German Indology and Hinduism

This post highlights one strand of the complex pattern of intellectual entanglements between Indian Muslim and German intellectuals in the twentieth century. I suggest that the issue of minority’s position with respect to national culture were central to the histories of Germany and India in the twentieth century.[i] Following Aamir Mufti´ssuggestion, this post situates the problematic status of “Minority” as it emerged as the “Jewish Question” in Germany and traces its re-appearance and persistence as the “Muslim Question” in colonial and post-colonial India.[ii] The entangled intellectual history of Indian Muslim scholarly writings on the issue of “Muslim Question” and minority integration in India share a deep affinity with German thought, particularly on the issue of national culture (Kultur),self-cultivation, education (Bildung/Erziehung) and citizenship ideals that dominated the intellectual debates on the “Jewish Question” and emancipation in Germany.[iii] Kris Manjapra notes that in the “Age of Entanglement” Indo-German connections were forged and sustained both in regulated institutional contexts but also in affective personal ways.[iv] I explore these affective histories and archives by looking at institutional connections between Indian Muslim intellectuals and their German counterparts in the University context and by also illuminating personal relations and friendships forged as teachers and students that led to their evolution as intellectual interlocutors and innovators. The main exemplars in this history are Syed Abid Husain (1896–1978) and Eduard Spranger (1882–1963) within a larger connected network of intellectuals.

If one thing is truly clear after reading this distorting and tendentious book, it is that this is anything but a history of German Indology. The tome begins with a critical survey of the earliest German publications on the Mahabharata (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 Bhagavadgıta 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. However, there is a tiny problem here: Indology-German Indology included-does not have a method, or rather, it does not have a single method, as inexplicably assumed by the authors.

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, 2006

A NEW PASSAGE TO INDIA, 2021

This is a compilation of the brief overview of all the Indo - German projects, granted under the Scheme 'A New Passage to India', by DAAD. The Project 'Towards an Indo-German Centre for Experimental Architecture and Material Culture (EAMC)', is a cooperation between IIT Roorkee and RWTH Aachen University.

Roots of Europe Project, 2023

This article proposing several approaches to Indo-European Homeland study, including an integrative , multi/interdisciplinary , systemic (holistic) transdisciplinary approach and contextual approach . Transdisciplinary, holistic, integrative and contextual approaches would allow to use Max Weber's social theory of systematic religion origin. Contrary to the general trend of seeing world historical processes as the result of various factors of world development, Weber saw the possibility of the influence of individual ideas and specific historical figures in shaping the conditions for the emergence of religion and reforming the old system religious worldview. This changed the modality of understanding the past. Modern historical sciences exclude the role of individual innovators in shaping historical change, using typological methods of analyzing material culture. Archaeology, Historical Linguistics, Anthropology, and Population Genetics all use methods that overlook the role of important inventions made by individual innovators that may impact society. Each of these approaches has its advantages and disadvantages, and they can be used in combination to avoid the trap of dichotomous consciousness and achieve a comprehensive understanding of the Indo-European Homeland paradigm.

NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin

Ludwig Alsdorf (1904–1978) is primarily remembered as a scholar of ancient and medieval India. This paper examines a little known aspect of Alsdorf’s career: his role as an expert of modern India in Nazi Germany. Alsdorf, who was in India from 1930 to 1932, joined the NSDAP and a few of its subsidiaries after 1933. Political contacts as well as his claims of having “first-hand experience” of India secured Alsdorf writing assignments that aimed to fulfil the regime’s political objectives. In return, he gained professional advancement and the reputation of being an authority on modern India. This paper reviews Alsdorf’s trajectory within the NS state by focussing on the following aspects: the ways in which Alsdorf offered his knowledge of India to the Nazi regime; the material and symbolic resources that he received in return; the relative importance of political affiliations, professional networks and academic accomplishments for Alsdorf’s career; the “politics of the past” practised...

Historiographia Linguistica, 2003