Dear Jan,
Thank you for this informative post. One question. You wrote that French was:
"the language which was the first occidental language of the scientific study
of Sanskrit"
Could you please give me more information on this? I was recently briefly
covering the history of Sanskrit in the West and, while I was aware that France
was one of the major players, I was not aware that it was the "first" in this
sense.
I am not doubting you, since you no doubt know more about this than me.
Could you please point me to some publications on this? Sadly, though, French
is not one of my main languages and is only at the tourist level.
Of course, in today's climate in the US, even that is enough that some might
consider it un-American. I've heard that more than one person said, "If English
was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me."
Best,
Dean
On Friday, June 25, 2021, 7:16:48 PM GMT+5:30, Jan E.M. Houben via INDOLOGY
<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Dominik, Thanks for asking this useful question. In addition to
Isabelle's earlier contribution to this thread I would like to add a few
elements: the BA in Sanskrit at the Sorbonne Nouvelle is pedagogically one of
the best in the world -- the only limitations I would add are: in the
occidental world, for a Western public, because the strategy to teach Sanskrit
to Indian / South Asian students can be and should be different as most of
them, even if their main subjects are IT, engineering etc., are already so much
familiar with Sanskrit and Sanskritic vocabulary which often helps but may
frequently also put the student on a wrong or deceptive track. Hence during my
stay at IIT-Bhubaneswar as visiting professor in 2019 (teaching, among other
things, an introductory course on Sanskrit, German and comparative linguistics
specially for IIT-students with an Indian linguistic background), I planned and
organized a seminar on "Functional and Communicative Sanskrit" on 21 December
2019 with contributions by Godabarish Mishra, Amba Kulkarni, Siniruddha Dash
and others. My plan to help to develop this further, in 2020, to an
introductory course on Sanskrit and comparative linguistics specially for these
students could not be realized due to the Corona crisis. As for the BA in
Sanskrit at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, another plus is that it is in French, so
that the student at the same time can develop familiarity with the language
which was the first occidental language of the scientific study of Sanskrit,
extensively used also by the earlier generation of German Sanskrit scholars
such as the brothers von Schlegel and Franz Bopp. As for the Sorbonne Nouvelle,
the manual used, or one of the major manuals used,is Le Sanskrit by Nalini
Balbir (Paris, 2013) of which an English version is in preparation. The
specialty of Le Sanskrit is that it presents, for the first time, the language
not only in its grammatical structure but also as a living means of expression
and communication, entirely on the basis of examples attested in Sanskrit
literature (fiction, fables, dramas) -- hence it is different both from
classical occidental introductions to Sanskrit and from modern introductions to
"spoken Sanskrit". It is a worthy contribution to the series "Assimil" in which
Le Sanskrit is published, as it follows throughout the "assimilation" method
(nipāna-rīti) of language learning. When it appeared I composed a brief verse:
निपानरीतिमार्गेण संस्कृताध्यापनार्थकम् ।
चकार नलिनी शास्त्रम् अतोऽध्येता प्रसिध्यति ॥
nipānarītimārgeṇa saṁskṛtādhyāpanārthakam |
cakāra Nalinī śāstram ato’dhyetā prasidhyati || Jan Houben
N.B. Specifically to practice and read Sanskrit there is a yearly "stage de
Sanskrit" organized by Sylvain Brocquet at the Université de Provence et
Aix-en-Provence (https://cpaf.cnrs.fr/spip.php?article423&lang=fr); another
"stage de Sanskrit" is expected soon at the new institute ILARA, here in Paris.
On Fri, 25 Jun 2021 at 08:46, Isabelle Ratie via INDOLOGY
<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Dominik,That our BA in Sanskrit includes a few courses without Sanskrit
requirement does not disqualify our BA as one in Sanskrit! It definitely
focuses on the Sanskrit language, as is specified on the first page to which I
sent a link:
son objet principal est le sanskrit et ses littératures, dont elle met en
évidence la richesse: l’apprentissage du sanskrit s’y fait avant tout par la
lecture et la traduction intensives de textes appartenant à des genres très
différents (contes, épopée, poésie savante, littérature historiographique,
traités philosophiques, traités d’esthétique, etc.).
With all best wishes,
Isabelle
Le ven. 25 juin 2021 à 04:44, Dominik Wujastyk <[email protected]> a écrit :
What about
l’histoire de la société, des philosophies et des religions indiennes, ou
encore l’histoire de la connaissance de l’Inde.
Those would not be courses involving reading Sanskrit as such, would they?
They would be in French, about India?
Similarly at UT Austin, it looks like students have to take lots of courses
called,
Asian Studies related to South Asia
Again, that wouldn't be actual reading of Sanskrit texts, would it? And there
appear to be a lot of courses under "Core" that are not Sanskrit. (US History;
Social and Behavioural Science, etc.). Presumably students take a few of
these? So it's a general humanities degree with a high Sanskrit content.
Would that be right, or am I misunderstanding?
I was thinking about a degree that focussed on Sanskrit language and
literature, not a course where Sanskrit was a component (even a large
component). I'm thinking of the Oxford BA, or the BA at SOAS, when it existed,
in the days when it was taught by Mr J. E. B. Gray with his legendary
cyclostyled, typewritten, four-year course. Or the courses taught at German
universities in the days of the old MA system.
Best,Dominik
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--
Jan E.M. Houben
Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology
Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite
École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et Lettres)
Sciences historiques et philologiques
Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)
johannes.houben [at] ephe.psl.eu
https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
https://www.classicalindia.info
LabEx Hastec OS 2021 -- L'Inde Classique augmentée: construction, transmission
et transformations d'un savoir scientifique
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