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Michael Witzel

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'Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943 at Schwiebus, Germany) is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University. He has been teaching Sanskrit since 1972. He studied Indology in Germany and Nepal. He is noted for his studies of the dialects of Vedic Sanskrit [1], old Indian history [2], [3] and the development of Vedic religion [4], [5]. He is editor-in-chief of the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies [(EJVS)[6], and the Harvard Oriental Series [7]. He has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003.

Work

Mr. Witzel has published articles attacking traditional Hindu and Hindutva interpretations of Vedic texts and decipherments of Indus inscriptions such as that of N.S. Rajaram [8], pdf [9]; most recently he has co-authored a paper that questions the linguistic nature of the so-called Indus Script (Farmer, Sproat, Witzel 2004)[10] (PDF).

Criticism

Hindu scholars have long battled with Witzel over ancient Indian history [11]. Hindu writers assert [12] that Witzel not only overlooks the archeological and genetic evidence but also fails to follow rigid analysis in his interpretation of Hindu scriptures, which neglects their actual use in Witzel's writings (1995, 2001, 2003) [13] [14].

In his The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis, Shrikant Talageri asserts Witzel errs in tracing Vedic lineages and geographical evidence in the Rigveda. Witzel describes Talageri's effort as "a long and confused ‘analysis’" and has criticized [15] what he considers to be Talageri's wrong starting point, due to his neglect of well-known results dating back well over 100 years, e.g. in the analysis of the Rgveda by Hermann Oldenberg (Prolegomena, 1888, now available in English, Delhi: Motilal 2005).

In another dispute, Swaminathan, retired Principal of Guruvayoor Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, maintained that Witzel's casual remark that the ancient grammarian Panini and the medieval commentator Sayana did not know of the grammatical category of the injunctive used in the Rigveda was false and Witzel himself was ignorant of their work. The grammatical category of the injunctive, that quickly disppears from active use after the Rigveda, has long been recognized in Indology.

Politics

Main article: Californian Hindu textbook controversy

Witzel spear-headed a drive against attempts by two Hindu foundations to change the content of California textbooks dealing with ancient Indian history and Hinduism.

A final decision on the textbook issue, which has drawn international attention in the press, is expected in March, 2006.

Publications

  • 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) [16] (PDF)
  • M. Witzel and S. Farmer, "Horseplay in Harappa" Fontline, Oct. 10, 2000. [17]
  • 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 [History of Old India]. München: C.H. Beck 2003
  • Michael Witzel, Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia. Philadelphia: Sino-Platonic Papers 129, 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 [Nov.] 2004: 581-636
  • Michael Witzel, Indocentrism: Autochthonous visions of ancient India. In: The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history, edited by Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton. London ; New York : Routledge, 2005: 341-404
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