Dear Prof. Slaje,

 

I apologize for the misunderstanding. I was fooled by the different fonts used in your reply and I thought that they were also marking quotations from the original source. Therefore, I stand corrected and I join you in pitying the horrible fate that befell Leonardo da Vinci when he was reborn in Italy.

 

Best wishes,

 

Camillo Formigatti

 

 


 

Dr Camillo A. Formigatti

John Clay Sanskrit Librarian

 

Bodleian Libraries 

The Weston Library

Broad Street, Oxford

OX1 3BG

 

Email: camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Tel. (office): 01865 (2)77208
www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

 

GROW YOUR MIND

in Oxford University’s

Gardens, Libraries and Museums

www.mindgrowing.org

 

From: Walter Slaje [mailto:slaje@kabelmail.de]
Sent: 23 November 2018 18:06
To: Camillo Formigatti <camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk>
Cc: indology@list.indology.info
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] invite to participate in "Churning of Indology" international conference 4th to 6th January 2019 Udupi

 

Dear Dr Formigatti,

 

to avoid a possible misunderstanding, sentences in my earlier mail quoted from another source were put in quotation marks. The remaining words and sentences were my own, admittedly somewhat ironic remarks, which I could not help making from the background of the intellectual level of all this. Irony  also holds for the sad Italian rebirth of Leonardo. Truly sorry!

 

Best regards,

WS


 

Am Fr., 23. Nov. 2018 um 18:17 Uhr schrieb Camillo Formigatti <camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk>:

Dar Prof. Slaje,

 

Many thanks for sharing this insightful quotes from the BVP mailing list.

 

Leonardo da Vinci, who - doubtlessly by force of his own karma - was unlucky enough to have been reborn in Italy

 

As an Italian, I must join this anonymous Indian colleague in pitying the horrible fate that befell Leonardo da Vinci and hope that what he accomplished during his sad life in Renaissance Italy and France allowed him to be reborn as a male on the soil of भारत.

 

Best wishes,

 

Camillo Formigatti

 


 

Dr Camillo A. Formigatti

John Clay Sanskrit Librarian

 

Bodleian Libraries 

The Weston Library

Broad Street, Oxford

OX1 3BG

 

Email: camillo.formigatti@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Tel. (office): 01865 (2)77208
www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

 

GROW YOUR MIND

in Oxford University’s

Gardens, Libraries and Museums

www.mindgrowing.org

 

From: Walter Slaje [mailto:slaje@kabelmail.de]
Sent: 23 November 2018 14:32
Cc: indology@list.indology.info
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] invite to participate in "Churning of Indology" international conference 4th to 6th January 2019 Udupi

 


Dear List,

 

> Bharatiya Vidvat Parishat [...] has grown enormously during the last ten years. BVP is everybody’s need.

 

Should the Swadeshi spirit of the BVP also permeate the planned churning of Western Indologists in Udupi, the circle of the needful will keep within clearly definable limits.

 

Two quotes from BVP should suffice to make plain the ideological direction things are taking at present.

 

A question on the linguistic age of Sanskrit as treated in Antonia Ruppel's "Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit" (2017) is answered there in this way:

"I would request you not to fully believe on this because, these westerners have manipulated many of our scriptures date to either after Christ or if not then some vague date. In Chennai or in Kerala, if there is any old Sanskritam institution then pls contact them. Cambridge Oxford Harvard Columbia and many have done enough harm to our Literature."

 

Harm done to Sanskrit and Indian literature by the sinister world of anglophone scholars set aside, here is another of the many gems of that sort: Leonardo da Vinci, who - doubtlessly by force of his own karma - was unlucky enough to have been reborn in Italy, was considered to become a namesake for a school in India run by an Indian person. One of Swadeshi Indic persons reacted to the above idea of making this hapless Western polymath a name patron in India in the following manner:

"Italy may have 1 person, but ours is a vast country. Hence we just can't have 1. We have many.  Give your friend name of many Bhartiya counterpart names. Let them know that we are in multiples in every field."

 

Future subjects of Indological research on the changing intellectual environment of contemporary India appear in front of our eyes like grease drops floating on the soup. Time to apply for funds. The sources are inexhaustible.

 

Regards,

WS

 

-----------------------------
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
Hermann-Löns-Str. 1
D-99425 Weimar
Deutschland

Ego ex animi mei sententia spondeo ac polliceor
studia humanitatis impigro labore culturum et provecturum
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humani generis continetur, clarius effulgeat.
Vindobonae, die XXI. mensis Novembris MCMLXXXIII.