Humanist message from the darkest day

[Dominik Wujastyk]

When I founded the INDOLOGY list so many years ago (1990!), I was
consciously imitating the HUMANIST discussion list of Willard McCarty,
which I had followed for some years.  HUMANIST still exists and is still
going strong.  It's a fine resource, civilized, urbane, witty,
informative, and at least once a year, downright wise.

Once a year, Willard (now at King's College London), writes a "state of
the nation" message which is always worth reading.  His message for this
year arrived today, and can be read at

 http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/Humanist/v16/0370.html


Since the INDOLOGY list closed in April 2001 and re-opened under new
management in July that same year, it has attracted 194 members, all of
whom have kindly submitted a brief CV and been approved by the INDOLOGY
Committee (indologycommittee at liverpool.ac.uk).  The list as it exists now
is very much the kind of forum I had intended to create in 1990, when my
imagination envisaged a discussion amongst, perhaps 50 people.  The
discussion in recent months has included book announcements, grammatical,
literary, and historical discussions, software and fonts for Indian
languages, job and conference announcements, Buddhism as a Kenyan heresy
(!), and even pointers to a campaign to release one of our Indological
colleagues from inappropriate conditions of imprisonment in Israel (now
accomplished).

Perhaps best of all, for those who remember the days of 2001, the list now
only offers a smallish number of postings, so none of us need feel
overwhelmed by an unmanageable torrent of messages.

As 2002 draws all too rapidly to its conclusion, I would like to share
with you all my pleasure in how the list has now evolved, and to offer my
gratitude to all of you as INDOLOGY members for your use of the list,
which I do believe is once again an important academic benefit.

And I would especially like publicly to offer my thanks to my colleagues
on the INDOLOGY Committee, John Brockington, Jan Houben, Birgit Kellner,
Harunaga Isaacson, Gary Tubb, Madhav Deshpande, and Christian Wedemeyer.
The new success and smooth running of the forum is entirely due to their
support, careful judgement, and hard work, and I cannot express strongly
enough how grateful I am to them for their willingness to offer their time
and energy to running the INDOLOGY list, and how impressed I have been by
their professionalism.  Although I am penning this note from some sort of
privileged position as founder of INDOLOGY, today it really is the truth
that the list is not "mine" in any real sense, and that it has grown up
into a shared responsibility of a group of indologists.

Thank you everyone, and all the best for the holidays.

--
Dominik Wujastyk