[INDOLOGY] pirated essay

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

11 12 13
Such practice is shamefully carried on. In the nineties the
4th and 5th chapters of my book Mythological and
ritual symbolism, (a young age adventure, written 1974 published 1984
Calcutta) were copied and published in one Encyclopaedia of Tantras by Cosmo Publishers,
Delhi, ostensibly written by one Santi Bhikshu. I questioned the publishers
which was not answered. But legal proceedings were taken thereafter by some
authors abroad whose books too had been plagiarized. The same type of
plagiarism was not heard of for sometime. A new and more virulent type appears.
Popular editions whose authors are dead but copyright exists have been copied and
published without the original editor’s name anywhere.  
It looks like a regular racket that cannot be checked
without new relevant laws against the practice and subjecting the perpetrators
to legal proceedings and exemplary punishment.
But will anybody hear?
DB 




On Wednesday, 11 December 2013 8:20 PM, Rosane Rocher <rrocher at sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
 
Dear colleagues, 

With thanks to Herman Tull, I just found out that an essay of mine
    was reprinted without my knowledge or mention of the source from
    which it was taken, and, worst of all, with misrepresenting
    changes.  

My original essay "Sanskrit and Related Studies in the United
    States: 1960–1985" was written for, and published in the proceedings
    of, Indological Studies & South Asia Bibliography - a Conference, convened in Calcutta at the National Library of India by its then director, the late great historian Ashin Dasgupta, in which I participated in 1986 (pp. 61–92).  A pirated reprint has since appeared in the volume Sanskrit Studies outside India (On the occasion of 10th World Sanskrit Conference, Bangalore, Jan 3–9, 1997 [which I did not attend]), New Delhi: Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, 1997, edited by the Sansthan's then director, Dr. K.K. Mishra, under the truncated title "Sanskrit Studies in United States" (pp. 97–152).  I do mind the deletion of "and Related Studies," since it was the very point of my essay to assess the state of Sanskrit studies contextually, particularly in connection with area studies, religious studies, and Indo-European linguistics.  Yet worse is the deletion of the period "1960–1985" and passing off the essay as if it was still current 11 years
 later.  I notice that essays about Sanskrit Studies in other parts of the world included in the Sansthan's volume were current, mentioning dates up to 1996.  

Since then, an online version of the Sansthan's volume has appeared,
    which omits the two appendices in my essay (pp. 128–152, equivalent
    to pp. 77–91 of my original essay).  As a consolation, perhaps, the
    online version mercifully also omits the list of contributors to the
    Sansthan's volume (pp. 153–154), in which the 5 half-line entry that
    concerns me manages to feature 4 mistakes: misspelling my name
    "Roscher," misnaming my department "South Asian languages," mauling
    the name of my university as "University of Peninsula," and then
    again the State in which I reside as "Peninsula."  This performance
    brings back to my mind the French phrase with which one of my high
    school teachers greeted anything stupid one of us students had done:
    "Dépêchons-nous d'en rire, de peur d'en pleurer" ("Let's hasten to
    laugh at this, lest it bring us to tears").      

I earnestly request scholars who might be interested in this topic
    to bear in mind the purpose and date of my essay and, if any might
    wish to quote it, to do so with its full, original title, including
    the period covered.  

With thanks and best wishes, 

Rosane Rocher
Professor Emerita of South Asia Studies 
University of Pennsylvania 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
USA                     

 
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