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Indology

Indology is a name given by indologists to the academic study of the history, languages, and cultures of the Indian subcontinent.


Contents

Overview

Indology overlaps to some extent with many other areas of study, applying their techniques to the South Asian case. These includecultural orsocial anthropology, cultural studies, historical linguistics, philology,textual criticism,literary history,history,philosophies and the study of thereligions of South Asia, such as Vedic religion, Brahmanism, Jainism, Buddhism, Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Sikhism, etc., besides the indigenous forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in South Asia.

Finally it may include the study of South Asian sciences, arts and architecture.

Scholars who call themselves indologists often place special value on a thoroughknowledge of the languages of India, especially the classical languages such as Sanskrit, Pāli, Prakrit, or classical Tamil, and they consider a knowledge of one or more of these languages, coupled with a knowledge of the methods of philology, to be a prerequisite for contributing meaningfully to the indological research and a characteristic feature of indology as a field.

Thus, Indology is the intellectual pursuit of all things Indic, with a focus on the interpretation of the past. Some scholars distinguish classical indology frommodern indology, the former more focussed on Sanskrit and other ancient language sources, thelatter making more use of contemporary language sources and sociological approaches.

The term Indology or (in German) Indologie [1] 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.

History

Main articles: History of South Asia and History of India

South Asian Studies

Indology may also be known as Indic studies or Indian studies, or South Asian studies, although scholars and university administrators sometimes have only partially overlapping interpretations of these nomenclatures.

Indology would not typically include the study of the contemporary economy, government, or politics of South Asia, except insofar as these sometimes express issues that are deeply embedded in SouthAsian history, and may be illuminated by indological methods and insights.

Criticisms of Indology and South Asian Studies

Claims of Bias in South Asian Studies have often been made. Such real or perceived bias can imply old-fashioned and prejudiced outsider interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples:

Historians have noted that during the British Empire "evangelical influence drove British policy down a path that tended to minimize and denigrate the accomplishments of Indian civilization and to position itself as the negation of the earlier British Indomania that was nourished by belief in Indian wisdom."[4]

In Charles Grant highly influential "Observations on the ...Asiatic subjects of Great Britain" (1796),[5] Grant criticized the Orientalists for being too respectful to Indian culture and religion. His work tried to determine the Hindu's "true place in the moral scale", and he alleged that the Hindus are "a people exceedingly depraved".

Lord Macaulay, who introduced English education into India, claimed: "I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." [6] He wrote that Arabic and Sanskrit works on medecine contain "medical doctrines which would disgrace an English Farrier - Astronomy, which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school - History, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long - and Geography made up of seas of treacle and seas of butter".[7] He advocated to create a middle Anglicised class that was "Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect".[8] This class of anglicized Indians would then in turn anglicize the Indian people.

One of the most influential historians of India during the British Empire, James Mill was criticized for being prejudiced against Hindus. His work "History of British India" (1817) may be the "single most important source of British Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism".[9] The Indologist H.H. Wilson wrote that the tendency of Mill's work is "evil".[10] Mill claimed that both Indians and Chinese people are cowardly, unfeeling and mendacious. Both Mill and Grant attacked Orientalist scholarship that was too respectful of Indian culture: "It was unfortunate that a mind so pure, so warm in the pursuit of truth, and so devoted to oriental learning, as that of Sir William Jones, should have adopted the hypothesis of a high state of civilization in the principal countries of Asia."[11] Karl Marx's writings were also prejudiced against Indians. [2]

However, the Indologists were also often under pressure from missionary and colonial interest groups, and were frequently criticized by them.

References

  1. ^ Mill 1858
  2. ^ Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1835, Minute on Indian education.
  3. ^ Michael Witzel, 2001, Westward Ho, Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies Vol. 7 (2001), issue 2 (March 31).
  4. ^ Trautmann 1997:113
  5. ^ Grant, Charles. (1796) Observations on the state of society among the Asiatic subjects of Great Britain, particularly with respect to morals; and on the means of improving it, written chiefly in the year 1792.
  6. ^ http://www.atributetohinduism.com/FirstIndologists.htm
  7. ^ Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1835:242-243, Minute on Indian education.
  8. ^ Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1835:249, Minute on Indian education.
  9. ^ Trautmann 1997:117
  10. ^ H.H. Wilson 1858 in James Mill 1858, The history of British India, Preface of the editor
  11. ^ Mill, James - 1858, 2:109, The history of British India.

Further reading

See also

Criticisms

Categories


History of Southeast Asia | Indology | South Asia

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