Imperfection of Western Indology (pace Fosse)

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 09:16 PM 9/4/97 BST, you (Lars Martin Fosse <l.m.fosse at internet.no>) wrote:
>>INDOLOGY> In (negative prefix) + do (action), thus = inactive + log
>>(inactive piece of wood) >> Inactive as an inactive piece of wood. Without
>>action there is no progress, etc. .... quod erat deomonstrandum
>>
>>Jonathan Silk
>
>Thank you Jonathan, I think we are getting in deeper and deeper here.
>However, you forgot to explain the y. This letter is, of course, pronounced
>why, "indology" should there be understood to mean "why is the piece of wood
>inactive?". I will suggest that the "piece of wood" is actually a secret
>reference to the world tree, the skambha, which doesn't move. The answer to
>the question "not-do-log-why" must therefore be: Because it is the support
>of ALL. (What else does the skambha do?) The term "indology" is therefore a
>cryptic description of the all-supporting, can't-do-without-it character of
>our scholarship, which is the skambha of all intellectual activities
>concerning Sanskrit. 
>

Ah, but a crucial principle in Dravidian--not to mention
Sumerian--etymological cryptography is (apparently, from the postings) that
the consonants have to be reversed. So "indology" ulteriorly derives from
the consonant-sequence GLDN. Clearly, "indology" comes from "golden," and
was originally a pejorative term (cf. "Protestant") implying that people are
only in it for the money!

(Thanks again to all those on this list who commented on my queries this
past June about late-19C solar religion among Indologists.)

Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or downingg at is2.nyu.edu