Indology

Indology refers to the academic study of the history, languages, and cultures of the Indian subcontinent, and as such a subset of Asian studies.

Indology may also be known as Indic studies or Indian studies, or South Asian studies, although scholars and university administrators sometimes have only partially overlapping interpretations of these terms.

Indology would not typically include the study of contemporary economy, government, or politics of South Asia, except insofar as these sometimes express issues that are deeply embedded in South Asian history, and may be illuminated by indological methods and insights.

Indology overlaps to some extent with many other areas of study, applying their techniques to the South Asian case. These include cultural or social anthropology, cultural studies, historical linguistics, philology, textual criticism, literary history, history, philosophies and the study of the religions of South Asia, such as the Vedic religion, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc., besides the indigenous forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in South Asia.

Finally it may include the study of South Asian sciences, arts and architecture.

Scholars who call themselves indologists often place special value on a thorough knowledge of the languages of India, especially the classical languages such as Sanskrit, Prakrit, or classical Tamil, or Persian, and they consider a knowledge of one or more of these languages, coupled with a knowledge of the methods of philology, to be a prerequisite for contributing meaningfully to the indological research and a characteristic feature of indology as a field.

Thus, Indology is the intellectual pursuit of all things Indic, with a focus on the interpretation of the past and its outcomes in the present. Some scholars distinguish classical indology from modern indology, the former more focussed on Sanskrit and other ancient language sources, the latter making more use of contemporary language sources and sociological approaches.

The beginnings of Indology date back to the Persian historian and anthropologist Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (973-1048). In his Researches on India, he not only recorded the political history of India and military history of India, but also covered India's cultural, scientific, social and religious history in detail.

In the wake of 18th century pioneers like Henry Thomas Colebrooke or August Wilhelm Schlegel appeared. Indology as an academic subject emerged in the 19th century, in the context of British India, together with Asian studies in general affected by the romantic Orientalism of the time.

Systematic study and editorial activity of Sanskrit literature becomes possible with the St. Petersburg Sanskrit studing during the 1850s to 1870s. Publication of major Hindu texts in the Sacred Books of the East begins in 1879. In 1897, Sergey Oldenburg launched a systematic edition of key Sanskrit texts, "Bibliotheca Buddhica".