Gentoo Studies

[Luis Gonzalez-Reimann]

Dear Mr. Tilak,

I do not know in what context or in what spirit prof. Sharma made the
remark you quote, but the fact that you have chosen to mention it, along
with recent comments on the list regarding the Aryan migrations, prompts me
to say a few words.

As anybody who has been on this list for some time is aware, there is a
periodic -shall I say cyclical- recurrence of discussions that bring up the
subject of indigenous aryanism, the historical primacy of India, and
related matters.  This usually starts with new members of the list who are
not familiar with previous exchanges on these subjects, but have come
across some of the rapidly growing popular literature that refers to the
so-called "recently demonstrated falseness" of scholarly ideas on these
matters.   Many of us will be glad to have Edwin Bryant's synthesis of the
arguments (as he has just confirmed he will do in the coming months).

The point I wish to make here is that a persistent problem when this
subject comes up seems to be an assumed polar opposition between "Western"
and "Indian" abilities to understand things and have opinions about them.
Your reference to "Indic paradigms of knowledge and scholarship" is, in
this sense, somewhat troubling.  The problem with an approach like this is
an assumption that a geographical/cultural area imposes a certain
perception of reality that is universally and eternally valid for that
area.  This is clearly not the case, as what we today call India has had as
many different opinions about truth as any other geographical or cultural
area, including Europe and what we now refer to as "the West."  Broad
generalizations about "Indian" or "Western" scholars or scholarship, while
useful in some historical analyses, can be very misleading.  A good recent
example is Said's "orientalism" which paints Western perceptions of lands
beyond Greece -from the early Greek thinkers to Henry Kissinger- with the
same broad brush and, it would seem, attributes to all one same hidden
agenda, thus removing the importance of specific cultural, religious,
historical, psychological and personal contexts.

Many of the regularly offered arguments against currently accepted ideas
concerning Indo-Aryan migrations and related matters seem to take as a
starting point a criticism of a supposed persistent and pervasive "Western"
prejudice.  Attacks on these perceived prejudices are usually symbolized in
the figure of Max Muller, who has become a sort of punching bag.  They
ignore not only much of the scholarship since Muller's time, but also how
academic attitudes in the "West" have changed in many quarters (changes
that have allowed for Said's popularity).

I would assume that most serious scholars will agree that good analyses,
perceptive and intuitive insights, and informed opinions are not bound by
nationality or culture.  A good scholar or thinker is still a good scholar
or thinker, whether he is Western or Eastern.  Assuming, automatically,
that a traditional commentator is wrong or right is just as bad as assuming
that a Western scholar is.  Both are prejudices that betray the presence of
bad scholarship.  Not Western or Indian scholarship, just bad scholarship.

The British administration in India made use of, and fostered, the
distinction between the West as more rational (and, therefore, more capable
of administering the land) and the East (mainly India) as more emotional
and philosophical.  Vivekananda's use of the same idea when writing of
India's spiritual supremacy was harshly criticized by Indians who saw it as
playing into colonial ideology.  [This East-West dichotomy, by the way, has
persisted among Western occult traditions that characterize the West as
Solar (and Apollonian) and the East as Lunar (and Dyonisiac).]

It would surely be useful to anyone interested in current popular (and
often sensationalistic) literature attacking "Western invasion theories,"
to look carefully at many of these popular arguments that tend to frame the
discussion within an East-West divide, arousing nationalistic or
anti-imperialist feelings instead of careful reflection.

Best wishes,

Luis González-Reimann, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley


At 07:14 AM 5/2/99 -0700, you wrote:
>    N.S.Rajaram's review of Indus Age: The Writing System by Gregory
>Possehl's book by Dr Rajaram (made available to this list by Vishal Agarwal)
>calls for "a new school of thought" in the field of Indology. This appeal
>reminds me of the suggestion formally made by Arvind Sharma of McGill
>University, Montreal at the conference on Dharma and History held in Shimla
>in July 1997 that western scholarship on Indology be known as "Gentoo
>Studies" in order to distinguish it from contributions made by Indians
>themselves using Indic paradigms of knowledge and scholarship.
>
>
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