Nandu Abhyankar's suggestions on indology focus groups

[s. kalyanaraman]

     Nandu Abhyankar's ideas are thought-provoking. Perhaps, e-mail-based 
     indology group is best nurtured this way, provoking thought. Indology 
     is a vast arena. The 300+ members who constitute this group at this 
     time will certainly arrive at topics of general interest as questions 
     get posed and sometimes, answered. I have, for example, suggested soma 
     in the veda as a topic. Whether this topic will survive is entirely 
     dependent on the interest it evokes among the indology members. Maybe, 
     this evolutionary process has to continue; the debate on 'moderation' 
     is a good example of a widely-shared, interesting topic. Someone may 
     have quotes from Sanskrit texts on 'moderation'. The 'Aryan question' 
     is evoking some debate in the India Discussion Digest group. 
     (listserv at india.bgsu.edu). I do not know, if this may be of interest 
     to the Indology group. A related topic could be the delineation of 
     bhaaSaa or Prakrts as the source of verb roots in Sanskrit. If the 
     network can handle images, it may be fascinating to allow the members 
     to build up a library of iconographs and explain what the icons 
     represent. The group is enjoyable; how I wish we can see photographs 
     and/or hear the voices of contributors too, to lend a personal touch! 
     I fondly hope I will continue to benefit from this group, since I am 
     not sure how I will get connected to internet using my personal 
     computer at home in Madras, India (starting 1 March 1995).