Viveka & Rta/Satya

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

>etc., proved by Sarasvati river photographed from deep space by
>NASA scientists! One has to wonder whether all this rhetorics
>will lead to violence?

Seems like rather unnecessary paranoia, and directed at the
wrong source. For one thing, there is already too much violence
in India, and due to other kinds of rhetoric. For another, what a
few people in Madras based organizations like TAMBRAS and AIBF
think is hardly going to affect the rest of the country. The
"All-India" Brahmin Federation is even less All India than the
All India Anna DMK. It is not even All Tamil Nadu to begin with.

>The appeal is to increase the number of endowments and professorships
>on Dravidology, once the linguistic, etymon, textual analysis

Where is the money to come from? And you seem to be appealing
to the very people who are struggling to find institutional
support of their research. Rather misdirected, I should think.

>from the Dravidian and Munda side increase and when comparative
>studies between intra-Indian  cultures prosper, these ridiculous
>claims that Aryans were the high Harappans will fade away.

This underestimates the continuing political power of certain
groups as much as the earlier comment overestimates that of
others.

>It always strikes me how the Dravidology is not instituitionally
>funded with staffing and resources, when compared with, say,
>the big full-time publishing industry of the Sankara studies;

Well, don't worry about that. Interest in Sankara studies is
rapidly dwindling too. I have yet to see a single response to
my simple question about studies of his chAndogya upanishad
bhAshya. In any case, I'm mystified why Sankara has to be
singled out here. If you really look at what is happening,
the big-time publishing industry nowadays has to do with
Abhinavagupta. The dogma is rapidly getting established that
anything that is "Tantric" has to do with Kashmir. Tirumular
and other Tamil icons get almost zero attention.

>Sankara probably lived around 900 CE and the Sankara maths, both

In this, you reveal as much contempt for rigorous scholarship
as the right wing fanatics you oppose. This date is too late.

>Kanchi and Sringeri, were not founded until after several centuries

Why single out these two? Just because they are in the south?

>of his death. The story that Sankara founded 4 mathas in the
>four corners of India is even much later, starting only in the
>Maratha times.

Let's see, the only other person on this list who has made this
comment about "Maratha origin" is Swaminathan Madhuresan. Both
of you share such a remarkable congruity of views on every
possible item of discussion, one begins to wonder whether the
only thing that divides you two is a computer account.

Sorry, couldn't resist that.

>As we all know, the out-of-India schoolwallahs' market is the
>capturing of the masses in India, and their efforts mainly are
>directed towards the Indian public. They know that they cannot
>convince the professors in the Indian studies and Sanskrit depts.
>Most prominent of them choose to leave, and do not argue out
>their OIT positions.

Leave what? And who does not argue? Have you been reading this
list recently?

Best wishes,
Vidyasankar
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