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Revision as of 23:33, 18 January 2006 by Dbachmann (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Michael Witzel (born 1943) is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University. He has been teaching Sanskrit since 1972. He is noted for his studies of the dialects of Vedic Sanskrit, old Indian history and the development of Vedic religion . He is editor-in-chief of the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS), and the Harvard Oriental Series . He has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003.
Work
Witzel's analysis of the Vedic dialects have been praised as "a breakthrough in Vedic Studies" by Frits Staal , Professor of philosophy and South Asian studies.
Witzel has defended theories of the Indo-Aryan migration against Hindutva claims equating Vedic civilization with the Indus Valley civilization, involving claims of decipherment of the Indus Script (Farmer, Sproat, Witzel 2004).
Criticism
Michael Witzel has been involved in controversies with traditional Hindu scholars, and with Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) ideologists. The controversies have at times descended into ad hominem hostilities.
Shrikant Talageri, in his The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis, a book attempting to disprove the "Indo-Aryan migration", explores what he alleges to be errors and manipulations in Witzel's tracing of Vedic lineages and geographical evidence in the Rigveda. Witzel described this effort as "a long and confused ‘analysis’ in Talageri’s book of" and as an "angry assault on" his 1995 paper, and has criticized what he considers to be Talageri's erroneous starting point, that he ascribes to his neglect of the analysis of the Rgveda by Hermann Oldenberg (Prolegomena, 1888, now available in English, Delhi: Motilal 2005).
On another note, Swaminathan, retired Principal of Guruvayoor Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, dissected Witzel's assertion (based on results established in 'western' vedic studies since the work of Paul Thieme) that ancient grammarian Panini and Sayana did not know of the injunctive used in the RigVeda and concluded that Witzel himself was ignorant of their work in the face of much evidence to the contrary. Witzel's supporters argue that critics often neglect to distinguish Witzel's own results with those of Indology in general.
Politics
Witzel was also involved in weighing against a petition to the California Curriculum Commission from Hindu organizations in North America protesting and asking for corrections to alleged misrepresentations of Hinduism in school textbooks and academia. Witzel has claimed that the petition was politically motivated, the 170 recommodations come from non-specialists, and that 58 of them be rejected outright. The board though, after considering the merits of each recommendation by the Hindu groups, accepted most of them while accepting only about a dozen of Witzel's rejections.
References
- Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat, and Michael Witzel, "The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization", EVJS, vol. 11 (2004), issue 2 (Dec) (PDF)
- Michael Witzel, Tracing the Vedic dialects in Dialectes dans les litteratures Indo-Aryennes ed. Caillat, Paris, 1989, 97–265.
- Michael Witzel, Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters, in: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, ed. G. Erdosy, Berlin/New York (de Gruyter) 1995, 85-125.
- Michael Witzel, Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and politics, in: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, ed. G. Erdosy, Berlin/New York (de Gruyter) 1995, 307-352.
- Michael Witzel, Das Alte Indien . München: C.H. Beck 2003
- Michael Witzel, The Rgvedic Religious System and its Central Asian and Hindukush Antecedents. In: A. Griffiths & J.E.M. Houben (eds.). The Vedas: Texts, Language and Ritual. Groningen: Forsten 2004: 581-636
- California textbook controversy
External links
- Witzel's Harvard homepage
- EJVS homepage
- for all pro and contra pages of the Talageri & Frawley debates
- "Witzel's Vanishing Ocean - How to Interpret the Vedic Texts Anyway you Want" by David Frawley
- "Michael Witzel - An Examination of Western Vedic Scholarship" chapter 9 of Shrikant G. Talageri's The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis