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FOREWORD
by
ASHOK AKLUJKAR Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Literature
Department of Asian Studies University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
As a person interested in, among other things, working with manuscripts, I have travelled to departments of Sanskrit at many Indian universities and colleges in the last few years, During these travels, I have come across many excellent and potentially excellent Sanskritists. However, the general picture I have developed of Sanskritists at Indian institutions of higher learning is that of persons who put in relatively few hours of professional work everyday and who depend on someone else for the initiative to undertake research. It is not only that many of their publications are old wine in new bottles, but also that many do not seem to have been required at all to remain active in publication in order to hold on to their positions or to win promotions. In fact, I know one case in which the person enjoyed the benefits of professorship, curatorship, deanship etc. first solely on the basis of having completed a Ph.D. at a foreign university and later simply by publishing the Ph.D. dissertation without the correction of even obvious errors.
Against the background provided by such 'functional Sanskritists, for whom the pursuit of knowledge expected of a professor is to be carried out only between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. (between the times of the last convenient bus to the university campus and the time of the first convenient bus from the university campus) and then too between tea-breaks, the few dedicated scholars such as the late Professor K. A. Subramania Iyer seemed, remarkable as they were, even more remarkable. Their commitment to their professional field was not chalked out by a clock. Nor did it come to an end with the beginning of retirement. In fact they worked at their subject with redoubled vigour, once
