Beyond Orientalism

Book excerpt: Wilhelm Halbfass, philosopher and Indologist, is a committed participant in the dialogue between India and Europe, whose reflections on the Indian tradition and its Western perception are accompanied by reflection on and critical examination of the Western tradition. In this innovative combination of Indological research and philosophical-hermeneutical research in the history of ideas, he demonstrates a purpose more ambitious and a scope wider than Edward Said's who constructed the Western study of the so-called Orient as an attempt to deprive it of its identity and sovereignty, and who perceived the pursuit of Oriental Studies in Western universities to be an extension of a fundamentally political will to power and domination. Without denying the domination of the dialogue between India and Europe by the West, Halbfass goes beyond that to show a different way of approaching Indian thought; he strives to establish the presuppositions and prerequisites that would make a true dialogue and mutual understanding between Indian and Western intellectual cultures possible. The papers in the present volume originate from twenty-three scholars of Indology, philosophy, religious studies, comparative theology, classics, folkloristics and political theory, working in eleven countries spread over three continents. They address central issues of Halbfass' work; his critical responses to them commence with an extensive essay in which he assesses in a masterly manner the state of Indian studies almost twenty years after the publication of Said's Orientalismz.