Thank you for your excellent letter, Professor Goldman.
Given the discussion here on Indology, this much seems clear: It is in everyone's interest that a project as stellar as the MCLI continue to produce editions and translations of the
Indian classics across languages, as it has done for a decade under the General Editorship of Sheldon Pollock, together with different sets of section editors looking after different languages, and with the exceptional publication capacities and standards
of HUP (to which I can testify from my own experience as an author, albeit not in this series).
Since pretty much everyone with the requisite linguistic, philological, textual and literary expertise (in various classical languages) anywhere in the world is already involved and
invested in the MCLI; since we are all in this together as translators, editors, readers, and teachers, we do want the series to continue, and for it to maintain its high quality into the foreseeable future.
Like with any group endeavour, some housekeeping and some moving around of personnel is inevitable and wouldn't surprise any of us in academia, with our committees and departments
routinely going through these sorts of cycles, and not always smoothly.
In this case, given what Archana and her co-editors have brought to our attention, it seems entirely fair to ask for a review or audit of the MCLI, i.e., more transparency with regard
to who is in charge of editing, for how long, and with what sort of remit over a specified term of appointment. In all events, on-going work should not be thrown into jeopardy while seemingly arbitrary changes are made in the leadership, without consultation
or consensus.
We can and must hope that as a very small community (in the larger scheme of things), between us we will be able to overcome this dispute in such a way as to preserve the mission and vision of the MCLI,
best presented in Professor Pollock's essay "What should a Classical Library of India be?" (written for The
Loeb Classical Library and Its Progeny. Proceedings of the First James Loeb Biennial Conference, edited by Jeffrey Henderson and Richard Thomas, 63–84. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U. Press, 2020. Available at: https://sheldonpollock.org/archive/pollock_loeb_2020.pdf).
His essay shows
that every part of this project is integral to its conception, including scholarship, philology, pedagogy, translation, publication,
design, printing and dissemination. Right down to the typefaces, everything is part of a plan, with an eye to the future.
Since all parties involved are superb at what they do, and since we have so many luminous volumes already in our hands to prove it, let us focus our collective energies on helping resolve the
current contretemps speedily and gracefully. It can be done. Especially as educators, we cannot allow pessimism to get the better of us.
Texts that have survived and brightened the admittedly often disheartening human condition for centuries can surely make it through and past this transient misunderstanding among our learned colleagues
and friends.
With all good wishes,
Ananya.
Ananya Vajpeyi, Ph.D.
Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Rd., Civil Lines
New Delhi 110054, INDIA