NON INDOLOGY BUT URGENT ACTION etc.

[Enrica Garzilli]

This theme can be treated in a very "Indological" way, and still does not 
loose anything of its social and political impact. 
It is in press in the IIJ one of my papers:

*First Greek and Latin Documents on Sahagamana and Some Connected Problems* 

Part 1 (pp. 39): I analyze contemporary Indological schoalrship on the
topic, and Western and Indian contemporary historiography on that. Then I
present and analyze the Indian Documents (historical, literary, etc.) on
Sahagamana (or Sati). 

Part 2 (pp. 27) I present and analyze the first unknown (and mostly never
traslated before) Greek and Latin documents (by historians, poets, and
rhetors), and, what a surprise, documents from one of the four Doctors of
the Catholic Roman Church, Hieronymus (347-419/420 A.D.) who was the first
Catholic to use and create documents on women of other religions for
religious/political  purposes (but Cicero and all the others have done the 
same in their respective winning cultures). 

The last part is an analysis of the Western re-elaboration and use of
Indian oral and written documents. I doubted a lot of the documentary
validity of them: in many cases they are a sort of juducial fabrications,
created *ad hoc* to glorify the Greek culture first, then the Roman, after
that the Christian: there have been -- for 2300 years -- stereotypes to
glorify the culture of the "winners" (Greeks on Indians, Roman on Greeks,
Christians on Romans, capitalistic culture on anybody). I underline the
contemporary Indological feminism, and on the other side Hindu (a certain 
Hindu's party) use of these documents and themes.

BTW, Hieronymous asserts that Buddha was the founder of the sect of the
*gimnosofistas* (known as *sophistes* or *sopeites* by Alexander's
historians), born from a side of a virgin (like Mary is virgin and Eve was
created from Adam's side)! This is absolutely new in the all Greek and Latin
literature (see part 2, fn. 177). 

Hopefully the paper will be out in the IIJ by December (BTW, I sent it,
under request, to many professors here around, such as Courtright in
Septemebr 1995). 

I agree with Michael Rabe that the topic is tragically present, tehrefore,
it can be studied in its origin, etiology, documents, etc. Sati and dowry
deaths have a long history behind.  
Is it not Indologists' job to study the past *also* to understand the 
present? Moreover, is not present born from the past and from the 
individual and collective idea and representation of the future? 

You can also see the Journal of South Asia Women Studies
(http://www.shore.net/~india/jsaws/), where these themes are and will be
both scholarly treated, and translated, discussed, and interpreted in
contemporary reality. 

Dott. Enrica Garzilli
garzilli at hulaw1.harvard.edu
Editor-in-Chief, IJTS and JSAWS (http://www.shore.net/~india/)
*****************************************************************
 On Fri, 12 Apr 1996, Michael Rabe wrote:

> >venantius pinto said:
> 
> But what if it prompts a cultural note by Paul Courtright (or someone else
> that's studied _sutee_) on the order of his learned commentary on the
> varied agendas of colonial-period indologists?  And wasn't there a call for
> participation at a Harvard conference on wife-burning on this list?  Maybe
> these topics are too combustible to risk starting a thread/fuse, and I am
> certainly not equating to two, but still...during my last year in India
> ('90-91) when there were all those Mandal-commission protests that led to
> self-immolation AND a few of the "aidding and abbetting" type where the
> victims were willing participants, I couldn't help but suspect that mythic
> and or historic precedents may be relevant.  Or maybe not: at least I'd
> like someone to try and persuade me of their irrelevance.
> 
> Michael Rabe
> 
> 
>