[INDOLOGY] A Concerned Citizen (of ancient India)

[Jarrod Whitaker]

Dear Colleagues:
I make here the first (public) appeal for a time-out on issues to do 
with Arya-identity, migration/invasion, IVC, and the dovetailed topic of 
Indology and its history.  I am not downplaying the importance of these 
topics and the role they play (and need to play) in professional 
discussions. However, some of the responses are becoming interestingly 
acrimonious, ad hominem, and unprofessional.

We are talking about real people, real lives and careers (of those who 
lived in the IVC, of those who spoke Indo-Arya languages several 
millennia ago, and of dead or alive Indologists or scholars of ancient 
India). While this is an appeal to emotion, I am sure we can all agree 
that we should exercise some (or complete) restraint when invoking 
(inter)personal histories and how these may or may not impact scholarly 
conclusions.

In addition, when a scholar makes a simple charitable statement to the 
effect that we should read a book in full before drawing any 
conclusions, I would hope that posting information about sources that 
directly engage in the issues would be enough for listserve members.

Put glibly, no one is going to win an argument in this forum....As we 
all know (but sometimes forget) this takes more space than a listserve 
and requires time and a process of consensus building via conferences, 
papers, books, and a self-reflexive willingness to change one's views in 
the face of logical argumentation and critical interpretation of 
evidence among a peer community.

With warmest regards
Jarrod

Jarrod Whitaker, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Asian Religions
Graduate Program Director

Wake Forest University
Department for the Study of Religions
P.O. Box 7212
Winston-Salem, NC  27109
whitakjl at wfu.edu
p 336.758.4162