Hinduja Center at Columbia

[Mary McGee]

Dear Colleagues,

Recent postings on the Indology network provide an opportunity 
for me to tell you more about the goals and undertakings of the 
Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center at Columbia University, 
which was inaugurated here in 1994.  I joined the Columbia 
University faculty in July of 1995, at which time I assumed the 
directorship of the Hinduja Center.  According to the 
memorandum of understanding agreed upon by Columbia University 
and the donor, the aim of the Center is to study Indian 
traditions of knowledge from the Vedas up to modern times and 
to promote research of academic excellence relevant to 
contemporary issues.  Concurrent with the Center's 
establishment,  four working groups were set up to pursue 
research centered around particular issues of contemporary 
concern: health, science, gender, and conflict management; a 
fifth working group has focused on the role of scriptural 
authority in various religious communities in India.  The 
research of the Center is not limited to these concerns, but 
our efforts during the first five years are concentrated on 
these particular issues.  

Through academic research and teaching, seminars, educational 
workshops, publications, and outreach, the Hinduja Center at 
Columbia seeks to foster an environment in which research 
scholars can pursue the contributions of various Indian 
communities to human civilization, while investigating how 
those contributions may provide us with a better understanding 
of as well as possible strategies for dealing with problems 
present in many of our cultures today, such as illness, 
violence, and intolerance.  Our activities are not limited to a 
focus on one particular body of texts or one particular 
religious tradition and the research of scholars involved in 
our various projects draws on many resources to advance their 
scholarship and our understanding of the pluralism of Indian 
traditions.  Much of the Hinduja Center's research is channeled 
through its small working groups, which draw together scholars 
with shared concerns and enable them to advance their research 
collaboratively.  

In addition to our research activities and educational outreach 
programs, the Hinduja Center funds two faculty positions at 
Columbia, one in Sanskrit and one in classical Hinduism, and 
also offers one post-doctoral fellowship.  It co-sponsors with 
the Columbia University Seminars Program a monthly seminar on 
texts and traditions of India and funds a project that is 
preparing an on-line catalogue of Indic manuscripts in the 
Columbia Library collection.  Announcements about our 
conferences and lectures are usually posted on the South Asia 
Gopher and sometimes on Indology; summaries of the University 
Seminar series are also available on the South Asia Gopher.  We 
welcome inquires about our Center and its endeavors; contact us 
_directly_ (not via Indology) at dhirc at columbia.edu or at 
Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center, 1102 International 
Affairs Building, 420 W. 118th St., Columbia University, New 
York, NY 10027.  


Mary McGee, Director
Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center
Columbia University