08-17-2009, 01:54 AM
Disagree with the red bit, but rest of it is about right.
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/08/san...s-in-india.html
<b>Sanskrit cadre of scholars in India reaching extinction</b>
aug 15th, 2009
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajiv Malhotra
Subject: Re: Sanskrit cadre of scholars in India reaching extinction
To:
I wish to make a few comments to Tavleen Singh's article quoted below.
I am glad that she has raised awareness of the decline of sanskrit
studies in India. But we have said this for years, so why does it
become a crisis only when a white american scholars says it? Read my
Sulekha article, "Geopolitics and Sanskrit Phobia at:
http://rajivmalhotra.sulekha.com/blog/post...krit-phobia.htm
It also explains why this decline matters at all. Neither Tavleen nor
Pollock explain why it matters beyond apparant nostalgia.
<b>Sheldon Pollock has teamed up with the Indian Left to show Sanskrit as
an elite language of brahmins, brought to India by foreign aryans. He
loves the language but hates hinduism or at least likes to twist the
knife once in a while. The same is true of many Indological aryan
theorists since Max Mueller -- they love sanskrit as something
belonging to THEIR ANCESTORS. In front of their western academic peers
from other disciplines, Sanskrit is presented as something superior
and deserving funds for their department and programs. In front of
South Asian scholars, the discourse becomes the oppression of the
masses by Sanskrit hegemony. In front of Indian philanthropists the
goal is how to get money for books, foreign trips, academic programs
of the western scholars.</b>
(Very important. Very true.)
Also the Clay Sanskrit Library is filled with works by biased scholars
as well as good ones. aryan invasion, "caste, cows, dowry" mindset
permeates some of these translations. So blindly distributing all
works is a bad idea.
Finally, deep change is not a matter of giving copies away. Tavleen is
proposing as though it were some tabloid to be handed out at the
railway stations. Who will read them? where will the sanskrit teachers
in india come from?
What Kapil Sibal should be asked to do is not spend money on the US
publisher of those books. He should fund high quality Sanskrit
learning, INCLUDING teaching them purva-paksha of Western thought to
be able to respond to the global discourse in sanskrit categories.
They should not be trained as irrelevant pandits (exotic pets) staring
at their own navels out of touch with global reality today.
(Disagree. Most vehemently.)
This is another divergence I have with Pollock (who btw is a very fine
Sanskrit scholar in terms of his competence).
They want to limit
Sanskrit to its old texts and not as a relevant way of thinking for
today's issues. This prevents the "Sanskrit threat" of challenging
ways of thinking. It gives Sanskrit a place of respect in a museum,
and not as a living language. When people have made feeble attempts to
bring Sanskrit based ideas into today's discourse, the same Pollock
types attack them as chauvinists. Well, how does one instill pride and
thereby boost a language, if anything positive is to be denied as
chauvinism? Why would anyone want to study a language deemed to be
filled with horrible things with nothing worthwhile for today's
predicaments? Pollock's own monograph titled, "The Death of Sanskrit"
many years ago played a role in perpetuating this idea of a dead
language.
Specifically, Sanskrit based science, mathematics, astronomy,
computational linguistics -- these are some of the examples of what
can be encouraged for today. But Western Sanskritists are not well
versed here, and feel threatened that indian technocrats will run
circles around them, so they dont encourage this kind of modernized
approach to sanskrit. <b>They like it as the romantic past of white
europeans,</b> now preserved in safe museums for posterity, but feel
threatened when it comes out alive and competes with Western epistemic
categories.
Pollock is not the issue here, and i use his name only because Tavleen
uses him. The problem is the entire establishment that controls the
demonology against Sanskrit which I explained in my article referenced
above.
regards,
rajiv
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/08/san...s-in-india.html
<b>Sanskrit cadre of scholars in India reaching extinction</b>
aug 15th, 2009
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rajiv Malhotra
Subject: Re: Sanskrit cadre of scholars in India reaching extinction
To:
I wish to make a few comments to Tavleen Singh's article quoted below.
I am glad that she has raised awareness of the decline of sanskrit
studies in India. But we have said this for years, so why does it
become a crisis only when a white american scholars says it? Read my
Sulekha article, "Geopolitics and Sanskrit Phobia at:
http://rajivmalhotra.sulekha.com/blog/post...krit-phobia.htm
It also explains why this decline matters at all. Neither Tavleen nor
Pollock explain why it matters beyond apparant nostalgia.
<b>Sheldon Pollock has teamed up with the Indian Left to show Sanskrit as
an elite language of brahmins, brought to India by foreign aryans. He
loves the language but hates hinduism or at least likes to twist the
knife once in a while. The same is true of many Indological aryan
theorists since Max Mueller -- they love sanskrit as something
belonging to THEIR ANCESTORS. In front of their western academic peers
from other disciplines, Sanskrit is presented as something superior
and deserving funds for their department and programs. In front of
South Asian scholars, the discourse becomes the oppression of the
masses by Sanskrit hegemony. In front of Indian philanthropists the
goal is how to get money for books, foreign trips, academic programs
of the western scholars.</b>
(Very important. Very true.)
Also the Clay Sanskrit Library is filled with works by biased scholars
as well as good ones. aryan invasion, "caste, cows, dowry" mindset
permeates some of these translations. So blindly distributing all
works is a bad idea.
Finally, deep change is not a matter of giving copies away. Tavleen is
proposing as though it were some tabloid to be handed out at the
railway stations. Who will read them? where will the sanskrit teachers
in india come from?
What Kapil Sibal should be asked to do is not spend money on the US
publisher of those books. He should fund high quality Sanskrit
learning, INCLUDING teaching them purva-paksha of Western thought to
be able to respond to the global discourse in sanskrit categories.
They should not be trained as irrelevant pandits (exotic pets) staring
at their own navels out of touch with global reality today.
(Disagree. Most vehemently.)
This is another divergence I have with Pollock (who btw is a very fine
Sanskrit scholar in terms of his competence).
They want to limit
Sanskrit to its old texts and not as a relevant way of thinking for
today's issues. This prevents the "Sanskrit threat" of challenging
ways of thinking. It gives Sanskrit a place of respect in a museum,
and not as a living language. When people have made feeble attempts to
bring Sanskrit based ideas into today's discourse, the same Pollock
types attack them as chauvinists. Well, how does one instill pride and
thereby boost a language, if anything positive is to be denied as
chauvinism? Why would anyone want to study a language deemed to be
filled with horrible things with nothing worthwhile for today's
predicaments? Pollock's own monograph titled, "The Death of Sanskrit"
many years ago played a role in perpetuating this idea of a dead
language.
Specifically, Sanskrit based science, mathematics, astronomy,
computational linguistics -- these are some of the examples of what
can be encouraged for today. But Western Sanskritists are not well
versed here, and feel threatened that indian technocrats will run
circles around them, so they dont encourage this kind of modernized
approach to sanskrit. <b>They like it as the romantic past of white
europeans,</b> now preserved in safe museums for posterity, but feel
threatened when it comes out alive and competes with Western epistemic
categories.
Pollock is not the issue here, and i use his name only because Tavleen
uses him. The problem is the entire establishment that controls the
demonology against Sanskrit which I explained in my article referenced
above.
regards,
rajiv