Organized by CSIL
The two-day Roundtable hosted by the Centre for the Study of Indian Languages (CSIL) brought together scholars from diverse disciplines to explore how concepts and predicates embedded in Indian traditions can be recovered, analysed, and made available for contemporary inquiry.
Day 1 opened with Prof. Ashwin Kumar outlining CSIL’s research vision and its interdisciplinary approach spanning language, logic, and cultural studies. Honorary Professor B. Narahari Rao followed with a reflective session on treating cultures as learnables, stressing the need to reconstruct concepts from Indian texts rather than relying solely on modern interpretive frames. Adding an anthropological lens, Prof. Nagaraj Paturi emphasised the importance of fieldwork in grounding conceptual investigations.
The afternoon featured intersections between psychology, linguistics, and aesthetic studies. Prof. R.K. Mishra (University of Hyderabad) urged the Centre to explore the historicity of concepts and the mental structures of Indian cultures through both textual and empirical methods. Dr. Shankar Rajaraman illustrated how close reading of classical literature can illuminate categories such as bhāva. The day concluded with technical presentations on corpus linguistics by Prof. Niladri Shekar Dash, followed by Sri B.S. Suryaprakash, who examined the evolution and relative stability of legal concepts.
Day 2 shifted toward humanities-led reflections on concept loss and recovery. Dr. Vivek Dhareshwar highlighted the gap between lived experience and current theoretical explanations of Indian culture, recommending engagement with Kurkoti’s work on pratyabhijñā. Dr. Shashikala Srinivasan mapped research gaps within Bhakti traditions, especially in practitioner perspectives.
A major vertical on Archiving and Digital Technologies featured insights from Prof. Yoganandha C.S. and Sri C.V. Venkatesh on national digitisation practices, prompting discussions on metadata, volunteer mobilisation, and the need for coordinated archival vision. Sessions by Sri Tanveer Hasan clarified distinctions between archiving and corpus creation and stressed the importance of community participation.
In his concluding remarks, Prof. K.S. Kannan synthesised the discussions within CSIL’s long-term intellectual agenda. The Roundtable closed with a collaborative exchange that opened fresh research pathways and strengthened the Centre’s evolving scholarly network.
