Indology Explained

Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies.^[1]

The term Indology (in German, Indologie) is often associated with German scholarship, and is used more commonly in departmental titles in German and continental European universities than in the anglophone academy. In the Netherlands, the term Indologie was used to designate the study of Indian history and culture in preparation for colonial service in the Dutch East Indies.

Classical Indology majorly includes the linguistic studies of Sanskrit literature, Pāli and Tamil literature, as well as study of Dharmic religions (like Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc.). Some of the regional specializations under South Asian studies include:

• Bengali studies – study of culture and languages of Bengal
• Dravidology – study of Dravidian languages of Southern India
  • Tamil studies
• Pakistan studies
• Sindhology – the study of the historical Sindh region

Some scholars distinguish Classical Indology from Modern Indology, the former more focussed on Sanskrit, Tamil and other ancient language sources, the latter on contemporary India, its politics and sociology.

History

Precursors

The beginnings of the study of India by travellers from outside the subcontinent date back at least to Megasthenes (–290 BC), a Greek ambassador of the Seleucids to the court of Chandragupta (ruled 322-298 BC), founder of the Mauryan Empire. Based on his life in India Megasthenes composed a four-volume Indica, fragments of which still exist, and which influenced the classical geographers Arrian, Diodor and Strabo.^[2]

Islamic Golden Age scholar Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Biruni (973–1048) in Tarikh Al-Hind (Researches on India) recorded the political and military history of India and covered India's cultural, scientific, social and religious history in detail.^[3] He studied the anthropology of India, engaging in extensive participant observation with various Indian groups, learning their languages and studying their primary texts, and presenting his findings with objectivity and neutrality using cross-cultural comparisons.^[4]

Academic discipline

Indology as generally understood by its practitioners^[5] began in the later Early Modern period and incorporates essential features of modernity, including critical self-reflexivity, disembedding mechanisms and globalization, and the reflexive appropriation of knowledge.^[6] An important feature of Indology since its beginnings in the late eighteenth century has been the development of networks of academic communication and trust^[7] through the creation of learned societies like the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and the creation of learned journals like the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

One of the defining features of Indology is the application of scholarly methodologies developed in European Classical Studies or "Classics" to the languages, literatures and cultures of South Asia.

In the wake of eighteenth century pioneers like William Jones, Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Gerasim Lebedev or August Wilhelm Schlegel, Indology as an academic subject emerged in the nineteenth century, in the context of British India, together with Asian studies in general affected by the romantic Orientalism of the time. The Asiatic Society was founded in Calcutta in 1784, Société Asiatique founded in 1822, the Royal Asiatic Society in 1824, the American Oriental Society in 1842, and the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft) in 1845, the Japanese Association of Indian and Buddhist Studies^[8] in 1949.

Sanskrit literature included many pre-modern dictionaries, especially the Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana of Amarasiṃha, but a milestone in the Indological study of Sanskrit literature was publication of the St. Petersburg Sanskrit-Wörterbuch during the 1850s to 1870s. Translations of major Hindu texts in the Sacred Books of the East began in 1879. Otto von Böhtlingk's edition of Pāṇini's grammar appeared in 1887. Max Müller's edition of the Rigveda appeared in 1849–1875. Albrecht Weber commenced publishing his pathbreaking journal Indologische Studien in 1849, and in 1897 Sergey Oldenburg launched a systematic edition of key Sanskrit texts, "Bibliotheca Buddhica".

Professional literature and associations

Indologists typically attend conferences such as the American Association of Asian Studies, the American Oriental Society annual conference, the World Sanskrit Conference, and national-level meetings in the UK, Germany, India, Japan, France and elsewhere.

They may routinely read and write in journals such as Indo-Iranian Journal,^[9] Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,^[10] Journal of the American Oriental Society,^[11] Journal asiatique,^[12] the Journal of the German Oriental Society (ZDMG),^[13] Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens,^[14] Journal of Indian Philosophy,^[15] Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies (Indogaku Bukkyogaku Kenkyu), Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême Orient,^[16] and others.

They may be members of such professional bodies as the American Oriental Society, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, the Société Asiatique, the Deutsche Morgenlāndische Gesellschaft and others.

List of indologists

The following is a list of prominent academically qualified Indologists.

Historical scholars

• Megasthenes (350–290 BC)
• Al-Biruni (973–1050)
• Gaston-Laurent Cœurdoux (1691–1779)
• Anquetil Duperron (1731–1805)
• William Jones (1746–1794)
• Charles Wilkins (1749–1836)
• Colin Mackenzie (1753–1821)
• Dimitrios Galanos (1760–1833)
• Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837)
• Jean-Antoine Dubois (1765–1848)
• August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845)
• James Mill (1773–1836)
• Horace Hayman Wilson (1786–1860)
• Franz Bopp (1791–1867)
• Duncan Forbes (linguist) (1798–1868)
• James Prinsep (1799–1840)
• Hermann Grassmann (1809–1877)
• John Muir (indologist) (1810–1882)
• Edward Balfour (1813–1889)
• Robert Caldwell (1814–1891)
• Alexander Cunningham (1814–1893)
• Hermann Gundert (1814–1893)
• Otto von Bohtlingk (1815–1904)
• Monier Monier-Williams (1819–1899)
• Henry Yule (1820–1889)
• Rudolf Roth (1821–1893)
• Theodor Aufrecht (1822–1907)
• Max Müller (1823–1900)
• Albrecht Weber (1825–1901)
• Ralph T. H. Griffith (1826–1906)
• William Dwight Whitney (1827–1894)
• Ferdinand Kittel (1832–1903)
• Edwin Arnold (1832–1904)
• Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern (1833–1917)
• Gustav Solomon Oppert (1836–1908)
• Georg Bühler (1837–1898)
• Chintaman Vinayak Vaidya (1861–1938)
• Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar (1837–1925)
• Arthur Coke Burnell (1840–1882)
• Julius Eggeling (1842–1918)
• Paul Deussen (1845–1919)
• Vincent Arthur Smith (1848–1920)
• James Darmesteter (1849–1894)
• Hermann Jacobi (1850–1937)
• Kashinath Trimbak Telang (1850–1893)
• Alois Anton Führer (1853–1930)
• Jacob Wackernagel (1853–1938)
• Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854–1930)
• Hermann Oldenberg (1854–1920)
• Maurice Bloomfield (1855–1928)
• E. Hultzsch (1857–1927)
• Mark Aurel Stein (1862–1943)
• P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar(1863–1931)
• Moriz Winternitz (1863–1937)
• Fyodor Shcherbatskoy (1866–1942)
• F.W. Thomas (1867–1956)
• Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958)
• S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar (1871–1947)
• Percy Brown (1872–1955)
• John Hubert Marshall (1876–1958)
• Arthur Berriedale Keith (1879–1944)
• Pandurang Vaman Kane (1880–1972)
• Pierre Johanns (1882–1955)
• Andrzej Gawronski (1885–1927)
• Willibald Kirfel (1885–1964)
• Johannes Nobel (1887–1960)
• Betty Heimann (1888–1961)
• Alice Boner (1889–1981)
• Heinrich Zimmer (1890–1943)
• Ervin Baktay (1890–1963)
• Mortimer Wheeler (1890–1976)
• B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956)
• K. A. Nilakanta Sastri (1892–1975)
• Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan (1893–1963)
• Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi (1893–1985)
• V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar (1896–1953)
• Dasharatha Sharma (1903–1976)
• Shakti M. Gupta (1927–)
• S. Srikanta Sastri (1904–1974)
• Joseph Campbell (1904–1987)
• Murray Barnson Emeneau (1904–2005)
• Jan Gonda (1905–1991)
• Paul Thieme (1905–2001)
• Jean Filliozat (1906–1982)
• Alain Danielou (1907–1994)
• F B J Kuiper (1907–2003)
• Thomas Burrow (1909–1986)
• Jagdish Chandra Jain (1909–1993)
• Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar (1909–2001)
• Arthur Llewellyn Basham (1914–1986)
• Richard De Smet (1916–1997)
• P. N. Pushp (1917–1998)
• Ahmad Hasan Dani (1920–2009)
• Frank-Richard Hamm (1920–1973)
• Madeleine Biardeau (1922–2010)
• Awadh K. (AK) Narain (1925–2013)
• V. S. Pathak (1926–2003)
• Kamil Zvelebil (1927–2009)
• J. A. B. van Buitenen (1928–1979)
• Tatyana Elizarenkova (1929–2007)
• Bettina Baumer (1940–)
• Anncharlott Eschmann (1941–1977)
• William Dalrymple (1965–present)
• Arvind Sharma (1940–present)
• Harilal Dhruv (1856–1896)
• Ram Swarup (1920–1998)
• Mikhail Konstantinovich Kudryavtsev (1911–1992)
• Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr. (1916–1999), Wales Professor of Sanskrit, Harvard University
• Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003)
• Natalya Romanovna Guseva (1914–2010)
• Ram Sharan Sharma (1919–2011), Founding Chairperson of Indian Council of Historical Research; Professor Emeritus, Patna University
• Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (1928–2012), Osmania University
• Fida Hassnain (1924–2016) Sri Pratap College, Srinagar
• Heinrich von Stietencron (1933–2018), University of Tübingen, Germany
• Iravatham Mahadevan (1930–2018)- Indian Council of Historical Research
• Stanley Wolpert (1927–2019)- University of California, Los Angeles (emeritus)
• Karel Werner (1925–2019)
• Dietmar Rothermund (1933–2020), Professor of the history of South Asia at the Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg
• Bannanje Govindacharya (1936–2020), scholar in Tatva-vada school of philosophy and Vedic tradition
• Stanley Insler (1937–2019), Edward E. Salisbury Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology, Yale University
• Gérard Fussman (1940–2022) Collège de France

Contemporary scholars with university posts

• Romila Thapar (1931–present), Professor of Ancient History, emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University
• Hermann Kulke (1938–present), Professor of South and Southeast Asian history at the Department of History, Kiel University
• Asko Parpola (1941–present), professor emeritus of Indology and South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki
• Patrick Olivelle (1942–present) Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin^[17]
• Michael Witzel (1943–present)- Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University
• Ronald Inden- Professor Emeritus of History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago^[18]
• George L. Hart (1945–present)- Professor Emeritus of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley^[19]
• Stephanie Jamison (1948–present), Distinguished Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures and of Indo-European Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles^[20]
• Alexis Sanderson (1948–present) Emeritus Fellow and former Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at All Souls College, Oxford^[21]
• Michael D. Willis (The British Museum)
• Wendy Doniger (1940–present) University of Chicago Divinity School, as Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions
• Thomas Trautmann (1940–present), former Head of the Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan
• Kapil Kapoor (1940–present), well known scholar of English Literature, Linguistics, Paninan Grammar, Sanskrit Arts and Aesthetics, Director of Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla
• Shrivatsa Goswami (1950–present), Indian scholar of Hindu philosophy and art at (Banaras Hindu University), as well as Gaudiya Vaishnava religious leader.^[22]
• Edwin Bryant (1957–present) Rutgers University, New Jersey

Other indologists

• Michel Danino, French-Indian author and historical negationist^{[23] [24] [25] [26]}
• Georg Feuerstein
• Hans T. Bakker

Indology organisations

• Faculty of Sanskrit Vidya Dharma Vigyan, Banaras Hindu University
• Adyar Library and Research Centre, Chennai
• Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune
• Oriental Research Institute Mysore
• Oriental Research Institute & Manuscripts Library, Thiruvananthapuram
• Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology along with Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum which is adjacent to the institute, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
• American Institute of Indian Studies
• French Institute of Pondicherry
• The Oxford Centre For Hindu Studies

See also

• Buddhism in the West
• History of India
• Greater India
• Bibliography of India
• Sanskrit
• Sanskrit studies
• Roja Muthiah Research Library
• Area studies
• Dreaming of Words

Further reading

• Balagangadhara, S. N. (1994). "The Heathen in his Blindness..." Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion. Leiden, New York: E. J. Brill.
• Balagangadhara, S. N. (2012). Reconceptualizing India studies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
• Vishwa Adluri, Joydeep Bagchee: The Nay Science: A History of German Indology. Oxford University Press, New York 2014, (Introduction, p. 1–29).
• Joydeep Bagchee, Vishwa Adluri: "The passion of Paul Hacker: Indology, orientalism, and evangelism." In: Joanne Miyang Cho, Eric Kurlander, Douglas T McGetchin (Eds.), Transcultural Encounters Between Germany and India: Kindred Spirits in the Nineteenth Century. Routledge, New York 2013, p. 215–229.
• Joydeep Bagchee: "German Indology." In: Alf Hiltebeitel (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Hinduism. Oxford University Press, New York 2014.
• Chakrabarti, Dilip K.: Colonial Indology, 1997, Munshiram Manoharlal: New Delhi.
• Jean Filliozat and Louis Renou – L'inde classique – ISBN B0000DLB66.
• Halbfass, W. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. SUNY Press, Albany: 1988
• Inden, R. B. (2010). Imagining India. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press.
• Vishwa Adluri, Joydeep Bagchee: The Nay Science: A History of German Indology. Oxford University Press, New York 2014,
• Gauri Viswanathan, 1989, Masks of Conquest
• Rajiv Malhotra (2016), Battle for Sanskrit: Dead or Alive, Oppressive or Liberating, Political or Sacred? (Publisher: HarperCollins India;)
• Rajiv Malhotra (2016), Academic Hinduphobia: A Critique of Wendy Doniger's Erotic School of Indology (Publisher: Voice of India;)
• Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007), Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America (Publisher: Rupa & Co.)
• Shourie, Arun. 2014. Eminent historians: their technology, their line, their fraud. HarperCollins.
• Trautmann, Thomas. 1997. Aryans and British India, University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Windisch, Ernst. Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie und Indischen Altertumskunde. 2 vols. Strasbourg. Trübner, K.J., 1917–1920
• Zachariae, Theodor. Opera minora zur indischen Wortforschung, zur Geschichte der indischen Literatur und Kultur, zur Geschichte der Sanskritphilologie. Ed. Claus Vogel. Wiesbaden 1977, .

External links

• Omilos Meleton
• www.indology.info – since 1995, with associated discussion forum since 1990
• Italian blog with many links to indological websites
• Books related to Indology (commercial publisher's website)
• The Veda as Studied by European Scholars (Gifford Lectures Online)

Institutes

• Vienna
• Heidelberg
• Halle
• Mainz
• French Institute of Pondicherry
• Tübingen
• Zürich
• Oxford

Library guides

• Web site: South Asia Studies . University of California, Berkeley . South/Southeast Asia Library . US.
• Web site: South Asian Studies . University of California . Research Guides . Los Angeles .
• Web site: South & Southeast Asian Studies Research Guides . Columbia University Libraries . New York, US . 22 April 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140812212634/http://library.columbia.edu/subject-guides/southasia.html . 12 August 2014 . dead.
• Web site: India Studies . . Library . Topic Guides . UK . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140826131203/http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/collections/topicGuides/india/home.aspx . 26 August 2014 .
• Web site: South Asia . University of Oxford, Bodleian Libraries . Oxford LibGuides . Oxford, UK.
• Web site: South/Southeast Asia . University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries . Research Guides . US.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Indology | Definition of Indology by Lexico. https://web.archive.org/web/20190830095220/https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/indology. dead. 30 August 2019. Lexico Dictionaries | English.
2. Bosworth . A. B. . April 1996 . The Historical Setting of Megasthenes' Indica . . The University of Chicago Press . 91 . 2. 113–127 . 10.1086/367502 . 270500. 162475029 .
3. Khan . M. S. . 1976 . al-Biruni and the Political History of India . Oriens . Brill . 25/26 . 86–115 . 10.2307/1580658 . 1580658.
4. Ahmed . Akbar S. . February 1984 . Al-Beruni: The First Anthropologist . RAIN . Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland . 60 . 60. 9–10 . 10.2307/3033407 . 3033407.
5. Book: Einführung in die Indologie: Stand, Methoden, Aufgaben. Bechert. Heinz. Heinz Bechert. Simson. Georg von. Bachmann. Peter. 1993. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 3534054660. Darmstadt. de. 33429713.
6. Book: Giddens, Anthony. The consequences of modernity. 1991. Polity Press. Cambridge, U.K.. en. 874200328.
7. Book: Personal knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy. Polanyi. Michael. Nye. Mary Jo. 2015. University of Chicago Press . 9780226232621. en. 880960082.
8. Web site: dead . The Japanese Association of Indian and Buddhist Studies . https://web.archive.org/web/20090915194020/http://www.jaibs.jp/English/english.html . 15 September 2009 . Jaibs.jp . 20 November 2011.
9. https://archive.today/20120911011452/http://www.springer.com/uk/home?SGWID=3-102-70-35758435-detailsPage=journal description&changeHeader=true&SHORTCUT=www.springer.com/journal/10783/about International Publisher Science, Technology, Medicine
10. http://www.royalasiaticsociety.org/journal.html R A S – Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
11. http://www.umich.edu/~aos/frntmtr.htm JAOS Front Matter
12. Journal Asiatique. Poj.peeters-leuven.be. Retrieved on 20 November 2011.
13. Web site: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (ZDMG) . Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG).
14. http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/0084-0084 Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens (WZKS) Vienna Journal for Indian Studies
15. https://www.springer.com/uk/home/generic/search/results?SGWID=3-40109-70-35501059-0 Journal of Indian Philosophy
16. http://www.maisonneuve-adrien.com/collections/coll_bulletin_efeo.htm Bulletin de l'EFEO
17. Web site: Patrick Olivelle. Encyclopædia Britannica.
18. Web site: Ronald Inden. Department of History: University of Chicago.
19. Web site: Karnam. Mayukha. 2016. Redefining the Classics at Harvard. The Harvard Crimson.
20. Web site: Professor Stephanie Jamison FBA. British Academy.
21. Web site: Professor Alexis Sanderson. All Souls College, University of Oxford.
22. Book: Hawley . John Stratton . Wulff . Donna Marie . [{{Google books|j3R1z0sE340C|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}} The Divine Consort: Rādhā and the Goddesses of India ]. Berkeley religious studies series, 3 . 1982 . Berkeley, Ca . Graduate Theological Union . 0-89581-102-2 . 406.
23. Web site: Pande Daniel. Vaihayasi. The Sarasvati was more sacred than Ganga. 8 August 2011. Rediff.com. Technically, I am not a 'foreigner': I adopted Indian citizenship some years ago..
24. Guha. Sudeshna. 2005. Negotiating Evidence: History, Archaeology and the Indus Civilisation. Modern Asian Studies. 39. 2. 399–426. 10.1017/S0026749X04001611. 0026-749X. 3876625. 145463239.
25. Chadha. Ashish. 2011-02-01. Conjuring a river, imagining civilisation: Saraswati, archaeology and science in India. Contributions to Indian Sociology. en. 45. 1. 55–83. 10.1177/006996671004500103. 144701033. 0069-9667.
26. Bhatt. Chetan. 2000-01-01. Dharmo rakshati rakshitah : Hindutva movements in the UK. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 23. 3. 559–593. 10.1080/014198700328999. 144085595. 0141-9870.