Clarification

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

Dear List Members,

In a recent posting, Mr. Ramalingam Shanmugalingam said that, " Incidentally,
my private Thank you note to Dr. Palaniappan was inadvertantly sent to all as
I had a few E-mail in my Flash Out Tray." These postings have created in some
list members the wrong impression that Mr.Ramalingam Shanmugalingam and I are
friends. Some list members have also been hurt by the inappropriate tirade
against some groups of people and Sanskrit contained in that posting. So, let
me state categorically that, in fact, I was taken aback and shocked by the
contents of Mr.Ramalingam Shanmugalingam's note. I have no idea who Mr.
Ramalingam Shanmugalingam  is, let alone have him as a friend.  On the
contrary, Mr. S. Krishna, Dr. Sarma, and I have had several fruitful and
friendly exchanges of information off-line. So, it is unfortunate that my
posting was interpreted by Mr. Shanmugalingam as a salvo against Mr. S.
Krishna. It was not. (In fact I could have done very well without the "Thank
you" note.) If anything, my research in the past year has reinforced my firm
feeling that Sanskrit, Indo-Aryan, Indo-Iranian, Tamil, and Dravidian
scholars have to work together to gain more knowledge of Indian culture and
history. The reason behind my posting was to discuss some
academic/intellectual problems I saw in Dr. Krishnamurthy's posting and then
plead for some understanding of people not formally trained in linguistics
because I felt that sometimes useful information can come from totally
unexpected sources. However, I did not expect that my posting will be given
such an unfortunate twist. In any case, I am really sorry for any unwitting
role my posting might  have played in this episode.

Regards

S. Palaniappan