Response to S Bhatta <attahb at REDIFFMAIL.COM>

[Steve Farmer]

The Indology Archives show that since 7 April 2001 four posts
have been directed against me from the previously unknown name
and address S Bhatta <attahb at REDIFFMAIL.COM>.

These are the ONLY posts ever sent to the Indology List from this
name or address. I have no idea who S Bhatta is/are, but it is
clear that every post made from this address has contained an
attack on me.

It is time for these attacks to desist.

S. Bhatta's most recent complaint is that I don't have the right,
again since I'm a comparativist and not Sanskrit specialist, to
ask Panini experts a question about northwest grammarians in the
early Achaemenid era. My underlying question was pertinent to
ongoing studies of canonization processes throughout Eurasia, and
has nothing really to do with Sanskrit -- although the answer to
my question may have some implications for Vedicists.

My question received detailed and helpful responses both on and
off List from prominent Vedic and Panini experts. I have my
doubts that S Bhatta's email box frequently contains such
messages.

Like all other sciences, the historical sciences are or should be
collaborative endeavors. Major advances, especially in premodern
Eurasian studies, demand the work of linguists, philologists,
archaeologists, anthropologists, population biologists,
comparative historians, and regional historians all working
together.

Collaborative efforts of this nature have a major theoretical as
well as empirical component; that theoretical component is
promoted by breadth of knowledge in many areas no less than
expertise in single fields. Fresh ideas in collaborations
frequently come from researchers in any field involved in the
collaboration, but everyone involved knows that before being
accepted those ideas must be tested *rigorously* by specialists
in all the involved fields.

So the key term that S Bhatta needs to think here about is
'collaboration.' I have my own linguistic talents and skills and
I am in nearly daily contact with ssome of the best Sanskritists
in the world (also other languages). I seriously doubt that S
Bhatta can match the research resources of both linguistic and
historical nature available to me.

In any event, I've had enough of S Bhatta, and I *again*
challenge him/her/them to discuss some substantial issue with me
-- or to kindly shut up. My last such challenge was ignored.

Lots of research energy is being wasted. Or is wasting my time,
making it unpleasant for me to post, as I suspect, *precisely*
what S Bhatto has/have in mind?

S. Farmer