[INDOLOGY] Article about the politics surrounding Indology at the IHRC

[Hock, Hans Henrich]

Dear Matthew and George,

I agree with both of your comments. To avoid raising too many red flags, I confined my comments to the issue of the decipherment (or not) of the Indus symbols. There clearly are great cultural differences between the Indus Civilization and the Vedic one, including the great role of the unicorn in the IC and its absence in (early) Vedic.

Best wishes,

Hans Henrich


On 11 Jun 2015, at 14:53, Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu<mailto:mkapstei at uchicago.edu>> wrote:

Dear everyone,

I would suggest that all be more restrained in the use of the term "racist," the connotations of which
generally suggest that the person so characterized attributes constitutional inferiority, or ritual pollution,
or moral degradation, or animality, etc., to certain classes of persons on account of their "race," a term
whose precise significance is deeply problematic. Chauvanism is not the same thing, nor is triumphalism, though
these also involve judgments of human inequality.

The Aryan topos frequently is imbricated with racism, but it is not necessarily so. More damning, in my view,
have been the reckless, unscientific confusions of historical linguistics, cultural history, mythology,
genetics, archeology, nationalism, etc., that characterize many of the recent discussions. These are not by any
means to be mixed indiscriminately.

Best in my view to be cautious in one's methodology and prudent in one's vocabulary.

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago



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