Murty Classical Library of India explained

The Murty Classical Library of India began publishing classics of Indian literature in January 2015. The books, which are in dual-language format with the original language and English facing, are published by Harvard University Press. The library was established through a $5.2 million gift from Rohan Murty, the son of Infosys co-founder N. R. Narayana Murthy and social worker and author Sudha Murty.[1] The series will include translations from Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, other Indian languages and Persian. It will include fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and religious texts from all Indian traditions including Buddhism and Islam.[2] The projected 500 volumes, to be published over a century, have a corpus of thousands of volumes of classic Indian literature to draw on.[3]

Until 2022, Sheldon Pollock served as the general editor of the library. Pollock had previously edited the Clay Sanskrit Library.

Inception

Sheldon Pollock was searching for a sponsor to continue the work of Clay Sanskrit Library, whose funding had ended in 2008. Rohan Murty, as a PhD student in Computer Science at Harvard University, was taking courses in ancient Indian literature and philosophy from the Sanskrit Department and developed a deep interest in ancient Indian texts. The two were brought together by Gurcharan Das, leading to the establishment of the Murty Classical Library under the auspices of the Harvard University Press.[4]

Volumes

January 2015

Poems of the First Buddhist Women, translated from Pali by Charles Hallisey, Murty Classical Library of India, Harvard University Press (January 2015), hardcover, 336 pages, .[5]

January 2016

January 2017

January 2018

January 2019

January 2020

January 2021

February 2022

Formats

Paperback versions of the books are available throughout the Indian subcontinent for the equivalent of USD 3 to USD 5, depending on the volume's size. Electronic editions of the works are planned for the future.[6]

Criticism on the choice of General Editor

In March 2016, a petition initiated by Indian academicians demanded that Sheldon Pollock be removed from the editorship of the Murty Classical Library of India. The petition cites Rajiv Malhotra's book The Battle for Sanskrit, in which Pollock is a major topic. Malhotra criticizes Pollock for his methodologies, which are not being led by a traditional Dharmic point of view,[7] [8] and uses political philology[9] which unearths "social abuses in the texts (against dalits, women, Muslims) as the predominant quality of those texts". According to Malhotra, Pollock takes an activist stance, calling "his peers to expunge the Sanskrit tradition of its inbuilt oppressiveness" which he describes as prescriptivism. Malhotra rejects these approaches, regarding them as a "bias" which threaten traditional approaches of Sanskrit texts. He adds, it is unfortunate that most Hindus are "largely unaware of what he has written."[10]

In a response, Rohan Murty stated that Sheldon Pollock will continue his position, saying that the library will commission the "best possible scholar for that particular language. We will not judge on nationality, gender, race, creed or colour." He further questioned the intentions of the petitioners, noting that none of the petitioners had tried to contact him for the past six years.[11] [12]

2022 dismissal of Pollock

In 2022, Professor Parimal G. Patil of Harvard, the chair of MCLI's oversight board, forced Pollock to resign from his position as General Editor two years before his term was up. No replacement was appointed.[13]

2024 editorial dismissals

In January 2024, Patil, who was still serving as the chair of the MCLI's oversight board, dismissed five of the eight members of the editorial board. The five members dismissed were Whitney Cox of UChicago, Maria Heim of Amherst, Rajeev Kinra of Northwestern, Francesca Orsini of SOAS University of London, and Archana Venkatesan of UC Davis. Patil named two new members of the editorial board, poet and critic Ranjit Hoskote and translator Mini Krishnan.

The five dismissed board members wrote an open letter criticising Patil's "opaque and uncollegial management style" and claiming that no explanation had been given for the dismissals. According to the dismissed members, Patil had entirely ceased communication with the editorial board for the prior eighteen months. They requested the office of Harvard University provost John F. Manning to investigate the matter.

See also

Notes and References

  1. News: Masoom Gupte. Rohan Murty debuts at Jaipur Literature Festival. The Economic Times. 11 December 2014.
  2. News: Murty family gift establishes Murty Classical Library of India series. Harvard Gazette. 29 April 2010.
  3. News: Jennifer Schuessler. Literature of India, Enshrined in a Series: Murty Classical Library Catalogs Indian Literature. January 3, 2015. The New York Times. January 2, 2015.
  4. Elizabeth Kuruvilla, The modern revivalists, LiveMint, Jan 24 2015.
  5. Appleton, Naomi. "Charles Hallisey: Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women:(Murti Classical Library of India.) – Book review" Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78.03 (2015): 635–636.
  6. News: A literary colossus. Harvard Gazette. 5 March 2015.
  7. https://www.youtube.com/a30EnICYBUA?t=676
  8. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Murty Classical Library Translations Not Reviewed by Traditional Sanskrit Scholars' Panel #1 . YouTube.
  9. Pollock . Sheldon . 2 . 26 July 2008 . Towards a Political Philology: D. D. Kosambi and Sanskrit . Economic and Political Weekly . 43 . 30 . 52–59.
  10. Web site: interview with business standard - The Battle for Sanskrit. The Battle for Sanskrit. en-US. 2016-04-08.
  11. Divya Shekhar & Indulekha Aravind, Rohan Murty says American Indologist Sheldon Pollock to stay, The Economic Times, 3 March 2016.
  12. Sudha Pillai, It is always nice to disagree, but don't be disagreeable, Bangalore Mirror, 3 March 2016.
  13. https://thewire.in/books/murty-classical-library-five-resignations

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