[INDOLOGY] Read the Sanskrit texts: Why both Rajiv Malhotra and his critics are wrong about plagiarism

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Productive and useful contributions are flowing in the form of
citing examples of quoting /citing /referencing instances from ancient
Sanskrit literature.
Prof. Dominik Wujastyk brought to us the great news of a great project of
"comprehensively collecting and analyzing the quotations and paraphrases
from and allusions to the texts of ancient Sanskrit
literature" "investigate the Indian convention of quoting and referring to
earlier works or views as an element of composition in other branches of
scientific literature." by Dr Ernst Prets at the Austrian Academy of
Sciences.

It might be in response to RM's alleged assertion to the contrary.

But the sentence

 "Sanskrit does not even have quotation marks in its character set."

 that is virally making rounds from RM's

<
http://www.newslaundry.com/2015/07/15/rajiv-malhotra-says-those-accusing-him-of-plagiarism-are-really-out-to-silence-his-voice/
>

is in fact part of a paragraph:

The second level is whether there is omission of references in a merely
*technical* sense. This is where customs for acknowledgment differ,
depending on whether it is an academic book (which mine are not), which
readership is viewing it, and so forth. I wish to point out that in ancient
Indian traditions, references were required (as in ancient Sanskrit texts)
but the Western conventions did *not* apply. Sanskrit does not even have
quotation marks in its character set. Yet traditional scholars made clear
when they referred to someone else’s thoughts. So in the worst case, I
might be accused of violating a *specific* technical convention of the
style and form of acknowledging sources. But certainly no plagiarism can be
said at the level of the intention and spirit of my work.

It is, in fact, part of a compound of two sentences :

*Sanskrit does not even have quotation marks in its character set. Yet
traditional scholars made clear when they referred to someone else’s
thoughts.*


Did the two sentences from the paragraph:

1. I wish to point out that in ancient Indian traditions, references were
required (as in ancient Sanskrit texts)....

2. Yet traditional scholars made clear when they referred to someone else’s
thoughts.

probably missed the attention of scholars ?

Even if they did,  triggering of all these wonderful contributions on
quoting /citing /referencing instances from ancient Sanskrit literature, by
that probable missed attention is doing good to Indological studies.

Thanks to all the scholars who brought in the ancient Indian views on
plagiarism and examples of  Indian convention of quoting and referring to
earlier works.

N
-- 

Prof.Nagaraj Paturi
Hyderabad-500044


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20150726/0163d59a/attachment.htm>