RAH questions

[aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca]

Cuu.la-vamsa is in Pali. Written in Sri Lanka.

< an annual competitiion in Poona for the writing 
and production of Sanskrit plays.>

As I recall, these were competitions arranged by the Government of
Maharashtra, not  confined to the city of Poona/Pune.  Most probably, they
still take place.

I do not know precisely when the Wales Professorship was established at
Harvard, but I recall reading or being told that it was not the first
professorship for Sanskrit in the USA or North America (if naming the first
is RAH's intention in seeking the information).  According to my
recollection, Yale University was ahead of Harvard in that respect, and the
Harvard professorship came two years later (whether it was called Wales
Professorship right from the beginning will have to be ascertained). 

Mr. Yale was Governor of Madras. It could be that his donation which led to
the founding of Yale came out of his Indian earnings. Can anyone supply
reliable information or a source for reliable information on this.

The preceding leads to another question. How many early facilities and
professorships for Sanskrit or Indic studies in the U.K., Continental
Europe, and the USA were established without using the money of Indian
princes, etc.? As I see university after university going for the purses of
South Asian immigrants (the new princes)  to finance this or that chair or
award, I sometimes wonder about this aspect of the history of Indology. 

ashok aklujkar

 


> From D-JOHN4 at vm1.spcs.umn.edu 11 95 Aug CDT 13:01:58
Date: 11 Aug 95 13:01:58 CDT
From: Donald C Johnson <D-JOHN4 at vm1.spcs.umn.edu>
Subject: RAH questions

Edward Elbridge Salisbury was the first American to teach Sanskrit at the
college level.  He began as an honorary professor at Yale in 1841.  In 1854 he
resigned from the post and endowed a chair for Sanskrit so that his
student William Dwight Whitney might have a career in Sanskrit scholarship.