Promising continuity with a discontinuous past (report of a conference, 1995); two Postscripts, 2014; two Further Postscripts, incl. brief review The Nay Science, 2018.

(Winter 1996, with additions and updates up to 30.10.2018) LINK TO THE REPORT AS IT APPEARED IN IIAS-NEWSLETTER 7 p. 27: <http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/iiasn7/south/houben.html> updated version: www.academia.edu/7378413 25-29 September 1995 Leipzig, Germany Indology at the 26th Deutscher Orientalistentag Context note: Author’s copy of a conference report of the Deutscher Orientalistentag, 25-29 September 1995, the writing of which was an obligation for the partial reimbursement I received for my participation from my then home-institute, the IIAS, Leiden. The paper I presented at the occasion was entitled “ ‘Meaning statements’ in Pāṇini’s grammar: on the context and the purpose of the Aṣṭādhyāyī” (later published in Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik vol. 22: 23- 54). Subheadings were added without consultation by the then editor of the IIAS-Newsletter Paul van der Velde, hence they appear here in square brackets [PvdV: ...]: “Ehre wem Ehre gebührt.” An occasionally missing word (no proofs had been received) and a few new comments in footnotes are added [between square brackets], as well as three postcripts (05- 05-2014) and two Further Postscripts (30-10-2018). Promising continuity with a discontinuous past On 25-29 September 1995 the 26th Deutscher Orientalistentag (German Orientalist Meeting) took place in Leipzig, the city which, with neighbouring Halle, became the seat of the then newly founded German Oriental Society (DMG, Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft) exactly 150 years ago. The aim of the DMG to which the founders in 1845 agreed was “to promote all aspects of the knowledge of Asia and of the countries closely related to it in every aspect, and to propagate participation of this in wider circles. Hence the Society will deal not only with oriental literature ('morgenländische Literatur') but also with the history of these countries and the research of their situation in both earlier and more recent times.” By Jan E.M. Houben This and other information about the history of the DMG can be found in a recently published booklet on the history of the Society (Die Anfänge der Deutschen Morgenländische Gesellschaft, 1995[1]). Another booklet also published last year by the society, Die deutsche morgenländische Gesellschaft, is devoted more to its present activities.[2] According to this second booklet (p. 7), the 'knowledge' of Asia and related countries which the Society has traditionally sought to promote concerns especially the languages, literatures, history, religions and philosophies, forms of law and society, archaeology, and the art and material culture of the people living in these areas. Nowadays, however, social and political scientific problems from the past and present are tending to receive the bulk of the attention. The booklet 1 [This publication (1-92 pp.) by Holger Preissler is an “Erweiterter Sonderdruck aus der Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Band 145 – Heft 2.”] 2 [Die Deutsche Morgenändische Gesellschaft (1-71 pp., including an index of the names of orientalists referred to on p. 68-71), edited by Annette Oevermann and published by the Vorstand der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Vorwort by H. Jungraithmayr. On p. 67, 28 persons are thanked for providing information and help.] Jan Houben, Paris: p. -1- mentions 21 disciplinary areas, ranging from Japanology to African Studies. Since its inception, many non-Germans have become members of this learned society, just as the founding fathers of the Society themselves were often members of other Orientalist societies such as the Asiatic Societies in Paris, London, and Calcutta. The first learned Orientalist society without explicit missionary intentions, incidentally, was the Dutch Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences), founded in 1779 in Batavia (present-day Jakarta) in what was then the Dutch colony of the East Indies. The British followed in 1784 with the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The next Asiatic Societies were founded after the Napoleonic wars in Paris (1822) and London (1823). [PvdV: The German Tradition of Indology] The present meeting of the German Oriental Society was the 26th in a series of meetings which started in 1921, also in Leipzig, and which have taken place regularly since then at intervals of a few years. The meeting opened on 25 September with an address by Professor Annemarie Schimmel (Prof. em. Harvard University/Bonn), after which the conference was split into different disciplinary areas (Fachgruppen) and work groups (Arbeitskreise). As far as my own area of indology is concerned, the contributions of the participants were, generally speaking, qualitatively and quantitatively impressive. Attention was directed mainly towards the above- mentioned traditional concerns of languages, literatures, history, religions and philosophies, to a lesser extent to forms of law and society in the South Asian past. These contributions shed light on the progress of solid, mainly philological, research in the areas of Sanskrit etymology, Vedic literature and culture, manuscriptology, Indian medicine, Indian and Buddhist texts and philosophies, as well as on early German missionaries in South India. The focus on languages and literatures, especially the emphasis given to the ancient sources, may seem esoteric to non-indologists, but is in itself justified in view of the enormous amount of important material of which a great part is still to be made accessible on the basis of manuscripts. Several of the contributions by indologists at the 'Orientalistentag' concerned texts and manuscripts of the so-called Turfan Collection, with which German indologists have had a special bond since Albert Grünwedel [and Albert] von Le Coq started their expeditions to the Turfan Oasis in Chinese Turkestan in 1902-1914, in which first Richard Pischel and later Heinrich Lüders were involved as inspirers, administrative organisers, and finally as scholars of the acquired materials.[3] The lexicographic particularities of these texts are the subject of a German project, now in progress, for a special multi-volume dictionary of the Sanskrit texts in the Turfan Collection. Another enormous collection of material has been made in a cooperative enterprise between Germany and Nepal. Since 1970 more than 150,000 manuscripts comprising almost 5,000,000 pages have been filmed in this project under the 3 [In my original report this sentence was planned as: “ ... since Heinrich Lüders and Albert Grünwedel and Albert von Le Coq started their expeditions to the Turfan Oasis in Chinese Turkestan in 1902-1914,” but it was eventually printed without the second “and Albert.” This was based on the following sentence in Die Deutsche Morgenändische Gesellschaft, p. 52 : “Als Sekretär der Preuβischen Akademie der Wissenschaften führte Heinrich Lüders die von Albert Grünwedel und Albert von Le Coq begonnenen vier Expeditionen in die Turfan-Oase (1902 bis 1914) in Chinesisch-Turkestan fort und begann mit der Auswertung deren reichen indischen Materials.” However, Heinrich Lüders did not himself go to India or to Turfan, but was among other things president of the Turfan-committee in which function he succeeded Richard Pischel (Alsdorf, Kleine Schriften [ed. by A. Wezler, Wiesbaden 1974] p. 729f.).] Jan Houben, Paris: p. -2- guidance of Prof. Albrecht Wezler (Hamburg). The original microfilms are kept in Nepal, copies of the films have been sent to Berlin. None of the ca. 30 contributions at this 26th meeting dealt directly with recent modern political or social themes, nor did modern theoretical developments in linguistic sciences attract much interest. Nevertheless, the rich material which generations of German indologists have been making available for scholarly research will be of great value for providing historical dimensions to modern theories in the fields of social, linguistic, political, and religious sciences. The continuity between German indology and its glorious past – Böhtlingk and Roth's Petersburger Dictionary (1850-1875) and Wackernagels Altindische Grammatik (1896) are still standard works for Indologists as well as for linguists [and obviously to be used with caution], to mention just two examples – was physically visible in the presence at the conference of two senior, leading scholars of German indology – indeed of indology in general – namely Prof. Wilhelm Rau and Prof. Paul Thieme, both actively participating in the discussions (the latter, at the age of 90, even presented a contribution). [4] [PvdV: Vergangenheit[,] Bewältigung] To the extent that indology in general owes a great debt to the contributions of German indology, it also has to come to terms with some of the more problematic aspects of the history of the latter. I am referring here, of course, to the positive relations which some indologists at least maintained with the German government and its disastrous ideology of the 'pure Aryan race' before and during the period of the Second World War period. Essential reading for a well-informed discussion on this sensitive topic should comprise S. Pollock's provocative “Deep Orientalism: Notes on Sanskrit and Power Beyond the Raj” (in Van der Veer and Beckenridge, The Postcolonial Predicament, Philadelphia, 1993),[5] passages from Halbfass' India and Europe (Albany, 1988)[6], and selected articles and notices of the volumes 92-98 4 [I was fortunate that I could have informal discussions with both these scholars whose work I have always admired since my student time. When I introduced myself to Prof. Paul Thieme after my lecture on Pāṇini’s grammar (‘Meaning statements’ in Pāṇini’s grammar: on the context and the purpose of the Aṣṭādhyāyī) was over he greeted me in Sanskrit: vaiyākaraṇaḥ vaiyākaraṇam abhinandayati, to which I did not know anything more original to answer than anughīto’smi.] 5 [Several strands are intertwined in this essay: (a) a widening of the scope of Saidian orientalism critique, (b) the history of nazi-time German Indology, (c) discourses of domination of “high Brahmanism” (Mīmāṁsā, Dharmaśāstra), and (d) reflections on the development of a “critical Indology.” What is important in the present context is Pollock’s study of the history of nazi-time German Indology (strand b), a study that can be appreciated independent of Pollock’s theoretical reflections which he offers for discussion. For a brief discussion and critique of Pollock’s widened orientalism critique (strand a), see p. 18-19 of Halbfass’s first essay in Beyond Orientalism (ed. by E. Franco and K. Preisendanz; Amsterdam 1997; cf. my review of the volume in IIAS Newsletter 1998 no. 15 p. 16). ] 6 [Halbfass 1988 p. 139-140 and notes. An important publication relevant to ‘strand b’ appeared a few years later : Indienforschung im Zeitenwandel: Analysen und Dokumente zur Indologie und Religionswissenschaft in Tübingen (ed. by H. Brückner, K. Butzenberger, A. Malinar and G. Zeller), Tübingen: Attempto Verlag, 2003. Among other publications that deserve to be hightlighted here there is Sanskrit and ‘Orientalism’: Indology and Comparative Linguistics in Germany, 1750-1958, ed. by D.T. McGetchin, P.K.J. Park, Damodar SarDesai, Delhi: Manohar. Particularly relevant to nazi-time european indology are “Innovation Amid Controversy: Indology at Leipzig, 1841-1958” by Frank Neubert (p. 173-195) and Hartmut Scharfe’s “Comments on Chapters Six to Eight” (p. 231-236); although not specifically dealing with our period several other contributions are important for providing historical background to our period, esp. Wilhelm Halbfass “Special Comments” (p. 237-244) and Pascale Rabault’s “From Language to Man? German Indology and Ethnology in the Epistemological Battlefield of the Nineteenth Century” (337-360).] Jan Houben, Paris: p. -3- (1938-44) and 99 (1945-49) of the Zeitschrift [der] Deutsche[n] Morgenländische[n] Gesellschaft.[7] Besides the discontinuity of the years 1945-48 (on 4-6 June 1948 the German Oriental Society was re-founded in Mainz), another hiatus in the history of the Society was clearly felt in Leipzig: East German (DDR) indologists and orientalists were never officially represented in the refounded Oriental Society. The September 1995 DMG meeting in Leipzig was the first held on former DDR territory since the foundation of this state in 1949 and its collapse forty years later. Under the theme of continuity and the discontinuous past of Germany and German indology, two contributions concerning the historiography of indology deserve a special mention. Dr. Luitgard Soni (Univ. of Marburg) reported on her investigations into the scholarly and personal career of a remarkable personage in German indology, Charlotte Krause, who went to India as a young woman to do research on the Jaina tradition in the 1920s, and remained there till her death in 1980; the other contribution was the presentation of the plans to publish a "Who's Who in Western Indology" by Dr. Klaus Karttunen (Univ. of Helsinki, Finland), who has already collected a huge amount of data on well-known and less well-known Western indologists of the past. Contributions such as these show that Indology is reaching maturity; it is only to be hoped that a well-informed discussion of the above-mentioned, more problematic sides of its history, and more generally of the problems of Orientalism and of indology "beyond Orientalism" (a book with this title in honour of Prof. W. Halbfass is now being edited by Dr. K. Preisendanz and Dr. E. Franco) [8], will not be shunned either. Postscript 1: The challenge Revelations, accusations, apologetics are all part of the process of overcoming the problematic pages of the past, a process which in the case of indology had a slow start – if compared with other disciplines such as european history – with publications such as Pollock 1993 and, not less than ten years later (in 2003), the volume edited by Brückner, Butzenberger, Malinar & Zeller. The real challenge will be to rethink the foundations of indology as an international scientific enterprise: Were there any conceptual configurations widely accepted by international indologists of the time facilitating a so easy and so close entangling with nazism? If they were there, is it possible to deal with Indology’s scientific problems while deconstructing them and avoiding the risk of silently accepting them by default? Modest attempts in this direction are found in Houben 1994 (“Liberation and natural philosophy in early Vaiśeṣika: some methodological problems,” Études Asiatiques / Asiatische Studien 48.2: 711- 748), 1999 and 2001 (“Why did rationality thrive, but hardly survive in Kapila's ‘System’? (Parts I- II)”: contributions which seek to understand the history of Indian philosophy without invoking or 7 [Various dimensions of the period are here reflected, e.g. in the lists of new members, members who signed off, lists of deceased and later also fallen members; references to the Kriegseinsatz of the German Geisteswissenschaft and a planned series on Deutsche Orientforschung under editorship of indologist W. Wüst; otherwise, in many respects we find scholarly “business as usual”. Already in 1936 (ZDMG Bd 90), the participants of the 8th Orientalists’ Day sent a special telegram to the “Leader” and Reichskanzler in which they express their “gratitude” and promise to engage themselves to reveal the value of foreign cultures in order to make them “usable” (nutzbar) for the German people. I am not aware of any exceptions let alone protests to this at that time apparently still “voluntary” statement. Special mention deserves Paul Thieme’s essay Der Fremdling im Rigveda that appeared separately in the Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenländes in 1938 and that has been understood by some as a veiled criticism or conceptual sabotage of the then current nazi-ideology.] 8 [Beyond Orientalism (ed. by E. Franco and K. Preisendanz; Amsterdam 1997; cf. my review of the volume in IIAS Newsletter 1998 no. 15 p. 16).] Jan Houben, Paris: p. -4- presupposing racialist “explanations”) and Houben 2011 (history and prehistory of Vedic culture and Vedic ritual “as medium”: exploring other factors apart from “race” that gains in importance only when Vedic culture had entered the K-strategists’ phase). (JH 05-05-2014) Postscript 2: Indological protests against nazism: categories “White Rose” and “Ypsilon” It is well-known that contemporary indologists (between, say, 1930 and 1945) who warned and protested against nazism were few and far between. One category, which I call the “White Rose” category, consists of those indologists who raised their voice against perceived injustices and were ready to incur serious security risks for this (called after the German non-violent resistance group White Rose). The category is apparently empty for sankritists, but among indologists in a wider sense of the term Hilko Wiarda Schomerus (1879-1945) may be mentioned here (professor in what was at that time called “missionary science” and specialist in Indian religions and South Indian languages; cf. Fritz Heinrich 2001 in Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 9: 217-234). Another category I call the “Ypsilon” category, of those expressing their warning and protest in a veiled way, occasionally so heavily veiled that a kind of psychoanalytic exegesis is needed to understand a statement as indeed a protest, as in the case of the latin poem “Ypsilon” by the Sanskrit and Avesta professor Hermann Weller (1878-1956) (cf. analysis by Uwe Dubielzig, 2002, online proceedings of the September 2001 Munich conference "Germania latina - latinitas teutonica" http://www.phil-hum-ren.uni-muenchen.de/GermLat/Acta/Dubielzig.htm). According to some interpretations of the study Der Fremdling im Veda – as it undermines then current conceptualizations of the “Aryan” – Paul Thieme (1905-2001) can be placed in this category. (JH 05- 05-2014) Postscript 3: Indological protests against nazism: category “Charlie Chaplin” Apart from the categories “White Rose” and “Ypsilon” an international category “Charlie Chaplin” may be distinguished of those who made an unequivocal public statement which did not put them immediately at risk (as they were not under the political sway of nazism), for which they did not have to leave their professional routine, for which they could pretty much stay within their comfort zone (just as Charlie Chaplin made the film The Great Dictator, released in 1940, as a late and, with hindsight, much too mild warning against nazism). For indologists this category, too, is remarkably empty. In fact, world wide I am aware of only 1 (one) indologist who expressed a timely and unequivocal protest against emerging nazism and the use made by nazi-ideologists of a well-known Indian (though not exclusively Indian) symbol: Sanskrit professor W. Norman Brown, who published a brief monograph The Swastika: A Study of the Nazi Claim of its Aryan Origin in 1933. (JH 05-05-2014) Further Postscript 1: “Essential Reading on Nazi-time European Indology” (I-II-III) Essential reading on Nazi-time Indology, parts I-II-III, were sent to Indology list on 5, 7 and 9 May 2007). (Archive of the Indology List -- http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A0=INDOLOGY -- May 2007: 031094, 031101, 031107 ) 05 May 2007 -- Essential Reading on Nazi-time European Indology (I) In view of the warm interest which friends and colleagues accorded to an earlier reference to items that should form part of “Essential reading on Nazi-time European Indology” published in 1995 as part of a conference report and still accessible in the on-line archive of the IIAS-Newsletter (see above), I suggest here an updated list, which, it should be emphasized, by no means tries to be exhaustive but is to be regarded as an introductive bibliographie raisonnée on this sensitive topic. Indology was more or less since its beginnings, end 18th – Jan Houben, Paris: p. -5- beginning 19th century, mainly “European” in character with intensive cooperations between French, British and German specialists, and has thus not only been sharing Oriental dreams but also a Nazi-nightmare. Since 5 May is the date of the foundation of the Council of Europe (1949) [not to be confounded with the European Economic Community] which adopted the European convention of human rights in 1950, this is perhaps a proper date to launch this new version of Essential Reading. Because of its length I will send it in installments between today and 9 May, birthday of Sophie Scholl (1921-1943), heroin of German non-violent resistance for whose persecution and speedy execution the then rector of the University of München, the indogermanist Walther Wüst (cf. Titus galeria: http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/personal/galeria/wuest.htm), was probably co- responsible. A. Full fledged studies of Nazi-time European Indology – nil – On this important lacuna both in the history of nazi-time Germany and in the history of Indology cf. Hufnagel 2003: 160 note 20 “Eine kritische Forschungsgeschichte der deutschen Indologie liegt bisher nicht vor. ... Hinweise finden sich bei Pollock 1993.” On the impossibility to isolate German from European indology in a meaningful way cf. Halbfass 2004: 237-244: “ ... the whole notion of a specifically German encounter with India makes me somewhat uncomfortable. ... Max Müller ... Is he German? Is he British?” B. Studies (partly) dealing with (aspects of) Nazi-time European Indology (1) 1993 Pollock, Sheldon I. “Deep orientalism? Notes on Sanskrit and Power beyond the Raj.” Orientalism and the postcolonial predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (ed. by C. Breckenridge and P. van der Veer): 76-133. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Several strands are intertwined in this essay: (a) a widening of the scope of Saidian orientalism critique, (b) the history of Nazi-time German Indology, (c) discourses of domination of “high Brahmanism” (Mīmāṁsa, Dharmaśāstra), and (d) reflections on the development of a “critical Indology.” In our present context important is Pollock’s study of the history of Nazi-time German Indology (strand b), a study that can be appreciated independent of Pollock’s theoretical reflections which he offers for discussion. For a brief discussion and critique of Pollock’s widened orientalism critique (strand a), see p. 18-19 of Halbfass’s first essay in Beyond Orientalism (ed. by E. Franco and K. Preisendanz; Amsterdam 1997; cf. my review in IIAS Newsletter 1998 no. 15 p. 16). Halbfass “inverts” the proposed concept of “deep orientalism” suggesting Hitler would then have been a “deep Mīmāṁsaka” (but this would at the most have applied to “his professors” rather than to himself). The indologist Friedrich Wilhelm (well-known for instance for his study Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pauṣya of the Mahābhārata), was directly acquainted with several persons and events discussed by Pollock, and after the publication of Pollock’s article he recommended it to students who used to come to his home, adding the comment that things were in fact even worse than described by Pollock (one of these students I later spoke in Pune). Pollock’s article is the first easily accessible publication where some data on Nazi-time German Indology are found together, for instance a list of victims of the Nazi-German policies – the list is incomplete because of his focus on Germany. Pollock’s observation with regard to nazi-time German indologists: “Apart from the Indologists victimized by the "aryan paragraphs" whether as Jews themselves or because they were married to Jews (including Betty Heimann [emigrated], Walter Neisser [suicide, 1941], Walter Ruben [emigrated], Isidore Scheftelowitz [emigrated], Richard Simon, [died 1934], Moritz Spitzer [fate unknown], Otto Stein [died in Lodz Ghetto, 1942], Otto Strauss [died in flight in Holland, 1940], Heinrich Zimmer [emigrated]), none publicly opposed the regime, or left the country.” The observation can be extended to the countries cooperating with nazi- Germany or partly or fully occupied by them (helped by local nazis). Friedrich Wilhelm’s introductions to his editions of Otto Strauss’ and Otto Stein’s Kleine Schriften (resp. Wiesbaden 1983 and 1985) are brief but significant contributions to the biographies of these indologists and victims of the nazi-German government. Junginger 2003: 191-2, note 22 refers to Ausgegrenzte Kompetenz. Porträts vertriebener Orientalisten und Orientalistinnen 1933-1945. Eine Hommage anlässlich des XXVIII. Deutschen Orientalistentages, Bamberg 26.- Jan Houben, Paris: p. -6- 30. März 2001, zusammengestellt von Ludmila Hamisch, Halle: Hanne Schönig, 2001, which I could not yet obtain. (to be continued) 07 May 2007 -- To continue my list with suggestions, which, if anything, can help readers of this list to prepare for a book on this subject matter announced by Reinhold Grünendahl: (2) 2000 Koerner, E.F.K. "Ideology in 19th and 20th century study of language: A neglected aspect of linguistic historiography." Indogermanische Forschungen – Zeitschrift für Indogermanistik und allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft 105. Band: 1-26. Relevant to the indogermanic context of nazi-time European indology. (3) 2003 Hock, Hanns Heinrich. "Did Indo-European linguistics prepare the ground for Nazism? Lessons from the past for the present and the future." Language in Time and Space: A Festschrift for Werner Winter on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday (ed. by B. L. M. Bauer and G.-J. Pinault): 167-187. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hock emphasizes the importance of not only criticizing racist theories in view of their undesirable political (and finally humanitarian) consequences but also to see where they are scientifically wrong. He summarizes his convincingly argued point that passages in the Rg-Veda that had been cited since long before nazi-time indology and till long after to illustrate an opposition between light and dark races are not at all clear expressions of such an opposition. According to Hock, "Indo-Europeanists by and large did not sin by commission, but they certainly can be accused of sin by omission. ... namely ... by staying within the country and within the system they lent indirect support to the Nazi regime. This is especially the case for the intellectuals, for as Max Weinreich pointed out in his Hitler’s Professors, published in 1946 [an important historical study in which, however, a discussion of Hitler’s *indology* professors – among whom a few at least would have deserved a mention – is entirely missing, J.H.], shortly after the destruction of the "Thousand-Year Reich", the Nazis derived satisfaction from the fact that highly regarded scholars remained active under their rule." (4) The same year 2003 saw the publication of: Indienforschung im Zeitenwandel: Analysen und Dokumente zur Indologie und Religionswissenschaft in Tübingen (ed. by H. Brückner, K. Butzenberger, A. Malinar and G. Zeller), Tübingen: Attempto Verlag, which contains a few articles particularly relevant to nazi-time German and European indology: (a) Hufnagel, Ulrich. "Religionswissenschaft und indische Religionsgeschichte in den Arbeiten Jakob Wilhelm Hauers: Wissenschaftskonzept und politische orientierung" in Brückner et al., 145-174. (b) Junginger, Horst. "Das ‘Arische Seminar’ an der Universität Tübingen 1940-1945" in Brückner et al., 177- 207. As Junginger shows and documents, Hauer’s “Arische Seminar” was planned as an institute with four main sections: (1) Indology; (2) Religious science on a basis of race science; (3) Aryan world view; (4) Occultism (the latter did not refer to what James Webb discusses in his Occult Underground and Occult Establishment : the Occultism section of the Arische Seminar studied "wrong" belief systems and was directed "gegen Geheimlehren und sogenannte Geheimwissenschaften"). In the war-years the institute could not be fully developed according to plan but it got significantly more financial support than neighbouring disciplines. In addition, the book contains contributions dealing with indologists remaining or trying to remain relatively neutral (H. von Glasenapp) or who were mildly subversive (P. Thieme) in nazi-time Germany. 09 May 2007 -- Essential reading on Nazi-time Indology (III) (5) 2004 Sanskrit and ‘Orientalism’: Indology and Comparative Linguistics in Germany, 1750-1958, ed. by D.T. McGetchin, P.K.J. Park, Damodar SarDesai, Delhi: Manohar. Particularly relevant to nazi-time european indology are “Innovation Amid Controversy: Indology at Leipzig, 1841-1958” by Frank Neubert (p. 173-195) and Hartmut Scharfe’s “Comments on Chapters Six to Eight” (p. 231-236); although not specifically dealing with our period several other contributions are important for its historical background, esp. Wilhelm Halbfass “Special Comments” (p. 237-244) and Pascale Rabault’s “From Jan Houben, Paris: p. -7- Language to Man? German Indology and Ethnology in the Epistemological Battlefield of the Nineteenth Century” (337-360). (6) 2006 Grünendahl, Reinhold “Von der Indologie zur Völkermord: die Kontinuitätskonstrukte Sheldon Pollocks und seiner Epigonen im Lichte ihrer Beweisführung” in Jaina-Itihasa-Ratna: Festschrift für Gustav Roth zum 90. Geburtstag (ed. by Ute Hüsken, Petra Kiefer-Pülz, and Anne Peters in the series Indica et Tibetica ed. by Michael Hahn, Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Konrad Klaus, Roland Steiner), 209-236. A layer of distortive polemical rhetorics (for instance: “some indologists at least”= “german indology”, "someone citing or referring to Pollock 1993"="epigone") creates the impression, I hope incorrectly, that the author not only tries to refute Pollock 1993 – the importance of which for our present subject is only further confirmed – but also tries to scare away scholars from ever daring to cite or refer to it. One may therefore question whether it is a suitable contribution to a Festschrift for the sound and serious scholar and thorough humanist Prof. Gustav Roth. Apart from polemical rhetorics, what do we find in Grünendahl 2006? Courageously beating the dead horse of Saidian orientalism critique which formed the theoretical starting point of Pollock 1993 (what I called ‘strand a’ above), it presents an enthusiastic, if not desperate, apologetic of nazi-time german indology (apparently only an imagined "pure" indology), at the cost of the personality and integrity of its exponents; for instance, Grünendahl’s split of the philologist Wüst and the political ideologue Wüst (“Trotz der Bezugnahme auf Rgveda und Edda spricht hier nicht der Philologe Wüst, sondern der politische Ideologe, wie nicht zuletzt der zeitgeschichtliche Bezug auf die „völkische Wiedergeburt“ deutlich macht”) goes counter to Wüst’s own emphatic and repeated selfpresentation as a scientist addressing a wider public. [Although Grünendahl 2006 was, diachronically, a very late reply to Pollock 1993, a reply which was already largely outdated at the moment of its publication, it was synchronically an academic-political defensive attack on the German translation of Pollock 1993 by Martin Pfeiffer and its re-packaged introduction to German readers in Sebastian Conrad & Shalini Randeria’s Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt: Campus-Verlag 2002: 335-371). Grünendahl’s caricatural polemical argumentation takes as starting point the “ideological proximity of German Indology to German National Socialism” (JB 2015 bibliography on German Indology under Pollock 1993) which emerges from Pollock 1993 (and later on from Brückner et al. (eds.) 2003, etc., etc.), as if it were an ontological thesis, whereas it was, of course, only a historical configuration in need of analysis, for which no mono-causal explanation can ever be expected. Another historical configuration highlighted in Pollock 1993 concerns “high Brahmanism” and Sanskrit, a configuration which could lead to the erroneous perception that Sanskrit “is” Brahmanical, and that it would accordingly need to be either “defended” or “attacked” depending on whether one wants to defend or attack Brahmanism. In fact, however, as a language post-Pāṇinian, classical Sanskrit is neither “Brahmanical” nor “Buddhist” nor “Hindu” or “Jain”; it emerged mainly in the context of Buddhist- Brahmanical discourse in the early centuries CE: "Linguistic Paradox and Diglossia: the emergence of Sanskrit and Sanskritic language in Ancient India" DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2018-0001 Added 30-10-2018.] Grünendahl 2006 gives additional references to nazi-time Walter Wüst, for whose role in that period Pollock 1993 is the first easily accessible publication. Junginger 2003: 190 note 19 emphasizes the lack of historiographic attention for Walter Wüst and can only refer to a publication or working paper of the Gesellschaft für interdisziplinäre Forschung Tübingen entitled Mit Akribie und Bluff ins Zentrum der Macht: Walther Wüst und das ‘Etymologische und vergleichende Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen’. See now also the recent message on this list [at indology.info] from Prof. Stella Sandahl on a Munich thesis on Walther Wüst. Wüst's work Indogermanisches Bekenntnis: sechs Reden (Berlin 1942) which he explicitly wrote as scientist for a wider public (cf. the Nachwort) was an important Ahnenerbe publication, part of which was translated into Dutch as it appeared in the Netherlands under the title Indogermaanse Belijdenis (publisher Hamer, Amsterdam 1944). If the humanities are a science in the german concept of it (Geisteswissenschaft), Wüst’s Indogermanisches Bekenntnis (1942; containing lectures given between 1936-1942) with its careful, scholarly justifications (citations of primary sources and references to the publications of german and international scholars) of each major statement and judgement, was nothing more or less than a work of applied science with very specific aims and goals entirely in tune with those of the contemporaneous government. [Very specific aims and goals, in particular: the self-celebration of the “Aryan,” provisorily characterized – cp. Brown 1933 “Swastika” mentioned above – and the hysterical demonization of Jews and anyone liable to be placed in the equally provisorily characterized category of the “non-Aryan”. The sarcastic predicate "deep Mīmāṁsaka" Jan Houben, Paris: p. -8- from Halbfass's “inversion” (see Essential Reading (I)) would not have been entirely inadequate for some of Hitler's devoted professors such as Wüst. Added/modified 30-10-2018.] As rector of the university of München it seems most likely he was co-responsible for the persecution and fast execution of Hans Scholl (1918-1943), Sophie Scholl (1921-1943), Kurt Huber (1893-1943) and other members of the non-violent resistance group the White Rose (see now Wikipedia-articles on this movement and its members). Not only protesting indologists and orientalists were rare in Germany and in Europe – and protesting was dangerous indeed – but protesting academicians from any discipline (an exception was R.P. Cleveringa, prof. of law at Leiden University, which was closed after his protest speech on 26 November 1940). A few common people were nevertheless there such as Sophie Scholl who could not be scared away from expressing her view in spite of an indology professor in powerful position... Further Postscript 2: “Essential Reading on Nazi-time European Indology” (IV) Postscripts 1-3 were written on the 5th May of 2014, the year which saw the publication of The Nay Science : A History of German Indology by Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee (Oxford : Oxford University Press). Before coming to this heavy “stone in the pond” of Indology and Asian Studies, another publication relevant – and, in fact, more directly relevant – to “Nazi-time European Indology” needs to be mentioned: the bibliographical article “German Indology” by Joydeep Bagchee (JB) (Oxford Bibliographies online: www.oxfordbibliographies.com under “German Indology” or: www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-9780195399318-0147.xml). (Since the article has appeared only in electronic form, there is no need to refer to page nos.; my downloaded and printed version has 42 pages; it was “last modified: 15 january 2015, which is the version still online in October 2018.) Since, as I pointed out above, “Indology was more or less since its beginnings, end 18th – beginning 19th century, mainly “European” in character with intensive cooperations between French, British and German specialists, and has thus not only been sharing Oriental dreams but also a Nazi-nightmare,” the focus on “German Indology” in JB’s article is itself problematic, especially because the author justifies it by invoking “a distinct history and traditions” for German Indology, and “unique concerns that set it apart from other forms of research into India” (“German Indology”, section “Introduction”). Given this and other peculiar premises, the article contains nevertheless useful bibliographic references and brief evaluations (from the author’s point of view) of relevant publications, especially – for our subject: Essential Reading on Nazi-time European Indology – in two sections of the article: “National Socialism” (topic: German Indology and National Socialism) and “German Responses to National Socialist Indology.” Another relevant section is “Orientalism Debate” which for indology, in the view of the author (JB), as he expresses it in his evaluation of Halbfass’s India and Europe (1988), really starts with the publication of “Pollock 1993” (see above). It is hence regrettable but not entirely surprising that the collective volume Beyond Orientalism (1997) is regarded by JB as a work which “does not directly address the orientalist debate; it is really an overview of Halbfass’s work as a post-orientalist scholar.” In this section a reference is lacking to my review of this work which discusses and demonstrates how the work and in particular Halbfass’s dialogic contributions to it are indeed directly relevant to the “Orientalism Debate” (“Orientalism, its critique, and beyond: review article of Beyond Orientalism, ed. by K. Preisendanz and E. Franco, Amsterdam 1997” (15 [1998]: 16) IIAS-Newsletter : Newsletter of the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden), no. 15. 1998 : https://www.academia.edu/6169112/Orientalism_its_Critique_and_Beyond). With regard to Halbfass’s unsurpassed India and Europe (1988), the author (JB) thinks that it “needs revision in light of newer discoveries” but fails to point out that several currently self-styled “new discoveries” need, in fact, also revision in the light of Halbfass’s monumental achievement in comparative philosophy which is exceptionally well-founded both in “Western” and in Indian philosophy. Coming next to The Nay Science : A History of German Indology by Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, Oxford : Oxford University Press, (henceforth: The Nay Science), it is to be observed, first of all, that it is both much more and much less than “A History of German Indology,” and, in any case, a very uncommon publication given its appearance in a prestigious publishing house in the category “Religion: Hinduism.” It has quickly given rise to a large number of quite divergent reviews and rejoinders. Reviews that have particularly come to my notice are a relatively positive one by E. Kurlander (who is neither Indologist nor Sanskritist) in Central European History 48.3 (2015): 432-434, and critical ones by the Indologist and Sanskritist Andrew Nicholson (pre-publication on Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/16633301), by Indologist and Sanskritist Eli Jan Houben, Paris: p. -9- Franco (South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2016) and by Indologist and Sanskritist Jürgen Hanneder, review article entitled “Kraut-Indology” and accessible at www.uni-marburg.de/fb10/iksl/indologie/fachgebiet/mitarbeiter/hanneder/downloads/downloads- varia/krautindology.pdf. The most recent overview of reviews and rejoinders by the authors (JB and Vishwa Adluri, henceforth: VA) is found in the text and notes of Hanneder’s review article. A collection of predominantly positive reviews is also available on the Academia.edu page of VA: https://www.academia.edu/29397212 A straightforward overview of what is “objectively” found in The Nay Science, and moreover what seems to be lacking given the title and introduction of the work, is given by Eli Franco in his review of 5 pages. Franco’s review is, in turn, critically discussed by VA&JB in their 70-page response entitled “Theses on Indology” www.academia.edu/30584186/Theses_on_Indology Also Hanneder agrees that Franco has “with brilliance and verve ... stated evereything that needs to be known about this publication” (Hanneder, “Kraut-Indology” p. 3). With regard to our current, over-arching theme of “Nazi-time European Indology,” Hanneder admits in his review that “German universities were – to put it mildly – slow to rehabilitate victims of the NS regime. Even the [... revoking of? JH] illegal rescinding of doctoral degrees for “racial” or political reasons was not attempted until much later and not to the extent that would have been necessary”; but he also observes that the authors, VA&JB’s “main rhethorical weapon, which they use whenever other arguments fail, is of course the allegation of being somehow connected to Nazi ideology. They have been to Germany long enough to know that this never misses the target.” Given the abundance of available reviews, we will here not give again an overview and analysis of The Nay Science, but focus, instead, on two key-problems – and especially on two “keys” that can serve to resolve these two key-problems. In his critical review Franco clarifies, among other things, why The Nay Science contains much less than “A History of German Indology”: The tome begins with a critical survey of the earliest German publications on the Mahābhārata (basically dealing with only two scholars, Christian Lassen and Adolf Holzmann), and then moves on to examine the work of some half a dozen scholars on the Bhagavadgītā from the late nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century, which forms the bulk of the book. The whole thing has then been packaged (and successfully sold) as a history of German Indology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But how can a work of such limited scope claim to be a history of a rather vast academic discipline? It is the method, the authors say (p. 1 and passim); by describing the method, they claim to give us the essence of German Indology. This is all very convenient: we no longer have to bother reading thousands upon thousands of tiresome pages to grasp the history of German Indology (whatever that may be, see below), the method will disclose its dark secrets to us. ... To understand the absurdity of their claim, imagine that a selective review of scholarly studies of Hamlet in Germany was presented as a history of the studies in that country of English language, literature, history and culture as a whole, including English grammar, lexicography and dialects, manuscripts, inscriptions and paleography, epic and court poetry, novels and theatre, philosophy, religion and ritual, history, numismatics, architecture, art history, and so forth. Already at this point, it should become clear that the argument in The Nay Science proceeds through swaying series of representations and generalizations – which is precisely what VA&JB criticize in “German Indology,” i.e., in practice only the part of “German Indology” with which VA&JB are familiar, Mahābhārata and Bhagavadgītā studies. In other words, it is not so much and in any case not exclusively what they say they criticize, but rather what they criticize through caricatural exaggeration that emerges as being truly criticized in this The Nay Science. In the Introduction in which VA&JB fashion the basic concepts for their book, one of their zig-zag argumentations runs as follows: A. what is German Indology, or: who are German Indologists? (The Nay Science, p. 1-6) B. Through pars pro toto let us have German Indology represented through the work of the tiny subset of German Indologists working on, and having worked on, the Mahābhārata and the Bhagavadgītā, which happens to be the domain of specialization of VA&JB. (The Nay Science, p. 5: the two Holtzmanns pushed to center stage) C. Even this is an enormous domain to cover, so let this be represented by the method used in these studies: this will be called “German method of research”. (p. 7) D. After these steps of reductive representation, let us generalize: let anyone following what we have defined as “German method of research” be considered “German Indologist” (p. 22) It is clear that the “German Indologist” of A has little to do with the “German Indologist” of D. Effectively, they represent two different concepts, and the two terms should be indexed: “German Indologist”-A and “German Indologist”-D. This is, however, not done, in order to provide scope for caricatural argumentation, distortion and Jan Houben, Paris: p. - 10 - hyperbolic exaggeration. VA&JB start out to state, on p. 6, that “Far from essentializing something called German Indology, we deconstruct this idea” – and this is indeed what they do in stages A-C of their argument, but when they have arrived at stage D from p. 22 onwards they explicitly essentialize their newly fashioned concept of “German Indologist”-D, which includes the American W.D. Whitney (1827-1894, who would have been happy for it) and the current American scholar J. Fitzgerald (with whom VA&JB disagree on points of analysis and interpretation of the Mahābhārata), and excludes the famous German-born Indologist Max Müller (1823-1900) who had his formation in Berlin under Friedrich Schlegel and Franz Bopp. It is precisely the suggestive, caricatural approach which makes that The Nay Science contains also, as stated at the beginning, much more than “A History of German Indology.” Understanding The Nay Science as, basically, an extended caricature or parody is, thus, the key to the first key-problem: understanding the structure, the “building” of The Nay Science presented as “A History of German Indology”. A single point to illustrate this: one of the characteristics of the “German” method of doing Indology, which makes also non-Germans such as Johannes Bronkhorst (Dutch) and James Fitzgerald (American) “German” (i.e., in the argument of VA&JB, “German” in scientific method) is: voluminous publication. Hence, VA&JB themselves give a 70-page response to the 5-page review of Eli Franco – where, incidentally the “German” status of Bronkhorst and Fitzgerald is confirmed, even if neither of them ever studied in Germany and even if neither of them will probably ever recognize themselves as being, in any sense of the word, “German.” Many more illustrations can be given, but in the present context we only need to point out that it is precisely because of this caricatural approach that The Nay Science is indeed a provocative contribution, but, obviously, not a reliable objective guide either to “A History of German Indology” or, more specifically, to Nazi-time European and German Indology. The Nay Science should, on the other hand, be understood and appreciated in the context of the genre to which it belongs: it can be compared with Lee Siegel’s Love in A Dead Language (Chicago University Press, 1999): at once a study and caricature of the Kāmasūtra and of the reception of the Kāmasūtra in Western academics; and especially with Hermann Weller’s Latin poem “Ypsilon” mentioned above. Whether, within this genre, we regard The Nay Science as more or as less succesful is something that need not be evaluated here. The flood of reviews and rejoinders is itself a certain measure of success of the authors’ enterprise. As for the poem “Ypsilon”: end 1937 Hermann Weller submitted it to the Certamen Hoeufftianum, a competition of Neo-Latin poetry organized annually by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) in Amsterdam. In 1938 the Academy awarded him the Gold Medal for this poem, which tells in 242 lines how the first-person narrator has a dream or nightmarish vision after he comes back home from a wine-party. In the book of Horace which he had started to read in the moon light, the letters of the alphabet become alive and start to walk out of the book, page after page. They get together in groups and taking the punctuation marks as weapons start to attack and beat up each other. The letter “A” stands up as the shrewd leader of the people (populi princeps ductorque sagax) and addresses it: why should we attack each other, let us rather attack the one who is racially alien (line 119: alienigenae)... “A” does not have to say more, as the entire mob now gets together to attack the Greek, “foreign” letter Ypsilon. Ypsilon is dragged before a tribunal presided over by “A”, and is accused of spoiling the language, sneaking into numerous words, even via the poet (the first-person narrator) whose girl- friend’s name is Lydia. After Ypsilon is declared guilty, “A” asks the mob what should be done with him: should he be decapitated, hanged or stoned? The mob starts to dispute about this, and in the turmoil that follows the “foreigner” Ypsilon manages to escape and runs away. At this point, the first-person narrator regrets: why did I not immediately stand up to protect Ypsilon? Ypsilon is already out of reach, and the poet begs him to come back: he, Lydia and all friends of the language long to have him back. He starts mentioning one by one where he is indispensable: in myths, mysteries, hymns, syllables, rythms ... From this brief sample of the story the allegoric import will be evident, especially in the light of the year of composition and publication, 1937-1938. The detailed analysis proposed by Uwe Dubielzig in 2002 (mentioned above: proceedings "Germania latina - latinitas teutonica" http://www.phil-hum-ren.uni-muenchen.de/GermLat/Acta/Dubielzig.htm) is therefore in general entirely convincing. In the view of Dubielzig, Weller should here not be interpreted as a prophet, but, on the contrary, as a keen analyst: On the one hand, the fact that A, the Adolf H. of the allegory, does not even need to refer to the Y, since the whole mass of the alphabet, of the people, plunges on him on their own initiative, so that A acts, as it were, only as a catalyst, seems to be an unusual analytical achievement for the year of composition of the poem, 1937... On the other hand, the description of the reaction of the dreaming poet to the persecution of Y, the unclear mixture of shame and shyness, of timid solidification and of hasty, helpless acts, testifies to his no less sharp self-exploration. However, even if the allegoric import of the poem seems crystal clear to us and must have been clear to the author and to the jury of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences who accorded the prize in 1938, we have Jan Houben, Paris: p. - 11 - never received a confirmation by Hermann Weller, who never came forward to explain the allegory apparently underlying his poem, not even in the several years he was active in the university after WWII (he retired in 1952, passed away in 1956). On the other hand, also Lee Siegel has nowhere given a straightforward explanation of all elements of caricature, irony and humour in his Love in a Dead Language. Indeed, the author of such allegory or caricature cannot himself explain it without, in some sense, destroying the piece of art he has created. Through these parallels we can thus sufficiently corroborate the nature of The Nay Science as a caricatural “History of German Indology.” Another key-problem remains. Franco, at the end of his review, asks: “So what is the ‘nay science’ in all of the above? Surprisingly, the authors fail to make it entirely clear what exactly the title of their book refers to. If I understand them correctly, they use the label to characterise a lack of respect for the ‘traditional’ and/or ‘indigenous’ way(s) of reading Sanskrit texts.” This may very well be the case. For those for whom any traditionally proposed interpretation is acceptable and agreeable without much reflection – avicārita-ramaṇīya – the European method of critical textual study, which VA&JB present as a German method, has something negative, which they failed to, or did not want to, pinpoint in detail. (This has nothing to do with an “east-west” divide: even classical Indian analytic reasoning may have something negative for anyone, Indian or occidental, who lacks the intellectual ambition to go beyond the avicārita-ramaṇīya.) Hence the somewhat vague term “Nay Science.” However, a very precise methodic research strategy is indeed underlying here, one which goes back to earlier stages of European philosophy and critical reflection, testified since antiquity, inter alia, in Cicero’s ars nesciendi “art of ignoring” or “methodic ignorance.” This methodic strategy was regarded as crucial in pure philological and linguistic research, which are precisely two important domains of Orientalist and Indological research not dealt with by VA&JB. In an essay of the early nineteenth century German classical scholar and philologist Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann (1772 – 1848) we read, for instance (Opuscula, vol. II, (Leipzig, 1827), p. 288): Est quaedam etiam nesciendi ars et scientia. Nam si turpe est nescire, quae possunt sciri, non minus turpe est, scire se putare, quae sciri nequeunt. Even the “art of not knowing” is also a certain science. For if it is a shame not to know what can be known, it is not less a shame to claim to know, what cannot be known. As the ars nesciendi as methodological principle is part of the research paradigm of philological and linguistic research it remains often without explicit mention, so that it was easy for VA&JB to either miss it or to circumvent it. Occasionally, it is nevertheless invoked also in more recent studies, for instance in Jaan Puhvel’s “Of Loons and Legumes” which appeared in Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., On the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, (ed. by G. Beckman et al., Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003): 325-328, p. 325: “The temptation is great not only to repair the inevitable ... ravages of time to the exemplary treatments provided there [in the Chicago Hittite Dictionary, JH], but to push beyond its austere ars nesciendi in matters of word history and comparative linguistics.” In the final analysis, what is the main message that emerges from The Nay Science as an extended caricature, a “History” of “German Indology” as being based on a critical method which the European tradition of philology and linguistics identified as the ars nesciendi? Although “German Indology” and its method are criticized, they emerge as the hugely powerful background even for the approaches which VA&JB want to advocate. Madeleine Biardeau could reject the critical edition because there was a method, projects were started to create it and, finally, there was the Critical Editon of the Mahābhārata of the Bhandarkar Institute of Pune, relegating numerous passages to the appendices, even those that seem absolutely needed to make a given story understandable. VA&JB’s caricatural criticism of “German Indology” and its method has hence unavoidably overtones of praise, as nindā-rūpa-stutiḥ. Our first key, understanding The Nay Science as a caricatural “History of German Indology,” allows us to enter the “building”; our second key, to understand the methodic ars nesciendi as actually underlying the “negativity” vaguely felt, by VA&JB, to be present in European text critical methods, allows us to open the “safe” kept within the “building” and understand their argument even better than in their own explanation. Both the criticism and the praise meted out through The Nay Science are, in fact, “a little” more than “German Indology,” and even “Nazi-time German Indology,” in fact deserve, as the authors are apparently unaware of, or strategically minimize, the roots of “German Indology” and the close relations it had with late eighteenth century and very early nineteenth century European orientalism. Jan Houben, Paris, 30 October 2018 Jan Houben, Paris: p. - 12 -