Archives of Origins ─ Sanskrit, Philology, Anthropology in 19th Century Germany

Slow to make an appearance on the western horizon for a multitude of reasons, India studies or Indology early on became the province of British colonial scholars. It was picked up soon after enthusiastically by German scholars, who applied the methods of Greek philology to Indian documents with a fervor regarding origins, and owing to the discovery and systematic study of Sanskrit. Rabault-Feuerhahn looks at the intellectual history of Indology in nineteenth-century Germany. Starting with a linguistic focus, India studies engendered a passion that spread into other disciplines, such as anthropology, mythology, and religion (during this period the Nazis appropriated the swastika as a symbol). There are six chapters divided into three parts: Sanskrit and philological tradition in Germany; the hegemony of comparativism; the challenges of Anthropology. Chapters are: a Sanskrit revolution?; is Indology a form of Humanism?; the school of German Indology; a source for science; the good and bad fortunes of Indo-European comparativism; the status of India: a question of scale. There are abbreviations, bibliography, annexes, bibliographical update, and a glossary of terms related to Vedism. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com) More