[INDOLOGY] In defense of MLBD

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

<I think it would be very good if Indian universities used more up-to-date
text books!>
It is not a question of discarding outdated books. Only a few read
Oldenberg seriously, just as only a few (in relation to the total
readership of autobiographies)read Mein Kampf seriously. It is a question
of banning a racialist book.
DB


On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 11:31 PM, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 20 May 2014 18:18, Dipak Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ​...​
>
>
>> My question is why should we not first recommend writing off Oldenberg's *Die
>> Literatur des  alten Indien*, 2nd ed., Stuttgart 1923 where the racist
>> ideas of Oldenberg prominently occur, from the lsts of recommended books in
>> the Universities?
>>
>
> ​Why not, indeed?  I think it would be very good if Indian universities
> used more up-to-date text books!  I am always saddened when I read the
> anti-aryan-invasion people arguing against Max Müller.  It's like Don
> Quixote tilting at windmills.   Almost nobody outside India has read
> anything by Muller for nearly a hundred years (to learn about Indology,
> that is).  The field of Indology *does* move forward, actually, just like
> other fields of intellectual endeavour, and it would be wonderful if
> university students in India were encouraged and enabled to read
> contemporary literature on the subject of Indian literary studies, rather
> than pre-war stuff that's long ago been superseded by more exciting, more
> accurate and more comprehensive research.
>
> So, if you start a petition for replacing Oldenberg in Indian university
> curricula with something better, I'll sign :-)
>
> Dominik
>
>


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