Browsing by Author "Witzel, Michael"

Agnihotra Rituals in Nepal

Witzel, Michael E.J. (Oxford University Press, 2015)

This chapter examines the history of the agnihotra in the Kathmandu valley. This ritual is Vedic, but is considered to be an antecedent to the tantric homa. The ritual is known to have been performed in Nepal by the fifteenth ...

Female Rishis and Philosophers in the Veda?

Witzel, Michael E.J. (Asiatica Association, 2009)

It is a traditional but common misconception that a considerable number of Ṛgvedic hymns were composed by women. Though female authors and interlocutors are not entirely absent from the Vedas the role of 'literate' women ...

Gandhāra and the Formation of the Vedic and Zoroastrian Canons

Witzel, Michael E.J. (Biblioteca Bucureştilor, 2011)

After several hundred years of text composition and accumulation, from the RV down to the Upaniṣads and the oldest Sūtras, the actual process of canonization remains unclear, just as the time and place where this took place ...

Hindu Kingship: Ritual, Power and History

Chaulagain, Nawaraj (2013-10-14)

This dissertation examines two major kingship rituals-- the coronation and the autumnal navaratri--as discussed in Hindu religious literature and ritual texts, and as practised in Nepal. These rituals are based on sacred ...

The Hindutva View of History: Rewriting Textbooks in India and the United States

Witzel, Michael E.J.; Visweswaran, Kamala; Manjrekar, Nandini; Bhog, Dipta; Chakravarti, Uma (Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, 2009)

Organizations associated with India’s BJP political party and the Sangh Parivar have attempted to fundamentally and inaccurately revise textbooks to propagate a Hindu nationalist view in Californian and Indian schoolbooks.

The Linguistic History of Some Indian Domestic Plants

Witzel, Michael E.J. (Springer Verlag, 2009)

Moving Targets? Texts, language, archaeology and history in the Late Vedic and early Buddhist periods

Witzel, Michael E.J. (Brill, 2009)

The Late Vedic and earliest Buddhist texts are investigated to indicate their relative historical layering. Besides the texts themselves, their language, place names, archaeological and inherent historical background are ...

The Old Khotanese Metanalysis

Hitch, Douglas A. (2016-05-17)

A range of present stems in Khotanese which historically ended in a consonant behave synchronically as vowel final stems. Forms like bvāre ‘they know’ or bvāne ‘may I know’ imply a synchronic stem bu-, but most scholars ...

Origin and Development of Language in South Asia: Phylogeny Versus Epigenetics?

Witzel, Michael E.J. (2012-04-12)

This presentation begins with a brief overview of opinions on the origin of human language and the controversial question of Neanderthal speech. Moving from the language of the "African Eve" to the specific ones of the ...

Pan-Gaean Flood myths: Gondwana myths -- and beyond

Witzel, Michael E.J. (Shikanda, 2010)

Mythological compendia and indexes such as that by Stith Thompson create the impression that flood myths are rare in Africa and Australia. Erroneously, I too thought so in my short summary of Laurasian mythology (2001). ...

Shamanism in Northern and Southern Eurasia: Their Distinctive Methods of Change of Consciousness

Witzel, Michael E. J. (SAGE Publications, 2011)

This article seeks to establish that the ‘southern’ shamanism of the San, Andamanese and Australian Aboriginals differs substantially from the well-known ‘classical’ Siberian version found in various forms in large parts ...

Textual criticism in Indology and in European philology during the 19th and 20th centuries

Witzel, Michael E.J. (American Theological Library Association, 2014)

This paper discusses the post-enlightenment development of philology in Europe during the 19th-20th centuries, particularly in the German speaking areas. After several centuries of sustained interest in the Graeco-Roman ...

This Whole World Is OM: Song, Soteriology, and the Emergence of the Sacred Syllable

Moore Gerety, Finnian McKean (2015-05-20)

This study explores the emergence of OM, the Sanskrit mantra and critically ubiquitous "sacred syllable" of South Asian religions. Although OM has remained in active practice in recitation, ritual, and meditation for the ...

Topics on the History of Tibetan Astronomy With a Focus on Background Knowledge of Eclipse Calculations in the 18th Century

Jo, Sokhyo (2016-05-16)

The eclipse calculations in Tibet feature religious implications. One religious issue is Buddhist chronology (bstan rtsis). With Kālacakra calculational bases, Tibetan Kālacakra astronomers have tried to synchronize with ...

Visiting Deities of the Hopi, Newar and Marind-anim: A Comparative Study of Seasonal Myths and Rituals in Horticultural Societies

Witzel, Michael E.J.; Anand, Suma (Traditional Cosmology Society, 2012)

The mythologies and rituals of the three populations show a remarkable amount of overlap, in spite of their distant locations: in northern Arizona, the Kathmandu Valley, and southern New Guinea. They exhibit the mytheme ...