| This interdisciplinary collaboration examined the forms and intersecting histories of South Asian practices of knowledge, with a focus on the geographical and historical spread of cultural norms and technologies. |
The Sanskrit word śāstra, from a verb meaning “to discipline, to govern,” supplies a blanket term for a vast and heterogeneous spectrum of Southern Asian texts and the social forms in which these have been propagated. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the very basis of South Asian conceptualization and practices of knowledge was founded on the idea of śāstra. With antecedents available throughout the recorded history of India, by the middle of the first millennium CE śāstra had attained something like its recognizable “classical” form: the Laws of Manu are one instance of śāstra, as is the Kāmasūtra or the grammar of Pāṇini; so too are works of philosophy, texts on elephant lore, magical grimoires, or commentaries on literary classics. To pass as codified knowledge in early India (and beyond), was to be framed as śāstra of some sort. Despite this centrality, little sustained reflection has been devoted to understanding what śāstra was and what it did, such that it could have such a formative capacity in shaping cultures and histories throughout Asia. This project will bring together philologists and intellectual historians specializing in Sanskrit and those working in other adjacent linguistic cultures with linguistic anthropologists, historians of science, and specialists of East Asia and the classical West to understand how this package of cultural and cognitive technologies functioned across a range of specific historical and regional contexts, with the intention of better understanding the internal logics and historical instantiation of these practices of knowledge.
Associate Professor, South Asian Languages and Civilizations
University of Chicago
Whitney Cox’s main interests are in the literary and intellectual history of southern India in the early second millennium CE. Within that broad range, his research has concentrated on Sanskrit kāvya and poetic theory, the history of the Śaiva religion, and medieval Tamil literature and...
Lecturer in Sanskrit and South-Southeast Asian Studies
The University of British Columbia
Thomas M. Hunter (1947-2022) lectured in Sanskrit and South-Southeast Asian Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. Prior to joining UBC he worked for over twenty years guiding students from North America in their study abroad programs in Indonesia and...
Associate Professor of Anthropology and of the Social Sciences in the College; Associate Faculty of Cinema and Media Studies and Comparative Human Development
University of Chicago
Constantine V. Nakassis is a linguistic anthropologist with interests in language in culture; semiotics; film theory; mass media; brands; and youth culture. His regional focus is Tamil Nadu, India. He organizes the annual Chicago Tamil Forum...
Professor in the Department of Classics and the College
University of Chicago
Professor Nooter writes about Greek drama and modern reception and about poetry, the voice, embodiment, and performance. The core of her interest is the tightly wound formations of verse. Her research spreads outward from there to language, genre, and tradition. Professor Nooter’s 2017 book,...
Neubauer Family Assistant Professor, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
University of Chicago
Andrew Ollett studies the literary and intellectual traditions of South Asia, including works composed in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, and Kannada, mostly falling within the first millennium of the common era. Ollett's research has focused on the “question of language”: the availability and...
University Professor with appointments in Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages & Civilizations, and Committee on Social Thought
University of Chicago
Professor Saussy's primary teaching and research interests include classical Chinese poetry and commentary, literary theory, comparative study of oral traditions, problems of translation, pre-twentieth-century media history, and ethnography and ethics of medical care.
His 2022 book,...
Anupama and Guru Ramakrishnan Professor; Department Chair, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
University of Chicago
Gary Tubb previously served as the faculty director for the University of Chicago Center in Delhi and chair and director of graduate studies in the South Asian Languages and Civilizations Department. He was also the chair of the Indian Ministry of Culture Vivekananda Visiting Professor search...
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
Lecture by Chris Minkowski on the Privy Council, Mīmāṃsā, and Anantakrishna Shastri
The domain of śāstra – disciplined, textualized systematic thought, composed in Sanskrit and other languages – forms premodern southern Asia’s greatest archive for the history of knowledge. The...
Indian philosophers in the mid-first millennium elevated epistemology to a commanding position. It came to be widely accepted that all claims of any kind, to be taken seriously in philosophical...
The major works of Pali grammar are the Kaccāyana Vyākaraṇa (6th/7th c. CE), the Moggallāna Vyākaraṇa (1165 CE), and Aggavaṁsa’s Saddanīti (later 12th c. CE?). These...
Lexicography is one of the oldest traditions of language analysis in South Asia, beginning with the compilation of nighaṇṭus or “word-lists” that focused on “rare, unexplained, vague, or otherwise...
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
Lecture by Chris Minkowski on the Privy Council, Mīmāṃsā, and Anantakrishna Shastri
Indian philosophers in the mid-first millennium elevated epistemology to a commanding position. It came to be widely accepted that all claims of any kind, to be taken seriously in philosophical...
The major works of Pali grammar are the Kaccāyana Vyākaraṇa (6th/7th c. CE), the Moggallāna Vyākaraṇa (1165 CE), and Aggavaṁsa’s Saddanīti (later 12th c. CE?). These...
Lexicography is one of the oldest traditions of language analysis in South Asia, beginning with the compilation of nighaṇṭus or “word-lists” that focused on “rare, unexplained, vague, or otherwise...
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
The domain of śāstra – disciplined, textualized systematic thought, composed in Sanskrit and other languages – forms premodern southern Asia’s greatest archive for the history of knowledge. The...
