September 11 for Indologists

[Jan E.M. Houben]

According to the Indology Archive of September
2001 the events of the "eleventh" went entirely
unnoticed. Justly so, because the focus of the
List is on "classical Indian civilisation". Even
then, although it is not widely known,
Indologists have their own almost classical
"September 11".

Since Herodotus and esp. since F.W.J. Hegel,
"history" is in the hands of "the West". "The
West" makes and writes history, even in the East
-- see now also Ranajit Guha, History at the
Limit of World History, Columbia Univ. Press,
2002. September 11 seems to have been an
exception. At that moment "the East" manifested
itself unexpectedly -- wrote history -- in "the
West". It created an impact which redefined the
relation between the continents and between the
world religions. After all, it was on September
11, 10 o'clock, that Swami Vivekananda's speech
for the World Parliament of Religions, Chicago
1893, took place -- exactly 108 years before the
events on that other September 11, in 2001.
(Swami Vivekananda spoke on Monday, whereas 11
September in 2001 was on Tuesday.)

The link between the two events was *perceived*
and suggested to me last year by G.B. Palsule
(author of biography in Sanskrit of Vivekananda).

Jan Houben

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