Indology's Future?

[rohan.oberoi at CORNELL.EDU]

Stephen, you seem to be under the impression that I made a specific
point about Indology, rather than a general point about scholarship.
Perhaps, as Indians tend to ignore the existence of evidence from
outside India, Indologists sometimes forget that scholarship is
broader than Indology.  At any rate I did not, as you seem to believe,
claim to know "what makes a good scholar in Indology".

I know a few biochemists who study slime mold, whose love and
admiration for it is evident in the way they talk about it.  I know
others who consider that a little extreme.  Both groups are perfectly
good scholars.  The day a statement of love and admiration for slime
mold becomes a requirement to work in the lab, scholarship there will
have been dealt a serious blow.

Your contempt for "useless, tired and boring scholarship in Indology"
by people who "know their facts but have no love for their study" is
your personal opinion, to which you are entitled.  I suspect the
people you are disparaging may not be the only ones to disagree with
you about the quality of their work.  (This would be an interesting
area to get into specifics: name some of these scholars and their
work, and let's see what other Indologists here think of them.)

Your sweeping statement about India having "the most well developed,
interesting, intellectually interesting, and spiritually powerful
tradition in history" again is an opinion to which you are entitled,
but not necessarily one to which anyone who hopes to study India need
subscribe, and still less one to which public adherence can be
demanded by anyone.

Regards,
Rohan.






>In whose opinion does this need to be stated, yours?  In my opinion,
>their are three types of scholars in this field, those who care,
>love, and immerse themselves in the power of this subject matter;
>those who don't, but know their facts, and those who don't even know
>their facts.  In my experience, the only scholarship worth reading
>devolves from the first group.  There is a plethora of useless,
>tired, and boring scholarship in indology that arises from people who
>know their facts but have no love for their study.  It is the case in
>my opinion, that especially in the field of Indology, a certain love
>and extremist dedication is required to even work with in the
>material.  There are/were many indologists who have not had any love
>of this culture, and their translations of texts are generally so
>wooden, non-heartfelt, and single layered that they are basically
>inaccurate.  Furthermore, their commentary on text is almost always
>entirely incorrect, as it fails to make the neccesary connection with
>cultural indicators and sensibilities in Indian culture.  The study
>of indology for me is not something i do out of interest in one
>dimensional fact, but rather based on entry into the most well
>developed, interesting, intellectually interesting, and spiritually
>powerful tradition in history.  You, Rohan, have no right to decide
>as an individual what makes a good scholar in indology, or anything
>else for that matter, and consensus would likely not support this
>position.  reguards; Stephen J Brown