The Nay Science: A History of German Indology

The Nay Science offers a new perspective on the problem of scientific method in the human sciences. Taking German Indological scholarship on the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita as their example, Adluri and Bagchee develop a critique of the modern valorization of method over truth in the humanities. The authors show how, from its origins in eighteenth-century Neo-Protestantism onwards, the critical method was used as a way of making theological claims against rival philosophical and/or religious traditions. Via discussions of German Romanticism, the pantheism controversy, scientific positivism, and empiricism, they show how theological concerns dominated German scholarship on the Indian texts. Indology functions as a test case for wider concerns: the rise of historicism, the displacement of philosophical concerns from thinking, and the belief in the ability of a technical method to produce truth. Based on the historical evidence of the first part of the book, Adluri and Bagchee make a case in the second part for going beyond both the critical pretensions of modern academic scholarship and and the objections of its post-structuralist or post-Orientalist critics. By contrasting German Indology with Plato's concern for virtue and Gandhi's focus on praxis, the authors argue for a conception of the humanities as a dialogue between the ancients and moderns and between eastern and western cultures.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Prologue Introduction A History of German Indology The History of German Indology as a History of Method The Origins of the Historical-Critical Method in the Neo-Protestantism of the Eighteenth Century Defining the Scope of Inquiry Plan of Study 1. The Search for an Urepos Introduction The First Phase of German Gita Reception The Birth of German Mahabharata Studies Ideas of Heroic Epic The Indo-Germanic Epic The Birth of Modern Mahabharata Studies Holtzmann's Legacy to Gita Studies 2. The Search for German Identity Introduction The Genesis of Holtzmann's Mahabharata Polemics against the Brahmans Ideas of Critical Reconstruction Ideas of Epic Composition Ideas of Religious Conflict Ideas of Textual Corruption Ideas of Historical Distortion Ideas of Enlightened Religion Ideas of Religious Persecution Ideas of Religious Corruption Ideas of Racial Contamination Evaluating Holtzmann's Textual Project Mahabharata Criticism after Holtzmann A Problem of Reception 3. The Search for the Original Gita Introduction The Gita Reemerges The Pantheistic Gita of Adolf Holtzmann Pantheism and the Bhagavadgita The Theistic Gita of Richard Garbe Ideas of Bhagavata Religion The Epic Gita of Hermann Jacobi Defending Philosophical Pantheism The Krsna Gita of Hermann Oldenberg Resistances to Modernity A Revelation and a Mystery The Trinitarian Gita of Rudolf Otto God Reveals Himself An Auto-Didact among Auto-Didacts The Aryan Gita of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer By Reason of Race The Method Becomes Autonomous The Prejudices Are Institutionalized An Essay in Understanding? 4. The Search for a Universal Method Introduction The Scientization of Protestant Theology in the Critical Method The Secularization of Protestant Theology in the Study of the History of Religions The Institutionalization of Protestant Theology in Indology 5. Problems with the Critical Method Introduction Steps toward a Scientific Indology Steps toward a Positivist Philology Construing the (Natural) Scientific Character of Philology Historicism and the Seductions of Positive Sociology Empiricism and the Search for General Propositions Criticisms of the Positivistic Notion of Truth Kant's Critical Turn and the Significance of Apriorism Rethinking the Scientific Character of the Human Sciences Conclusion: Gandhi on the Gita Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Vishwa Adluri has a PhD in Philosophy from the New School and a PhD in Indology from Philipps-Universität Marburg. He is Adjunct Associate Professor of Religion at Hunter College. Joydeep Bagchee has a PhD in Philosophy from the New School and is Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at Freie Universität Berlin.

Review :
"The Nay Science is an important work of hermeneutic analysis "--Religion Compass "An extraordinary work [and] brilliant in-depth investigation If ever there is a fine specimen of how to do the in-depth history of ideas as it pertains to an academic discipline, this study by Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee ranks very, very highly This is a monumental piece of work, and scholars wanting to think through their own presuppositions and conditionings will ignore it at their peril All hail to two veritable Indian masters of both German and English."--History of Religions "The Nay Science is arguably one of most comprehensive historiographies of Indology, assessing the field's philosophical roots and the implications it has had on both academic and practical discourses about Hinduism and other Indian classical traditions....The Nay Science (a clever play on nescience, or ignorance) speaks to the institutional antagonism of 19th and early 20th century German Indologists towards ancient Indian scriptures, subsequently shaping a paradigm from which many Indologists continue to draw. Their assertion, backed by correspondences between Indologists and their own published works, is not so much a critique of Orientalism as it is a surgical evisceration of the scholarly field that has developed over nearly two centuries."--OPEN Magazine "The Nay Science concludes with some exciting and discomforting questions: How should we navigate and negotiate apparent antitheses: 'modern' and 'traditional,' 'reason' and 'faith'? What pragmatic concerns and consequences should inform our scholarship, such that the humanities can truly humanize us? These questions are key to a critical reorientation, toward thinking about India 'after Indology.'"--American Historical Review "Adluri and Bagchee eschew the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise of excoriating nineteenth-century European scholars for their sins and instead conclude by drawing some lessons from Gadamer and Gandhi on the benefits of an alternative philosophical philology. The points the authors make are relevant to historians of religion no matter what discipline they study."--Religious Studies Review "[The Nay Science] adds significantly to the many recent studies of Orientalism...Highly recommended."--CHOICE "This book begins at a point where Edward Said left off. Rather than replicate the 'Orientalist' critique as so many have done, Adluri and Bagchee offer a diagnosis of German Indology as a form of 'Occidentalism': rather than accomplishing its stated goal of defining the other (which would be 'Orientalism'), it represents the other so as to define itself. The Nay Science challenges scholars to recognize that the 'Brahmanic hypothesis' was not and probably no longer can be an innocuous thesis. The 'corrupting' impact of Brahmanical 'priestcraft' served German Indology as a cover by which to talk about Catholics, Jews, and other 'Semites.'" -- Alf Hiltebeitel, Professor of Religion and Human Sciences, George Washington University "The Nay Science is more than a history of German Indology. Besides offering a highly nuanced critique of scientific positivism and historicism, it makes important interventions in broader debates on the development of the social and human sciences in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany, and has much to say regarding the role of race and religion in the formation of German national identity. Last but not least, The Nay Science contributes greatly to our understanding of the origins, nature, and consequences of German orientalism. While the non specialist reader might find this ambitious work daunting in its depth, breadth, and complexity, the authors have produced a remarkable work of scholarship." --Central European History