[INDOLOGY] Against the petition against Prof. Pollock

Mon Feb 29 10:43:31 UTC 2016

> Professor S.D. Joshi was in the audience and wanted to make a comment
> that disagreed with Patañjali's views.  The Pandits told him that he
could
> not participate in the discussion, unless he first accepted the supreme
> authority of Patañjali.

I have met (where?) some time ago  with a peculiar definition of Sanskrit.
According to it Sanskrit is Amrita. Not "*is like* Amrita", it *is* Amrita.

Would anyone in their sound mind want to change the composition of the
drink of immortality?

Regards,

Artur Karp

Warsaw, Poland

2016-02-28 15:01 GMT+01:00 Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu>:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I could not agree more with Dr. Nityananda Misra's concluding statement: "As
> I see it, both petitions are rooted more in strong differences of
> opinion/ideology than in misunderstanding or wilful misconstrual/misrepresentation."
>  This ideological divide is now at the boiling point, but the first time I
> came face to face with it was in 1965 in Pune.  There was a Pandit Sabha in
> which some leading Pandits were discussing some grammatical point, citing
> the authority of Patañjali.  My teacher, Professor S.D. Joshi was in the
> audience and wanted to make a comment that disagreed with Patañjali's
> views.  The Pandits told him that he could not participate in the
> discussion, unless he first accepted the supreme authority of Patañjali.
> Professor Joshi sat down, without being allowed to speak at this event.  I
> don't know where the current "Battle for Sanskrit" will end up, but it
> clearly has very deep roots.
>
> Madhav Deshpande
>
> On Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 6:41 AM, Nityanand Misra <nmisra at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 27 February 2016 at 21:22, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I discovered yesterday that there exists a petition
>>> <https://www.change.org/p/mr-n-r-narayana-murthy-and-mr-rohan-narayan-murty-removal-of-prof-sheldon-pollock-as-mentor-and-chief-editor-of-murty-classical-library>
>>> launched by Prof. K. Ramasubramanian that asks for Prof. Sheldon Pollock to
>>> be removed from his editorial leadership role with the Murty Library.
>>>
>>>
>> Dear list members
>>
>> It is the season of petitions and statements! Adding some more details
>> before my comments:
>>
>> 1) While the petition of change.org has been started by Prof. K
>> Ramasubramanian, as many as 131 Indian intellectuals apart from Prof. K
>> Ramasubramanian signed the original plea to Mr. Narayana Murthy and Mr.
>> Rohan Murthy. I do not know if it was covered in a mainstream media source,
>> the much less-known newsgram.com carried it:
>> http://www.newsgram.com/132-indian-academicians-call-for-removal-of-sheldon-pollock-as-general-editor-of-murthy-classical-library/
>> I personally know and have met with many scholars on the list: and some
>> of them are very well respected in India, in addition to being well-known.
>> Prof.  Ramasubramanian himself is a recipient of the Badarayan Vyas Samman.
>>
>> 2) Apart from the aspects highlighted in Dr. Wujastyk's email, two other
>> aspects which are very relevant to this petition: the letter by the
>> academicians mentions Mr. Rajiv Malhotra's *Battle of Sanskrit* as well
>> as Prof. Pollock's recent signing of the solidarity statement with the
>> “students, faculty, and staff of JNU”: the petition against Prof. Pollock
>> may well be a reaction to this. On the first aspect: Recently, Mr. Rajiv
>> Malhotra's book has been widely discussed in Indian universities of late.
>> Mr. Malhotra has been hosted by several Indian universities and institutes
>> (e.g. Karnataka Sanskrit University and TISS) for talks where he has
>> received both support and opposition, but more support than opposition as
>> far as I can say. On the second aspect, there was a discussion on the *Bhāratīyavidvatpariṣat
>> *mailing list (Mr. Rajiv Malhotra recently joined this mailing list).
>> The thread was started by me, and I remarked in my short initial post
>> “Before the Indian courts decide, 455 academicians have already reached a
>> decision.” The discussion can be read here:
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bvparishat/cTgsJDKjA8I
>>
>> My quick comments:
>> If it can be argued that the petition against Prof. Pollock is based on
>> ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘wilful misconstrual’ (as members on this list have
>> described), then it can also be argued that the solidarity statement (to
>> which Prof. Pollock is a signatory) on the JNU issue is based on a ‘lack of
>> understanding’ of jurisprudence in India or ‘wilful misrepresentation’ of
>> facts. On jurisprudence: The Delhi Police has the documentary (video tapes)
>> and non-documentary (eye-witnesses) evidence, and the Indian courts will
>> examine the evidence and rule on the matter: then in what capacity does the
>> solidarity statement declare thrice that the police action on JNU was
>> ‘illegal’. On misrepresentation, the solidarity statement misses that fact
>> that a large section of JNU students and teachers did support the police
>> action on JNU. This was also covered in the news:
>> http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/180-JNU-Teachers-Take-the-Sarkari-Side-Demand-Action-Against-Students/2016/02/16/article3280826.ece
>>
>> As I see it, both petitions are rooted more in strong differences of
>> opinion/ideology than in misunderstanding or wilful
>> misconstrual/misrepresentation.
>>
>> Thanks, Nityanand
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
> Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
> 202 South Thayer Street, Suite 6111
> The University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608, USA
>
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