Truth and method in Indology, III

[Lars Martin Fosse]

At 16:19 01.06.98 +0100, you wrote:
>On Sun, 31 May 1998, "S. Kalyanaraman" <kalyan97 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
>>> ---Lars Martin Fosse <lmfosse at ONLINE.NO> wrote:
>
>>> I think you forget one very important factor here - MONEY.
>
>>So, the thread should read: truth, method and money!
>
>Money is everywhere, academic exchange programs are everywhere. Why are they
>not or very little used for Vedic studies, in spite of their cultural
>importance? I presume that if a study results in more than mere guesswork,
>there are better chances to get (international) funding for it, or to get
>acceptance for academic exchange, etc. So we come back at 'method'.

I agree that Indology could use some better methods. I have myself tried to
work in that direction when I did my study of statistical methods for use in
an Indological context. However, the money question is very real: When
Indological jobs are cancelled for money reasons, as happens here in the
West, then the subject suffers. As far as India is concerned, even with
modern computational technology, the acquisition of Indological literature
from outside India (as well as other literature pertaining to the
humanities) is a need to stay abreast with research. And it must be terribly
expensive, given the prices. I therefore think that it would be fairer to
India to publish Indological literature there, rather than i Europe/the US.
Thus, everybody would have a fair chance of reading the latest stuff.

>I could give a list of points on which Western (European) and Eastern
>(Japanese) scholars could make *methodological* improvements in their research.

Please do!

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse


Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse
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