Re: Prof. Gombrich retires; number of Pali specialists in Europe ever closer to zero?

a quick correction:

>Gombrich has recently retired, and I infer from the fact that Oxford is
>still advertising for a replacement, that none has yet been selected.

An appointment has been made. He will be coming to Oxford in Autumn
2005. Unfortunately (from this point of view) he is a specialist in
Indian sciences and Vedic.

>   What
>is noteworthy, and a bit saddening, in the job posting from Oxford, is that
>they are advertising only for "a professor of Sanskrit" with knowledge in
>Sanskrit "both Vedic and classical", with only a tertiary mention of
>"proficiency in at least some areas of Middle Indo-Aryan" --which would
>include Pali.
>
>http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/fp/bodenprof.shtml
>
>The number of academics in Europe with any real ability in Pali continues to
>drop; and the increasingly common definition of Indology as "Sanskrit... and
>everything else I suppose" works to the detriment not only of Pali, but of
>all non-Vedic literary traditions --Middle Indo-Aryan, modern, Dravidian,
>and Austroasiatic alike.
>

When Richard Gombrich was appointed to the Boden Chair, his previous
post was (inevitably) replaced by a lectureship in Sanskrit.
Obviously, someone has that position; so there is no Pali post at the
moment.

The new Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies is seeking funding and
looks like succeeding in establishing some new posts; we hope that
may eventually include something specifically in Pali.

I don't think the situation is any worse in the UK at the moment than
it was in the 1960s, although there has been a disappointing lack of
growth. There is a lot of worry about the future.

Lance Cousins
(Oxford)