India and the West : Proceedings of a Seminar Dedicated to the Memory of Hermann Goetz

He specializes in the Vedas and their Indo-European roots, and in Kashmir Shaivism, particularly in Abhinavagupta’s Tantraloka. He has been working as an assistant professor at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg, and been the director of its New Delhi branch office from 1980-83.

This book presents a selection from the papers read at a seminar organized by the South Asia Institute, the Max Müeller Bhavan, and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, held at New Delhi in February 1982 as part of the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Max Müeller Bhavan, New Delhi.

The seminar was dedicated to the memory of the well-known Indian Art historian Hermann Goetz. The papers cover a wide field of interests: a comparative study of the Indo-Aryan and Iranian-Aryan mythology; trade links in western India;

legends of Krishna; descriptions of newly discovered rock drawings at Chilas, two Gandh?ra sculptures, frescoes decorated at Lahore Fort; and Indian and Western philosophy, both ancient and modern.

The emphasis in the papers is on the complementarity and root-relationship of the Indian and Western cultural fields. This accords with two main tenets of Hermann Goetz'' work – that a study of art history is only possible within the context of the general history of civilization, and that indological studies must be correlated with study of the mutual influences of the cultures west to the India.