What is the problem with Sheldon Pollock?

[Kalyan K]

Can group members enlighten me on what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock?

[K S Kannan]

Pl. read

The Battle for Sanskrit.

Available with Amazon.

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 11:56 AM, Kalyan K <pk.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can group members enlighten me on what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock?

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[Kalyan K]

Thanks Sri Kannan. 

[Kalyan K]

Sri Kannan

Based on your suggestion, I got the kindle edition of the book and reading it. I am curious about one thing - Is the Adi Shankara chair at Columbia established? Or has the initiative been ditched?

Please throw some light.

Regards
Kalyan

[K S Kannan]

It's in suspended animation, yet.

Most of the maṭha-s have poor, if any, info reg. the Indological developments. Many of our scholars too think that Westerners are doing us a favour by looking into our texts! 

Can there be a greater puṇya than doing  a sincere godāna - to professed beef-eaters?

[Nityanand Misra]

While you are at it, I also suggest you to go through older threads on this forum, especially the following well-argued post by Dr. Vidyasankar Sundaresan:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/bvparishat/4fWAEj38Pzc/HJfmBtTLIwAJ

At the cost of upsetting a few memebers on the list, let me say that a major weakness of TBFS is that it makes many claims about the proposed Adi Shankara Chair without evidence. At some places, Malhotra even sounds like an alarmist (perhaps of a false alarm). For more on this, you may read section 4.3 of my [still unpublished] review of the book here. https://www.academia.edu/25071774/The_Battle_for_Sanskrit_Review. Just as one example, Malhotra claims that hundreds of calls were made and thousands of emails were sent to the Shringeri peetha (pp. 9–10), but really does Malhotra have any evidence of this? Did Malhotra go through phone records and email servers of Shringeri peetha or did he himself make all the hundreds of calls and write all the thousands of emails? If not, did he just over-exaggerate or pull out these claims from thin air? 

On this forum (bvparishat), the track record of the Malhotra when his claims have been put to question has been poor. There is no response by him to date to by Dr. Vidyasankar Sundaresan in which he said that Malhotra overstates the case quite a lot and significantly misleads many of his readers. The context is claims made by Malhotra in a post on this forum, but similar claims are made in TBFS also. 

In fact, I suggest you read the entire thread (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bvparishat/4fWAEj38Pzc%5B1-25%5D) for another example of attributing a claim to Pollock. Malhotra claims on page 389 of TBFS that Pollock said that Anushtubh chanda was invented by Buddhists and copied by Valmiki. It has been one year since Prof. Paturi and I have repeatedly asked on this forum where specifically Pollock made this claim. Malhotra has been silent and has not furnished any evidence yet. 

I am afraid to say these examples raise serious questions about credibility of TBFS and Malhotra. This is not to be taken personally, and I do not expect Malhotra or other members of this list to take offence with questions I am raising. Any non-fiction book that makes bold and tall claims should be questioned, and it is the moral responsibility of the author to either defend the claims when they are questioned with specific evidence, or admit that no evidence exists. But staying silent on questions and not responding, as Malhotra chooses to, is certainly not a sign of academic honesty.

 

[Nityanand Misra]

On Thursday, 2 March 2017 18:30:02 UTC+5:30, Nityanand Misra wrote:

On this forum (bvparishat), the track record of the Malhotra when his claims have been put to question has been poor. There is no response by him to date to by Dr. Vidyasankar Sundaresan in which he said that Malhotra overstates the case quite a lot and significantly misleads many of his readers. The context is claims made by Malhotra in a post on this forum, but similar claims are made in TBFS also. 

Please read “There is no response by him to date to the post by Dr. Vidyasankar Sundaresan ...” 

[ajit.gargeshwari]

With no offense meant to, if may I ask why are Mathas established? Have they been established propagate or take sides in the politics Indological developments?' Punya' and 'Papa' needs a definition in this context. 'Political Punya' and 'Political Papa' perhaps. Kalyanji may also want to read books and articles edited or authored by Prof. Pollock for Kalayanji to arrive at the right conclusion.

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear friends,

This kind of argument is unfortunate.  You have to distinguish between what time a phone call was made versus if Ramayana

was a commissioned composition (my phrase).  It is possible that some may have difference of opinion with Mr Malhotra and

his processing of information, but personally I have felt that he and his associates are doing an extremely timely service to India 

and India's traditions.  I would request all to be kind to the efforts, and only complain if you notice insincerity to the cause.

Pollock and some such people are the new colonialists and they have to be repelled with all energy that India can muster.

Intellectual slavery could be more dangerous than the occupation.  .  

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra 

--

[Kalyan K]

And Sri Nityanandji, I will be sure to read your review too, after completing the book. Thanks for the link and for presenting an alternate perspective.

Best Regards
Kalyan

[Kalyan K]

Sri Nityanandji

I have read the post of Sri Vidyasankar and with all due respect to him, I don't find his post very convincing. That's all I want to say, since I don't want to reignite old debates. My interest here is limited to understanding what people have against Sheldon Pollock, and as Sri Ajitji suggested, it would be best to read his works and those of his critics like Sri Rajiv Malhotra.

Regards
Kalyan

[ajit.gargeshwari]

Intellectual independence doesn't mean just accepting what one camp says and keep accepting a view as 'The View' or the best view on a given issue. It also doesn't mean accepting whatever a person or group says in Toto and verbatim and say there can be no scope for a different view, either be on my side or you are anti Sanskrit anti Indian culture and so on. Multiplicity of views on given topic needs to be tolerated if not accommodated. That is when learning increases and vision broadens.

One can understand the insecurity a minority population feels in a foreign land. That will be resolved by the minority population of that land. Has that dramatically changed how Sanskrit, India historical  and cultural studies are done in India is the question that one needs to ask. There might have be an impact, but the impact is not as bad as it is being portrayed. There are still a large number of good Sanskrit and India studies that are being conducted in India by those who don't associate themselves with any one camp but talks to both camps or don't talk to either of these two camps.

If Indian scholars have lost one funding it should be fine. Plenty of more funding will come by. One can always learn and prevent future fund diversion. If personal funds gets diverted it the persons choice. If tax payers money are getting diverted that is a different matter. There is no shortage of funds in India and India is not such a poor or insignificant country that it was reduced during colonial rule. There is plenty of talent here. Our traditional scholars and mathas are also store houses of knowledge. They are well aware of whats going on around them but what they do is left to their immediate focus, wisdom and long term vision they have. My priority may not be the other persons priority.

This is not a justification for typo and grammatical errors.Its easy to poke fun and make sarcastic remarks as its made often. One can be patient and correct or ignore typos.One can easily make quips and take jibes by saying you don't use spell check, you are in a hurry to post and hence will not read your message. Another option would be to correct if a view is wrong or is taken with insufficient information. If a different view is taken with sufficient information then it is another view.  Scholars are always teachers first and arguers second. One can always learn from scholars and teachers. Learning is never ending and for me personally I learn new things everyday thanks to all scholars who post here.

Regards

Ajit Gargeshwari

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Title of the thread is 'What is the problem with Sheldon Pollock ?' 

It seems to be going in the direction of 'what is the problem with Sri Rajiv Malhotra? ' 

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Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

 

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )

 

 

 

[ajit.gargeshwari]

The reason for this is when the question 'What is the problem with Sheldon Pollock ?' was asked the answer given was read read 'Battle of Sanskrit' by Rajiv Malhotra.

It like saying when I ask 'what is the problem with Sri Rajiv Malhotra? I get an answer read Prof. Pollock's and his writings.Let me give another analogy What is the problem with Western Philosophy the answer would be Please read Eastern Philosophy.

Regards

Ajit Gargeshwari

On Friday, 3 March 2017 00:16:02 UTC+5:30, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

Title of the thread is 'What is the problem with Sheldon Pollock ?' 

It seems to be going in the direction of 'what is the problem with Sri Rajiv Malhotra? ' 

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 7:45 PM, Kalyan K  wrote:

And Sri Nityanandji, I will be sure to read your review too, after completing the book. Thanks for the link and for presenting an alternate perspective.

Best Regards
Kalyan

--

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Come on, Dr Gargeshwari, the book TBFS and the question of problem with Sheldon Pollock are not at all analogous to Western Philosophy and Eastern Philodsophy. 

"It like saying when I ask 'what is the problem with Sri Rajiv Malhotra? I get an answer read Prof. Pollock's and his writings" is another bad analogy. If it was advised to read all books of Sri Rajiv Malhotra or some book of Sri Malhotra not connected to Prof. Pollock, the analogy would have been right. 

But the book TBFS is directly related to the question of what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock. It in fact is focused on that very question. 

So your analogies are totally misplaced and wrong. 

You could have said there are so many other articles and books (if there are) dealing with the question of what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock ; why recommend only the book TBFS ? 

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[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Firstly, I thank Sri Nityanand Misra for drawing attention to the earlier discussion about this topic on this forum, so I don't have to do it myself now.

Secondly, I can see how this issue has become very politically charged, so I'll be brief. I am not an official spokesman for Sringeri, but if anyone thinks for a moment that the Sringeri Peetham, of all the traditional institutions, was going to sell its soul to an American university or to an individual Western Sanskritist, then all I'll say is that they just don't know how the advaita sampradAya maTha-s operate. As for the chair at Columbia, if it had been established, we'd have all heard of it by now. Contrary to how the introduction in TBFS sets up a dramatic narrative about the story, that chair was nowhere close to being set up in the first place. Discussions to explore an idea are a far cry from high impact decisions being taken. And now that it became too controversial, there has been and can be no further movement along those lines. 

Indeed, the more typically gratuitous complaint about Sringeri that I often get to hear is that decisions are NOT taken quickly and that things happen at a glacial pace, in comparison with other advaita tradition institutions that seem a lot more dynamic. I think it would be useful to remember that Sringeri Peetham's functioning is utterly unlike a corporate environment, where time is money and everybody is looking for a quick return on investment.

Thirdly, returning to what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock, there are many, but I wish members of this list and those who organized and attended the Swadeshi Indology conference can find ways to concentrate on the real problems with Sheldon Pollock's views about Sanskrit and Indian history, rather than imaginary ones. It is a quite imaginary issue to think that Pollock would ostensibly gain a perceived right to speak in the Sringeri Peetham's name and that the Sringeri Acharyas and administrators would merrily sit down and let him do so. I also hope that vidvAns will eventually expand their field of vision to look at other issues and scholars as well and not assume that the work is done, now that Pollock's positions have been problematized and analyzed.

Please do remember that within two months of the publication of TBFS, another university on the West Coast of the USA actually returned millions of dollars donated by Indian groups, earmarked for the study of Hindu, Jaina and Sikh traditions, even after a letter of final approval was issued from the University of California's president's office. The possibility of constructive engagement of any of our traditions with American academia has been effectively postponed, indefinitely. Whether it has been completely cancelled through the conceivable future remains to be seen. The more contemporary Indian institutions of higher education need to step up and demonstrate that they can indeed produce and sustain academic scholarship on India at a high level. In the meantime, the Sringeris and Melkotes and Udupis and Brindavans of India will keep producing their traditionally trained Panditas and Swamis, as they have been doing for centuries now.  

Best regards,

Vidyasankar

On Thursday, March 2, 2017 at 3:52:21 AM UTC-5, ks.kannan.2000 wrote:

It's in suspended animation, yet.

Most of the maṭha-s have poor, if any, info reg. the Indological developments. Many of our scholars too think that Westerners are doing us a favour by looking into our texts! 

Can there be a greater puṇya than doing  a sincere godāna - to professed beef-eaters?

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 1:42 PM, Kalyan K <pk.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sri Kannan

Based on your suggestion, I got the kindle edition of the book and reading it. I am curious about one thing - Is the Adi Shankara chair at Columbia established? Or has the initiative been ditched?

Please throw some light.

Regards
Kalyan

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[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

In my previous response, I mentioned an issue over funds donated to the Univ of California. Please read the article and the comments by various readers in the following link for reference.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/22/uc-irvine-moves-reject-endowed-chair-gifts-donor-strong-opinions-about-study

Best regards,

Vidyasankar

[ajit.gargeshwari]

I agree the analogy was misplaced I will now ask the corrected question " You could have said there are so many other articles and books (if there are) dealing with the question of what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock ; why recommend only the book TBFS ? "

Regards

Ajit Gargeshwari

On Friday, 3 March 2017 00:42:17 UTC+5:30, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

Come on, Dr Gargeshwari, the book TBFS and the question of problem with Sheldon Pollock are not at all analogous to Western Philosophy and Eastern Philodsophy. 

"It like saying when I ask 'what is the problem with Sri Rajiv Malhotra? I get an answer read Prof. Pollock's and his writings" is another bad analogy. If it was advised to read all books of Sri Rajiv Malhotra or some book of Sri Malhotra not connected to Prof. Pollock, the analogy would have been right. 

But the book TBFS is directly related to the question of what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock. It in fact is focused on that very question. 

So your analogies are totally misplaced and wrong. 

You could have said there are so many other articles and books (if there are) dealing with the question of what is the problem with Sheldon Pollock ; why recommend only the book TBFS ? 

[Ajit Gargeshwari]

Allow me to add this paragraph. I know its off topic and one might say violates posting rules yet I thought I must. Now we might have more conferences in line with 'Make in India Campaign' being promoted by the government. I must frankly admit I have been a great learner. This debates of these will  be like schools within vedanta having a polemical hair splitting debate which are running from centuries and who knows this debate might run for another century. Polemics had its own politics as well.  AIT is now more than 160 years old. (could be wrong with figures here). Long live endless debates.  

Conferences and debates might be required for non humanities areas as well as one finds hydroplanes,space ships quantum mechanics and what not in vedic mantras.

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

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[Bijoy Misra]

I agree.  British did indeed rule by setting one camp against the other!

[Bijoy Misra]

A journalist interviewed me a month back and wrote this story

about our India Discovery Center.  There is a huge amount of

education regarding India is needed in the world.  One of the

new young professional was killed last week.  The question is 

if one retreats or creates path for many new young men and 

women.  

http://lincoln.wickedlocal.com/news/20170201/lincoln-resident-focuses-on-discovery

Mark the typo on Gandhi (that is the level of acquaintance!).

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

The thread started as a response to the other thread on SI-2 conference. The member wanted to know why SI-2 focused on Prof. Pollock. 

Prof. Kannan aptly responded by suggesting to read the book TBFS. It is apt because the context of SI series and the book have the same roots and motivations.

Members could say

1. That is not the only source problematizing Prof. Pollock's writings. You might want to read these other sources too etc.

or 

2. There is no problem with Prof. Pollock at all etc., 

or 

3. Please read the following counters to the arguments of TBFS, establishing that there is no problem with Prof. Pollock etc. 

If there are no such relevant additions to be made, the thread may be closed.  

[Dr BVK Sastry]

Namaste

 

On <What is the problem >  and <  There is a huge amount of education regarding India is needed in the world.> . The need is not disputed. The debate has been on the plans of actions ( plural is deliberate), the Flag and the Ship for this flag-ship venture ( the split focus of words is deliberate).

 

 When the discussion becomes too hot on a topic like ‘ TBFS and Sheldon Pollock’, a  little sprinkling of ‘serious –polemical –political’  humor may help to relax.   

 

           I am placing a small write up  , a  ‘Humor analyzed at Harvard (Also)’ which probably carries a suggested answer  with a polemical and political flavor, to the question < What is the Problem ? > !

 

           The title of the riddle  is called :  Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?  The riddle appeared in an 1847 edition of The Knickerbocker, a New York City monthly magazine.

           The riddle is not to be treated lightly; it has engaged the scholars and society for over 160 plus years !

 

           The current extract is from the url : - https://www.physics.harvard.edu/academics/undergrad/chickenroad   . It has some seriously deliberated answers, in the spirit of various well-known physicists, to the age-

          old question. ( I place the Harvard web page text below for the  pleasure of readers.  

 

           For those who want to  laugh their ribs off,  and be  three legged chickens of analysis ( Traditional ‘ shasha- vishaana’ – simile ?  ) please read more at the site -  http://www.whydidthechickencrosstheroad.com/ ; https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/why-did-the-chicken-actually-cross-the-road-though?utm_term=.upwrjVZRY#.fiN2YEpJd ; and of course the common wisdom resource - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_did_the_chicken_cross_the_road%3F ! 

 

 The Three legged Chicken:   A man was driving along a freeway when he noticed a chicken running alongside his car. He was amazed to see the chicken keeping up with him, as he was doing 50 mph. He accelerated to 60, and the chicken stayed right next to him. He sped up to 75 mph, and the chicken passed him. The man noticed that the chicken had three legs. So he followed the chicken down a road and ended up at a farm. He got out of his car and saw that all the chickens had three legs. He asked the farmer, "What's up with these chickens?" The farmer said "Well, everybody likes chicken legs, so I bred a three-legged bird. I'm going to be a millionaire." The man asked him how they tasted. The farmer said, "Don't know, haven't caught one yet." (Molly - Ohio/USA)

 

           ( Additional request:  And to provide the ‘ Swadesi - eastern philosophical wisdom ’ on this issue,   Would someone  care to address and enhance the  this ‘ polemical –political’  question from the perspective of  ‘ Karma – Daiva Vipaka – Prakrutih tvam niyokshyati, .. etc;..>    to advance  and balance this  polemics ?   The issue has already carried its political flavored analysis .

 One may look at the url’s : - http://www.theunrealtimes.com/2012/10/21/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road/ ; http://www.sarcanomics.com/2014/04/145-7-answers-to-why-did-chicken-cross.html )

 

Regards

BVK Sastry

  

TEXT FROM THE URL:

 

Why did the chicken cross the road?

 

After finding the first four of the following answers on the web, I figured I’d make up some more, and I got on a roll. Have fun with them. A few are a bit esoteric...  If you like this page, you’ll probably like the limericks in my new mechanics textbook. But don’t let those fool you about the book -- it's a serious one, as you'll see if you take a look. The limericks are there just to lighten things up.

— David Morin

 

Albert Einstein:                                 The chicken did not cross the road. The road passed beneath the chicken.

Isaac Newton:                                   Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross roads.

Wolfgang Pauli:                                 There was already a chicken on this side of the road.

Carl Sagan:                                          There are billions and billions of such chickens, crossing roads just like this one, all across the universe. [Apologies for perpetuating the misquote.]

Jean-Dernard-Leon Foucault:     What’s interesting is that if you wait a few hours, it will be crossing the road a few inches back that way.

Robert Van de Graaf:                     Hey, doesn’t it look funny with all its feathers sticking up like that?

Albert Michelson /Edward Morley: Our experiment was a failure. We could not detect the road.

Ludwig Boltzmann:                          If you have enough chickens, it is a near certainty that one of them will cross the road.

Johannes van der Waals:              Some say it was a sixth sense that led the chicken to cross the road. I say it was a sixth power.

David Hilbert:                                     I was standing on the side of the road and a chicken came along, evidently in some kind of strange state. I informed it that it was nevertheless still in my space, so it went across the road.

Blaise Pascal:                                      The chicken felt pressure on this side of the road. However, when it arrived on the other side it still felt the same pressure.

John David Jackson:                        You’ll find out after you complete this 37-page calculation.

Henri Poincare:                                 Let’s try changing the initial position of the chicken just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit, and….look, it’s now across the road!

Enrico Fermi:                                      In estimating to the nearest power of 10 the number of chickens that cross the road, note that since fractional chickens are not allowed, the desired power must be at least zero.  

Therefore, at least one chicken crosses the road.

Werner Heisenberg:                       Because I made darn sure it was standing right next to me on this side.

Richard Feynman, 1:                       It’s all quite clear from this simple little diagram of a circle with lines poking out of it.

Richard Feynman, 2:                       There was this good-looking rooster on the other side of the road, and he figured he’d skip all the games and just get to the point. So he asked the chicken if she’d like to come over to

his side, and she said sure.

Erwin Schrodinger:                          The chicken doesn’t cross the road. Rather, it exists simultaneously on both sides…..just don’t peek.

Charles Coulomb:                            The chicken found a similar chicken on this side of the road to be repellent.

John Bell:                                             Since there are no local hidden chickens, any hidden chickens you find must have come from far away. They therefore surely must have crossed at least one road on their way here.

Henry Cavendish:                            My dear chicken, I have calculated with the utmost detail and precision the density of your insides. Now, for the sake of my precious sanity, I beg you, stop that incessant clucking and

be gone!

Arthur Compton:                             There were a bunch of chickens waving at me on this side of the road, but then a car came along and they all scattered to the other side. The funny thing is that the ones that ended farthest away were still waving at me a few minutes later. So apparently, the ones that scattered the most had the longest waves. Hans Geiger: I don’t know, but I say we count how many times it crosses!

Howard Georgi:                                It can cross all it wants, but I’m going to sit here and wait until it decays.

 

Edward Teller:                                   I will build a more powerful chicken, and it will cross the road with more energy than any chicken before!

Oskar Klein:                                        Actually, it can get to the other side of the road without crossing it.

Satyendra Bose:                               An identical chicken already crossed the road, so this one was much more likely to do the same.

Wallace Clement Sabine:              If you listen very carefully, you can hear the pitter patter of chicken feet, which implies that a chicken must be crossing the road.

Sir David Brewster:                          Let me give you my angle on this….

Galileo Galilei:                                   The chicken crossed the road because it put one foot in front of the other and took a sufficient number of steps to traverse a distance greater than or equal to the road’s width. Note that the reason is not because the earth is the center of the universe. Oh, great… another jail term.

David Gross, H. David Politzer, Frank Wilczek:     The road is not wide. And at short distances a chicken is free to do whatever it wants.

Robert Millikan:                                It didn't. It made it part way and then just sort of hovered there, apparently feeling an equal pull in both directions.

Peter Higgs:                                        We must first find the chicken.

Nicolaus Copernicus:                      The chicken was moving at a slightly different orbital speed around the sun.

Fusion researchers:                        Because it knew that in 30 years it would get to the other side. [No insult intended here. Well, at least not to the physicists working hard with the meager funds they've been given.]

George Francis FitzGerald:           It had its doubts, but after starting across the road, the chicken observed that the distance to the other side didn’t seem quite as large, so it figured it would continue on.

Leo Szilard:                                         First one chicken crossed. This then caused a few more to cross, each of which in turn caused a few more…

George Atwood:                              The chicken wanted to introduce a setup that would enable it to pose a question and thereby torture future students over and over and over...

Johannes Kepler:                             I don't know. But I'm glad it did, because as it waddled across, it was kind enough to sweep the area of the road with its wings. And it did so at an astonishingly consistent rate.

Robert Pound and Glen Rebka: It was out for a morning jog and wanted to get its heart rate up by crossing over the crown of the road.

Robert Hooke:                                  At first, the chicken was drawn across the road. But after passing the middle, it felt an increasing desire to return to the original side. It did end up making it to the other side (just

barely), but then decided to return. I believe it is still going back and forth on this.

Lisa Randall:                                        The only thing about the chicken we ever discuss is why it crossed the road. There are many more dimensions to it than that! 

Norman Ramsey:                             I don’t know why, but I do know that it took 4.71988362706153 seconds to get there.

Pierre de Fermat:                            Forget about why. I’ll show you how it can get there in the least amount of time.

Neils Bohr:                                          In attempting to answer the question by observing the chicken, I collapsed its wavefunction to the other side.

Gustav Kirchhoff:                             It actually crossed the road twice, due to a strange desire to form a closed loop.

Louis de Broglie:                               Interesting, it always seems to flap its wings an integral number of times before it comes back.

Michael Faraday:                              No, again? How many times do I have to tell it to stick to the safety of its cage?!

Max Planck:                                        It appears to be a white chicken. Sorry, I deal only with black bodies.

Sir William Hamilton:                       With regard to the issue of crossing the road, the chicken made it to the other side by taking as little action as possible.

Hugh Everett:                                    I don’t know, but there’s another one over there that isn’t crossing the road.

Edward Witten:                                50 years ago, you probably would have said there was no hope of answering this question either.

Archimedes:                                      I was running through the streets yelling and screaming, and it was only afterward that I realized I was carrying a chicken.

Amadeo Avogadro:                         What, just one? I deal only with very large chicken numbers.

Ptolemy:                                              Someone will probably think of a simpler explanation in a few thousand years, but the present understanding is that the chicken crosses the road because it is constrained to move on this here sphere, which in turn has its center on this one over here. The end result is that, except in the rare case of retrograde chicken motion, the chicken does indeed cross the road.

Marie Curie:                                       Good question. And one that is much less hazardous to one’s health.

Willebrod Snell:                                I’m not sure, but I did notice that when it stepped onto the road, it changed its direction.

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss:       Draw a pillbox around the road, and consider the flux of chickens through the box. If a chicken leaves this side of the road, then assuming that there are no chicken sinks or sources, it

must end up on the other side.

Johann Balmer:                                 Why are there only two lines in the middle of the road?

James Clerk Maxwell:                     Ok, Miss Chicken, let’s figure this out together. Hold out your right foot…. yes, that’s it…. good…. now curl your talons…. right…. now look at your…. hold on – you don’t have any

thumbs!

Osborne Reynolds:                         No idea. But I can see from the ruffled feathers that this was turbulent chicken flow.

Karl Schwarzschild:                          The sad thing is, I know I could have answered this question too. [This one isn’t meant to be funny.]

Christian Doppler:                            It always sounds a bit down when it’s heading over there, but rather upbeat when it’s coming back.

Edwin Hubble:                                   Strange, it seems to move faster the farther away it gets.

Ernest Rutherford:                          The differential cross section for forward chicken scattering is quite large, so the chicken will most likely cross the road if it was initially heading in that direction.

Lene Hau:                                            Well, I wish it hadn't. It cut right in front of me while I was out for a bike ride, chatting it up with a photon.

Stephen Hawking:                           Chicken fluctuations will inevitably create a scenario where a chicken ends up on the other side of the yellow line, in which case there is a nonzero probability that it will escape to the

other side.

Lord Kelvin:                                        I don’t know. But I think the road actually starts back there a bit.

Daniel Bernoulli:                               Because it enjoyed flying to the other side. Ok, wait, can someone tell me once and for all if I’m relevant to all this flying stuff or not?!

Robert Oppenheimer:                   Although it was deemed appropriate at the time, people will forever question whether it was correct for the chicken to cross the road.

[Nityanand Misra]

On Friday, 3 March 2017 11:36:24 UTC+8, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

The thread started as a response to the other thread on SI-2 conference. The member wanted to know why SI-2 focused on Prof. Pollock. 

Prof. Kannan aptly responded by suggesting to read the book TBFS. It is apt because the context of SI series and the book have the same roots and motivations.

Members could say

1. That is not the only source problematizing Prof. Pollock's writings. You might want to read these other sources too etc.

or 

2. There is no problem with Prof. Pollock at all etc., 

or 

3. Please read the following counters to the arguments of TBFS, establishing that there is no problem with Prof. Pollock etc. 

On lines of (1), I may add that that the the member may want to read Pollock’s paper The Death of Sanskrit and the response by Hanneder titled ‘On “The Death of Sanskrit”’ to it. 

Pollock’s paper: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pollock/sks/papers/death_of_sanskrit.pdf

Hanneder’s response: https://www.uni-marburg.de/fb10/iksl/indologie/fachgebiet/mitarbeiter/hanneder/downloads/downloads-artikel/jh-a08-deathsanskrit.pdf

Google Scholar citations are far more for Pollock’s paper than for Hanneder’s response. When I compared last year, Pollock’s paper was cited by 79 papers, while the respone by Hanneder was cited by only eight papers.

In fact, reading original works on both sides will give the best picture. 

[Ajit Gargeshwari]

On Friday, 3 March 2017 11:36:24 UTC+8, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

The thread started as a response to the other thread on SI-2 conference. The member wanted to know why SI-2 focused on Prof. Pollock. 

Prof. Kannan aptly responded by suggesting to read the book TBFS. It is apt because the context of SI series and the book have the same roots and motivations.

Members could say

1. That is not the only source problematizing Prof. Pollock's writings. You might want to read these other sources too etc.

or 

2. There is no problem with Prof. Pollock at all etc., 

or 

3. Please read the following counters to the arguments of TBFS, establishing that there is no problem with Prof. Pollock etc. 

​One lines of (1) Let me add ​reading original works on both sides with an unbiased mind and reading less of blogs and secondary literature will give the best picture. One should know the context as well.

I want to buy a product

From the buyers perspective: Before one purchases a product it will be a good idea to read technical manuals of the product and its competitor products rather making decisions by seeing the advertisements  and wranglings both the product companies have shown. Reading technical manuals may not be enough at times one will have to verify the claims and methodologies on how such technologies are developed before one buys a product.

From the sellers perspective: I don't want to develop products myself but will keep criticizing a product is an option. If one doesn't buy my product I will ensure that my competitor never develops a product is another option. If my competitor develops products in spite of my opposition I will throw all possible spikes is yet another option. I will allow competition to thrive is another option and so on...

[Nagaraj Paturi]

This is in response to aadaraNIya Nityanandji's post on Prof. Pollock's "Death of Sanskrit" thesis. 

I ran several threads on BVP during August, Sptember, 2014 providing / collecting counter evidences /arguments to this thesis, apart from quoting rejoinders such as the by Prof. Hanneder.  

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[Kalyan K]

On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 1:06:16 AM UTC+5:30, Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:

Firstly, I thank Sri Nityanand Misra for drawing attention to the earlier discussion about this topic on this forum, so I don't have to do it myself now.

Secondly, I can see how this issue has become very politically charged, so I'll be brief. I am not an official spokesman for Sringeri, but if anyone thinks for a moment that the Sringeri Peetham, of all the traditional institutions, was going to sell its soul to an American university or to an individual Western Sanskritist, then all I'll say is that they just don't know how the advaita sampradAya maTha-s operate.

Sri Vidyasankar. The issue as I understood so far is not necessarily about whether an advaitic maTha would hand over control to a Western university. It may not, as you suggest. But let us think practically. How many educated middle class Hindu people know about Sringeri? Very few. How many educated middle class Hindu people know about Western universities? Plenty. Let us accept the fact that for most of the educated middle class Indians, Sringeri is an obscure maTha, while a western university means prestige and authority.  So if a chair is established in the name of tradition at a western university, there is statistically a greater likelihood of educated middle class Hindu people looking to the chair (which churns out material in English, that the educated middle class can understand) as the source of knowledge rather than an obscure maTha.

Regards

Kalyan

[Nagaraj Paturi]

>So if a chair is established in the name of tradition at a western university, there is statistically a greater likelihood of educated middle class Hindu people looking to the chair (which churns out material in English, that the educated middle class can understand) as the source of knowledge rather than an obscure maTha.

Can you be clearer Sri Kalyanji ?

Do you mean, 

that is the reason why, I think / I am sure,  Sringeri Math wanted to establish the chair at Columbia ? 

or, 

that is the reason I suggest /recommend Sringeri Math should establish the chair at Columbia?

In either case , let us connect it all back to the theme of the thread. 

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[Kalyan K]

Can you be clearer Sri Kalyanji ?

Do you mean, 

that is the reason why, I think / I am sure,  Sringeri Math wanted to establish the chair at Columbia ? 

or, 

that is the reason I suggest /recommend Sringeri Math should establish the chair at Columbia?

Nagaraj-ji. This is the reason why I believe Sri Rajiv Malhotra is right in being apprehensive about the matter and this is the reason why I think Sri Vidyasankar is off the point. It connects to the theme of the thread because, I have been asked by Sri Kannan to read the book by Sri Malhotra (which I am doing currently). Hope that clarifies. 

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Thanks for the clarification. 

So you mean, that is the reason why Sringeri Math should be /should have been careful not to allow the chair to go into the hands of those who , as Sri RM suspects, could use it for the purpose contrary to the intended one. 

Thanks. 

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[Kalyan K]

On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 2:53:18 PM UTC+5:30, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

Thanks for the clarification. 

So you mean, that is the reason why Sringeri Math should be /should have been careful not to allow the chair to go into the hands of those who , as Sri RM suspects, could use it for the purpose contrary to the intended one. 

"Should be more careful?" yes. 

"Should have been more careful?" I can't comment on this because I dont know whether the initiative was at the initial stage or final stage. Apparently, there are contradicting accounts on this from the comments that I have seen here.  

[Anilkumar Veppatangudi]

Am I sensing here a danger of overlooking Sheldon Pollock's and other Western Indologists' misdoings because Rajiv Malhotra has overstated his case?

Dr.V.R.Anil Kumar

http://www.kalpaheritage.org

http://www.kalpapublishing.com 

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 6:30 PM, Nityanand Misra <nmi...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, 2 March 2017 14:11:08 UTC+5:30, Kalyan K wrote:

Sri Kannan

Based on your suggestion, I got the kindle edition of the book and reading it. I am curious about one thing - Is the Adi Shankara chair at Columbia established? Or has the initiative been ditched?
 
Please throw some light.

Regards
Kalyan

While you are at it, I also suggest you to go through older threads on this forum, especially the following well-argued post by Dr. Vidyasankar Sundaresan:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/bvparishat/4fWAEj38Pzc/HJfmBtTLIwAJ

At the cost of upsetting a few memebers on the list, let me say that a major weakness of TBFS is that it makes many claims about the proposed Adi Shankara Chair without evidence. At some places, Malhotra even sounds like an alarmist (perhaps of a false alarm). For more on this, you may read section 4.3 of my [still unpublished] review of the book here. https://www.academia.edu/25071774/The_Battle_for_Sanskrit_Review. Just as one example, Malhotra claims that hundreds of calls were made and thousands of emails were sent to the Shringeri peetha (pp. 9–10), but really does Malhotra have any evidence of this? Did Malhotra go through phone records and email servers of Shringeri peetha or did he himself make all the hundreds of calls and write all the thousands of emails? If not, did he just over-exaggerate or pull out these claims from thin air? 

On this forum (bvparishat), the track record of the Malhotra when his claims have been put to question has been poor. There is no response by him to date to by Dr. Vidyasankar Sundaresan in which he said that Malhotra overstates the case quite a lot and significantly misleads many of his readers. The context is claims made by Malhotra in a post on this forum, but similar claims are made in TBFS also. 

In fact, I suggest you read the entire thread (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bvparishat/4fWAEj38Pzc%5B1-25%5D) for another example of attributing a claim to Pollock. Malhotra claims on page 389 of TBFS that Pollock said that Anushtubh chanda was invented by Buddhists and copied by Valmiki. It has been one year since Prof. Paturi and I have repeatedly asked on this forum where specifically Pollock made this claim. Malhotra has been silent and has not furnished any evidence yet. 

I am afraid to say these examples raise serious questions about credibility of TBFS and Malhotra. This is not to be taken personally, and I do not expect Malhotra or other members of this list to take offence with questions I am raising. Any non-fiction book that makes bold and tall claims should be questioned, and it is the moral responsibility of the author to either defend the claims when they are questioned with specific evidence, or admit that no evidence exists. But staying silent on questions and not responding, as Malhotra chooses to, is certainly not a sign of academic honesty.

 

--

[Ajit Gargeshwari]

You are right in a sense Dr.​ Veppatangudi. The concentration has been in promoting a book and a view of an individual what he says in blogs and elsewhere, rather than real issues that are raised or portrayed  in the book itself.  We are also having a set of people outside the list who want to promote an individual rather than issues he raises. There is also a side track to this discussion dragging mutts into needless controversies by people who have no clue what Sringeri Mutt is doing or how funding for US universities happen. Some simply write what pleases them.

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 4:25 PM, Anilkumar

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Interesting to see that Dr Gargeshwari agreed with aadaraNi/ya Anil Veppatangudiji that " overlooking Sheldon Pollock's and other Western Indologists' misdoings" is a "danger". 

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[Ajit Gargeshwari]

I mus again thank Prof Paturi for having given me and all a fair chance to write and discuss. This has been my stance individual or a book should become become bigger than the cause and individual involved in activism should learn to take everyone along. Sanskrit Scholars are so few why cannot every one speak with one voice. Appreciate good work done in the west and also done is India. Even if all Western scholars are included our number is still a handful why be divided? Let us express difference in scholarly papers and books but differences when it comes to larger issues which will help sustain research and scholarship will not help. An outsider has his own place in a formal system and an insider knows how to get a job done.

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 10:19 PM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagara...@gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting to see that Dr Gargeshwari agreed with aadaraNi/ya Anil Veppatangudiji that " overlooking Sheldon Pollock's and other Western Indologists' misdoings" is a "danger". 

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 7:00 PM, Ajit Gargeshwari <ajit.gar...@gmail.com> wrote:

You are right in a sense Dr.​ Veppatangudi. The concentration has been in promoting a book and a view of an individual what he says in blogs and elsewhere, rather than real issues that are raised or portrayed  in the book itself.  We are also having a set of people outside the list who want to promote an individual rather than issues he raises. There is also a side track to this discussion dragging mutts into needless controversies by people who have no clue what Sringeri Mutt is doing or how funding for US universities happen. Some simply write what pleases them.

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 4:25 PM, Anilkumar

​​

Veppatangudi <veppat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Am I sensing here a danger of overlooking Sheldon Pollock's and other Western Indologists' misdoings because Rajiv Malhotra has overstated his case?

Dr.V.R.Anil Kumar

http://www.kalpaheritage.org

http://www.kalpapublishing.com 

--

--

Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

 

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )

 

 

 

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[K S Kannan]

​Scholars are welcome to visit  swadeshiindology.com web-site 

where all videos and many papers from SI-1 have been available for weeks. 

(This is faster than most conferences being held)

.

The same web site also has had the SI-2 call for papers and other materials available.

SI2 videos should be uploaded by the end of march. 

Papers being edited and expected to be loaded in 3 months roughly. 

The focus has been to work with productive scholars who can/want to pursue new topics 

rather than recycle old materials. 

All those interested in future SI conferences are welcome to stay in touch with me.

Regards

KSKannan

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 9:59 AM, Nityanand Misra <nmi...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, 3 March 2017 11:36:24 UTC+8, Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

The thread started as a response to the other thread on SI-2 conference. The member wanted to know why SI-2 focused on Prof. Pollock. 

Prof. Kannan aptly responded by suggesting to read the book TBFS. It is apt because the context of SI series and the book have the same roots and motivations.

Members could say

1. That is not the only source problematizing Prof. Pollock's writings. You might want to read these other sources too etc.

or 

2. There is no problem with Prof. Pollock at all etc., 

or 

3. Please read the following counters to the arguments of TBFS, establishing that there is no problem with Prof. Pollock etc. 

On lines of (1), I may add that that the the member may want to read Pollock’s paper The Death of Sanskrit and the response by Hanneder titled ‘On “The Death of Sanskrit”’ to it. 

Pollock’s paper: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pollock/sks/papers/death_of_sanskrit.pdf

Hanneder’s response: https://www.uni-marburg.de/fb10/iksl/indologie/fachgebiet/mitarbeiter/hanneder/downloads/downloads-artikel/jh-a08-deathsanskrit.pdf

Google Scholar citations are far more for Pollock’s paper than for Hanneder’s response. When I compared last year, Pollock’s paper was cited by 79 papers, while the respone by Hanneder was cited by only eight papers.

In fact, reading original works on both sides will give the best picture. 

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[Ajit Gargeshwari]

Thank you for sharing these papers

Regards
Ajit Gargeshwari
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे।।2.20।।

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[Nityanand Misra]

On Friday, 3 March 2017 23:07:25 UTC+5:30, ks.kannan.2000 wrote:

​Scholars are welcome to visit  swadeshiindology.com web-site 

where all videos and many papers from SI-1 have been available for weeks. 

(This is faster than most conferences being held)

.

Dear Prof. Kannan

Thanks for sharing the link to the website, which I think you had also shared during announcement of SI-2 in this post. Good to know that the pre-print papers are available now. I remember earlier that the page had a message like Coming soon .. (as confirmed by its capture on archive.org) and I may have missed an announcement that the SI-1 papers have been uploaded on the site. Please do let us know when the proofreading/editing is complete.

Thanks again.