<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It is not a question of discarding outdated books.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@gmail.com> wrote:
On 20 May 2014 18:18, Dipak Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004@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read contemporary literature on the subject of Indian literary studies, rather than pre-war stuff that's long ago been superseded by more exciting, more accurate and more comprehensive research.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