"dirty" ?

[jonathan.silk at wmich.edu]

Perhaps I am not the only one who hopes we -- professional scholars of
Classical India and Sanskrit -- can honestly discuss such issues as "dirty
words" without blushing, and without feeling we must resort to private email
to spare sensibilities?  The recent post by Dominique Thillaud suggested --
or seemed to suggest -- that a private communication was the way to go.  i
hope not.  As I think the recent discussions in Ann Arbor at the
Michigan-Laussane Conference showed with regard to issues of race and skin
color, such "delicate" issues *can*  -- I would say *must* -- be openly
discussed without prejudice and without inhibition if we are to understand
Classical India in its own terms, not in the terms of our own (or own age's)
inhibitions.

J Silk