Adluri, Vishwa.

The nay science : a history of German Indology / Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee. - New York : Oxford University Press, (c)2014. - 1 online resource

Includes bibliographies and index.

""Cover""; ""The Nay Science""; ""Copyright""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""The Nay Science""; ""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""; ""Chapter 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""; ""Chapter 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""; ""Chapter 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 KR. S.N.a 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?""; ""Chapter 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""; ""Chapter 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""

This title 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 its example, the book develops a critique of the modern valorization of method over truth in the humanities. The book shows 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.



9780199931354


Mahābhārata--Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Bhagavadgītā--Criticism, interpretation, etc.


Hindu philosophy--Study and teaching--History--Germany--18th century.
Hindu philosophy--Study and teaching--History--Germany--19th century.


Electronic Books.

BL1108 / .N397 2014