04-21-2006, 05:30 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Laine mentions in his Acknowledgments (p. viii) that his "scholarly home has been the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune" where he "profited from advice and assistance"
That is far different from someone just consulting some books in the library and using them as references.
If the information was not in anybook, It could be thought, not without reason, that Laine got this kind of story from BORI scholars.
An alternative explantion could be - Laine used the info, and now everyone is running away from the 'sick private joke'.
Did the BORi scholars set up the mischief?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks for the clarification, I was under the impression that he just went there to look up sources, it is possible that one of the BORI people may have suggested it but we have no way of knowing since Laine never mentioned his source for it except by saying that it was a private joke among Marathas, Gail Omvedt if I remember correctly has suggested Chitvapan Brahman's as the source of the joke but that is also speculation and not believable because her own agenda is to blame Brahmins for everything wrong in India and Vishal Agarwal has also said that he never heard of such a joke among any Chitvapan Brahmans when he lived there. At any rate, Laine is still responsible because he was the one who chose to put it in there despite knowing that no historical evidence exists for such a claim.
That is far different from someone just consulting some books in the library and using them as references.
If the information was not in anybook, It could be thought, not without reason, that Laine got this kind of story from BORI scholars.
An alternative explantion could be - Laine used the info, and now everyone is running away from the 'sick private joke'.
Did the BORi scholars set up the mischief?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks for the clarification, I was under the impression that he just went there to look up sources, it is possible that one of the BORI people may have suggested it but we have no way of knowing since Laine never mentioned his source for it except by saying that it was a private joke among Marathas, Gail Omvedt if I remember correctly has suggested Chitvapan Brahman's as the source of the joke but that is also speculation and not believable because her own agenda is to blame Brahmins for everything wrong in India and Vishal Agarwal has also said that he never heard of such a joke among any Chitvapan Brahmans when he lived there. At any rate, Laine is still responsible because he was the one who chose to put it in there despite knowing that no historical evidence exists for such a claim.