Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist, comparative mythologist and Indology. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50–100). He has researched a number of Indian sacred texts, particularly the Vedas.
Biography
Michael Witzel was born July 18, 1943, in
Schwiebus,
Nazi Germany (modern Świebodzin, Poland). He studied
indology in
West Germany from 1965 to 1971 under
Paul Thieme, H.-P. Schmidt, K. Hoffmann, and J. Narten, as well as in
Nepal (1972 to 1973) under Mīmāmsaka Jununath Pandit.
[ Michael Witzel's curriculum vitae, accessed September 13, 2007.] From 1972 to 1978, he led the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project and the Nepal Research Centre in
Kathmandu.
Witzel has taught at Tübingen (1972), Leiden (1978–1986), and at Harvard (1986~2022), and has been the Wales Research professor since 2022. He has had visiting appointments at Kyoto University (twice), Paris (twice), and Tokyo (twice). He has been teaching Sanskrit since 1972.
Witzel is editor-in-chief of the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies[ Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies homepage, accessed September 13, 2007.] and the Harvard Oriental Series.[ About the Harvard Oriental Series, accessed September 13, 2007.] Witzel has been president of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory since 1999,[ Personal web page, accessed July 30, 2015] as well as of the International Association for Comparative Mythology since 2006.
He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and was elected honorary member of the German Oriental Society in 2009.
Philological research
The main topics of scholarly research are the
of
Vedic Sanskrit,
[Michael Witzel, On the Localisation of Vedic Texts and Schools (Materials on Vedic sakhas, 7), India and the Ancient World. History, Trade and Culture before A.D. 650. P.H.L. Eggermont Jubilee Volume, ed. by G. Pollet, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 25, Leuven 1987, pp. 173-213, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] old
Indian history,
[Michael Witzel, The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu (Materials on Vedic Sakhas, 8, in Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas, ed. M. Witzel, Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, vol. 2, Cambridge 1997, pp. 257-345, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] the development of Vedic religion,
[Michael Witzel, How To Enter the Vedic Mind? Strategies in Translating a Brahmana Text, Translating, Translations, Translators From India to the West, Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, vol. 1, Cambridge: Harvard Oriental Series, 1996, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007; Steve Farmer, John B. Henderson, and Michael Witzel, Neurobiology, Layered Texts, and Correlative Cosmologies: A Cross-Cultural Framework for Premodern History, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 72 (2000): 48-90, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] and the linguistic prehistory of the Indian subcontinent.
Early works and translations
Witzel's early philological work deals with the oldest texts of India, the Vedas, their manuscripts and their traditional recitation; it included some editions and translations of unknown texts (1972).
[ Michael Witzel's list of publications, accessed September 13, 2007.] such as the Katha Aranyaka.
[Katha Âranyaka. Critical edition with a translation into German and an introduction. Cambridge: Harvard Oriental Series 65. 2004 pp.] He has begun, together with T. Goto et al. a new translation of the Rigveda into German (Books I-II, 2007, Books III-V 2012), Books VI-VII (2022).
[Rig-Veda. Das Heilige Wissen. Erster und zweiter Liederkreis. Aus dem vedischen Sanskrit übersetzt und herausgegeben von Michael Witzel und Toshifumi Goto Unter Mitarbeit von Eijiro Doyama und Mislav Jezic. Frankfurt: Verlag der Weltreligionen 2007, pp. 1-889; first complete translation of the Rgveda into a western language since Geldner's of 1929/1951). amazon.de]
Vedic texts, Indian history, and the emergence of the Kuru kingdom
After 1987, he has increasingly focused on the localization of Vedic texts (1987) and the evidence contained in them for early Indian history, notably that of the Rgveda and the following period, represented by the Black Yajurveda Samhitas and the Brahmanas. This work has been done in close collaboration with Harvard archaeologists such as R. Meadow, with whom he has also co-taught. Witzel aims at indicating the emergence of the Kuru Kingdom in the Delhi area (1989, 1995, 1997, 2003), its seminal culture and its political dominance, as well as studying the origin of late Vedic polities
and the first Indian empire in eastern North India (1995, 1997, 2003, 2010).
He studied at length the various Vedic recensions ( śākhā)[Michael Witzel, Caraka, English summary of "Materialen zu den vedischen Schulen: I. Uber die Caraka-Schule," Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 7 (1981): 109-132, and 8/9 (1982): 171-240, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007; Michael Witzel, The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu (Materials on Vedic Sakhas, 8), in Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas, ed. M. Witzel, Harvard Oriental Studies, Opera Minora, vol. 2, Cambridge 1997, pp. 257-345, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] and their importance for the geographical spread of Vedic culture across North India and beyond.[Michael Witzel, On the Localisation of Vedic Texts and Schools (Materials on Vedic Sakhas, 7), in India and the Ancient World. History, Trade and Culture before A.D. 650. P.H.L. Eggermont Jubilee Volume, ed. by G. Pollet, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 25, Leuven 1987, pp. 173-213, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] This resulted in book-length investigations of Vedic dialects (1989), the development of the Vedic canon (1997),[Michael Witzel, The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu (Materials on Vedic Sakhas, 8), in Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas, ed. M. Witzel, Harvard Oriental Studies, Opera Minora, vol. 2, Cambridge 1997, pp. 257-345, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] and of Old India as such (2003, reprint 2010).
Pre-Vedic substrate languages of Northern India
The linguistic aspect of earliest Indian history has been explored in a number of papers (1993,
1999,
[Michael Witzel, Aryan and Non-Aryan Names in Vedic India. Data for the Linguistic Situation, c. 1900-500 B.C., in J. Bronkhorst and M. Deshpande, eds., Aryans and Non-Non-Aryans, Evidence, Interpretation, and Ideology, Cambridge (Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora 3), 1999, pp. 337-404, pdf, accessed September 21, 2007][Michael Witzel, Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages, Mother Tongue, special issue (October 1999): 1-70, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] 2000, 2001, 2006,
[South Asian agricultural vocabulary. In: T. Osada (ed.). Proceedings of the Pre-Symposium of RHIN and 7th ESCA Harvard-Kyoto Round Table. Published by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RHIN), Kyoto, Japan 2006: 96-120] 2009)
[The linguistic history of some Indian domestic plants
Journal of Biosciences Dec. 2009, 829-833 ias.ac.in uas.ac.in] dealing with the pre-Vedic substrate languages of Northern India.
These result in a substantial amount of loan words from a prefixing language ("Para-Munda") similar to but not identical with
Austroasiatic (
Munda languages,
Khasi language, etc.) as well as from other unidentified languages. In addition, a considerable number of Vedic and Old Iranian words are traced back to a Central Asian substrate language (1999, 2003, 2004, 2006).
[Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia. Philadelphia: Sino-Platonic Papers 129, Dec. 2003] This research is constantly updated, in collaboration with F. Southworth and D. Stampe, by the SARVA project
including its South Asian substrate dictionary.
Comparative mythology
In recent years, he has explored the links between old Indian, Eurasian and other mythologies (1990,
[Michael Witzel, Kumano.kara Woruga.made ("From Kumano to the Volga"), Zinbun 36, Kyoto 1990, pp. 4-5, in Japanese, accessed September 21, 2007.] 2001–2010)
[Comparison and Reconstruction : Language and Mythology. Mother Tongue VI 2001, 45-62 [21]][Vala and Iwato. The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan and beyond. EJVS 12-1, (March 1, 2005), 1-69
[22]
[23]][Out of Africa: the Journey of the Oldest Tales of Humankind. In: Generalized Science of Humanity Series, Vol. I. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa 2006: 21-65 [24]][Slaying the dragon across Eurasia. In: Bengtson, John D. (ed.) In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory. Essays in the four fields of anthropology. In honor of Harold Crane Fleming. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamin's Publishing Company 2008: 263-286][Chuo Ajia Shinwa to Nihon Shinwa Central, Annual Report of the Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University. Heisei 21, (Sept. 2009), 85-96][Releasing the Sun at Midwinter and Slaying the Dragon at Midsummer: A Laurasian Myth Complex. In: Cosmos. The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society, 23, 2007 2009, 203-244][3. Pan-Gaean Flood Myths: Gondwana myths – and beyond. In: New Perspectives on Myth. Proceedings of the Second Annual Conference of the International Association for Comparative Mythology, Ravenstein (The Netherlands) August 19–21, 2008, ed. W. J.M. van Binsbergen and Eric Venbrux. PIP-TraCS No.
5, Haarlem 2010: 225-242][. Shamanism in Northern and Southern Asia: Their distinctive methods of change of consciousness. Social Sciences Information/Information sur les sciences sociales 50 (1) March 2011 (Paris): 2011: 39-61, cf.: [25]] resulting in a new scheme of historical comparative mythology
that covers most of Eurasia and the Americas ("Laurasia", cf. the related Harvard, Kyoto, Beijing, Edinburgh, Ravenstein (Netherlands), Tokyo, Strasbourg, St.Petersburg, Tübingen, Yerevan conferences of IACM).
This approach has been pursued in a number of papers.
[Vala and Iwato. The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan and beyond EJVS 12-1, (March 1, 2005), 1-69][Creation myths. In: T. Osada (ed.), Proceedings of the Pre-Symposium of RHIN and 7th ESCA Harvard-Kyoto Round Table. Published by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RHIN), Kyoto, Japan 2006: 284-318][Out of Africa: the Journey of the Oldest Tales of Humankind. In: Generalized Science of Humanity Series, Vol. I. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa 2006: 21-65][Myths and Consequences. Review of Stefan Arvidsson, Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. (Chicago University Press 2006). Science, vol. 317, September 28, 2007, 1868-1869 (Manuscript Number: 1141619). sciencemag.org] A book published in late 2012,
The Origins of the World's Mythologies,
[The Origins of the World's Mythologies. Oxford University Press] deals with the newly proposed method of historical comparative mythology at length;
(for scholarly criticism see
and for periodic updates see
) It has been called a
magnum opus, which should be taken seriously by social anthropologists,
and was praised by professor of Sanskrit Frederick Smith, who wrote that
Bruce Lincoln concluded that Witzel in this publication theorizes "in terms of deep prehistory, waves of migration, patterns of diffusion, and contrasts between the styles of thought/narration he associates with two huge aggregates of the world's population which strikes me as ill-founded, ill-conceived, unconvincing, and deeply disturbing in its implications."
Criticism of "Indigenous Aryans"
Witzel published
[ Michael Witzel publications list Harvard University website] articles criticizing what he calls "spurious interpretations" of Vedic texts
[ people.fas.harvard.edu, Autochthonous Aryans] and decipherments of Indus inscriptions such as that of N.S. Rajaram.
[ flonnet.com , pdf flonnet.com ][Rama's Realm: Indocentric Rewritings of Early South Asian Archaeology and History. In: Archaeological Fantasies. How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public, ed. by G. G. Fagan.London/New York: Routledge 2006:203-232 -- Discussion by Colin Renfrew][Indocentrism: Autochthonous visions of ancient India. In: The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history / edited by Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton. London & New York : Routledge, 2005: 341-404]
Indus script
Witzel has questioned the linguistic nature of the so-called
Indus script (Farmer, Sproat, Witzel 2004).
[ safarmer.com (PDF), sciencemag.org] Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel presented a number of arguments in support of their thesis that the Indus script is non-linguistic, principal among them being the extreme brevity of the inscriptions, the existence of too many rare signs increasing over the 700-year period of the Mature Harappan civilization, and the lack of random-looking sign repetition typical for representations of actual spoken language (whether syllable-based or letter-based), as seen, for example, in Egyptian cartouches.
Earlier, he had suggested that a substrate related to, but not identical with, the Austro-Asiatic Munda languages, which he, therefore, calls para-Munda, might have been the language of (part of) the Indus population.[page 9 of the pdf ccat.sas.upenn.edu][Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts. EJVS, May 2001]
Asko Parpola, reviewing the Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel thesis in 2005, states that their arguments "can be easily controverted".[(Parpola,] He cites the presence of a large number of rare signs in Chinese and emphasizes that there is "little reason for sign repetition in short seal texts written in an early logo-syllabic script". Revisiting the question in a 2007 lecture,[Asko Parpola (2008). "Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system?" In: Airāvati (pp. 111-131). Chennai: Varalaaru.com] Parpola takes on each of the 10 main arguments of Farmer et al., presenting counterarguments. He states that "even short noun phrases and incomplete sentences qualify as full writing if the script uses the rebus principle to phonetize some of its signs". All these points are rejected in a lengthy paper by Richard Sproat, "Corpora and Statistical Analysis of Non-Linguistic Symbol Systems" (2012).[ ]
Shorter papers
Shorter papers provide analyses of important religious (2004) and literary concepts of the period,
[S. W. Jamison and M. Witzel, Vedic Hinduism, written in 1992/95, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007; according to his list of publications a shorter version appeared in The Study of Hinduism, ed. A. Sharma (University of South Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 65-113.] and its Central Asian antecedents
[The Rgvedic Religious System and its Central Asian and Hindukush Antecedents In: A. Griffiths & J.E.M. Houben (eds.). The Vedas: Texts, Language and Ritual. Groningen: Forsten 2004: 581-636 forsten.nl] as well as such as the oldest frame story (1986, 1987),
Prosimetrum texts (1997), the Mahabharata (2005), the concept of rebirth (1984), the 'line of progeny' (2000), splitting one's head in discussion (1987), the holy cow (1991),
the Milky Way (1984),
[Michael Witzel, Sur le chemin du ciel, Bulletin des Etudes indiennes 2 (1984): 213-279, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] the asterism of the Seven Rsis (1995,
[Michael Witzel, Looking for the Heavenly Casket , Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 1-2 (1999), accessed September 13, 2007.] 1999), the sage Yajnavalkya (2003), supposed female Rishis in the Veda (2009,)
[Female Rishis and Philosophers in the Veda? Journal of South Asia Women Studies, Vol. 11 no. 1, 2009 asiatica.org ] the persistence of some Vedic beliefs,
[Michael Witzel, On Magical Thought in the Veda, inaugural lecture, Leiden, Universitaire Pers, 1979, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.][Steve Farmer, John B. Henderson, and Michael Witzel, Neurobiology, Layered Texts, and Correlative Cosmologies: A Cross-Cultural Framework for Premodern History, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 72 (2000): 48-90, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.] in modern Hinduism (1989
[ web.clas.ufl.edu (page not available as of September 13, 2007)] 2002, with cultural historian Steve Farmer and John B. Henderson), as well as some modern Indocentric tendencies (2001-).
[Michael Witzel, Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts, Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 7-3 (2001): 1-115, pdf, accessed September 13, 2007.][Michael Witzel, "Westward Ho! The Incredible Wanderlust of the Rigveda Exposed by S. Talageri. A Review of: Shrikant G. Talageri, The Rgveda. A historical analysis," Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 7-2 (2001), in three parts, part 1 , part 2 , and part 3 all accessed September 13, 2007; Aryomke (not English), accessed September 13, 2007.]
Other work (1976-) deals with the traditions of medieval and modern India and Nepal,
[Das Alte Indien History. München: C.H. Beck C.H. 2003, revised reprint 2010][Moving Targets? Texts, language, archaeology, and history in the Late Vedic and early Buddhist periods. Indo-Iranian Journal 52, 2009, 287-310]
[Brahmanical Reactions to Foreign Influences and to Social and Religious Change. In: Olivelle, P. (ed.) Between the Empires. Society in India between 300 BCE and 400 CE. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006: 457-499][Michael Witzel, On the History and the Present State of Vedic Tradition in Nepal, Vasudha vol. XV, no. 12, Kathmandu 1976, pp. 17-24, 35-39, pdf, accessed September 21, 2007.] including its linguistic history,[Michael Witzel, Nepalese Hydronomy: Towards a History of Settlement in the Himalayas, in Proceedings of the Franco-German Conference at Arc-et-Senans, June 1990, Paris 1993, pp. 217-266, pdf, accessed September 21, 2007] Brahmins,[Kashmri Brahmins. In: The Valley of Kashmir. The making and unmaking of a composite culture? Edited by Aparna Rao, with a foreword and introductory essay by T.N.Madan. New Delhi: Manohar 2008: 37-93] rituals, and kingship (1987) and present day culture,[Michael Witzel, The Home of the Aryans, Anusantatyi: Festschrift fuer Johanna Narten zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. A. Hinze and E. Tichy (Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, Beihefte NF 19) Dettelbach: J. H. Roell 2000, 283-338, pdf, accessed September 21, 2007.]
Conferences
Witzel has organized a number of international conferences at Harvard such as the first of the intermittent International Vedic Workshops (1989,1999,2004; 2011 at Bucharest, 2014 at Kozhikode, Kerala), the first of several annual International Conferences on Dowry and Bride-Burning in India (1995 sqq.), the yearly Round Tables on the Ethnogenesis of South and Central Asia (1999 sqq)
and, since 2005, conferences on comparative mythology (Kyoto, Beijing, Edinburgh, Ravenstein (Netherlands), Tokyo, Harvard, Tokyo).
[ iacm.bravehost.com Index page Second Annual Conference International Association for Comparative Mythology (Ravenstein, Netherlands, August 19–21, 2008)] as well as at Strasbourg, St.Petersburg, Tübingen and Yerevan.
At the Beijing conference he founded the International Association for Comparative Mythology.
California textbook controversy over Hindu history
In 2005, Witzel engaged other academics and activist groups to oppose changes to California state school history textbooks proposed by US-based
Hindu groups, mainly "the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)-linked organisations"
The Vedic Foundation and
Hindu Education Foundation (HEF).
Witzel and his allies argued that the changes were not of a scholarly but of a religious-political nature, reflecting a limited view on Hinduism which excludes non-Vaishna traditions. Parents supportive of the changes said they wanted a "fair representation of their culture," explaining that "the current textbooks make their children ashamed."
Witzel was appointed to an expert panel set up to review the changes, which was opposed by the HEF and the VF, claiming "that Witzel knew little about Hinduism and ancient Indian history," and accusing him of "leftist leanings" and being biased against Hinduism, allegations he rejects. While the expert panel rejected most of the changes, the CBE nevertheless accepted most of them, under pressure of Hindu-organisations. After further protest by scholars of South Asia, the CBE eventually rejected most of the changes proposed by the HEF and VF.
See also
Notes
Sources
External links
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> 'I am not a Hindu hater'. An interview with Michael Witzel. Archived from the original.
