters of detail. This book argues that this framework is still in place, and implicitly accepted not merely by Western Indologists but also by their Indian counterparts. The image of the ancient Indian past remains the same. The persistence of the old image is reflective of India's relationship as a part of the Third World with the West and Western historical scholarship. This book has a further argument. Mere dismantling of the current racist structure of our perception of ancient India and all that implies will not lead by itself to an Indian perception of the ancient Indian past. Besides, any alternative sense of this past should be something in which all Indians, irrespective of their individual affiliations, can feel having a share. Among other things, the book underlines the total inadequacy of ancient Indian texts to offer fine resolution historical images in chronological and geographical order, and argues that this goal is unlikely to be achieved by combining our historical texts with some social science theories. This can be achieved only through detailed grassroots investigations of the ancient history of the land and its interrelations with human beings. The academic context of the book lies in an increasingly expanding area of archaeological studies of the sociopolitics of the past. This is the first major exercise in this direction in the context of India.


Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings

Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings

Author: Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 880

ISBN-13:

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D. D. Kosambi was a pioneer in Indian studies, introducing new perspectives and interdisciplinary methods. This book collects many of his most important writings, on a wide range of topics, from philology and text editing to religion, historical reconstruction, archaeology, and anthropology. This anthology is the first to give readers easy access to this versatile and influential body of work.


Unifying Hinduism

Unifying Hinduism

Author: Andrew J. Nicholson

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2013-12-01

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0231149875

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Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality. Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy.


The Nay Science

The Nay Science

Author: Vishwa Adluri

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0199931356

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The Nay Science offers a new perspective on the problem of scientific method in the human sciences. Taking German Indological scholarship on the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita as their example, Adluri and Bagchee develop a critique of the modern valorization of method over truth in the humanities. The authors show how, from its origins in eighteenth-century Neo-Protestantism onwards, the critical method was used as a way of making theological claims against rival philosophical and/or religious traditions. Via discussions of German Romanticism, the pantheism controversy, scientific positivism, and empiricism, they show how theological concerns dominated German scholarship on the Indian texts. Indology functions as a test case for wider concerns: the rise of historicism, the displacement of philosophical concerns from thinking, and the belief in the ability of a technical method to produce truth. Based on the historical evidence of the first part of the book, Adluri and Bagchee make a case in the second part for going beyond both the critical pretensions of modern academic scholarship and the objections of its post-structuralist or post-Orientalist critics. By contrasting German Indology with Plato's concern for virtue and Gandhi's focus on praxis, the authors argue for a conception of the humanities as a dialogue between the ancients and moderns and between eastern and western cultures.