Thoughts on western sanskrit and dhArmic studies

Many of these thoughts are not original. I am merely compiling some observations and insights of people who know better.

Western ideas of scholarship in science and engineering works well for the most part. The benchmarks seem to be the ability to come up with creative new ideas and publish them in peer reviewed conference proceedings/journals. If the work is used and cited by many in the field, then it is considered to be good work. This model is not perfect, but things seem to be moving ahead. How does this work for humanities and liberal arts? What are the metrics for scholarship? I am especially interested in scholarship related to India because of all the noise made by Wendy and her children about Wendy's book. I had recorded my thoughts about why I considered her work to be dubious in this post:
http://anja-singam-marugupandi.blogspot.com/2014/02/i-did-not-anticipate-writing-about.html

More recently there is much hype about the Murty classical library and how it is going to translate many works of sanskrit and somehow help in preserving ancient Indian work. Sadly, this makes it sound as though important sanskrit works were somehow being rescued and translated for the first time. I've read or listened to at least five or six versions of rAmAyaNA, a similar number of versions of mahAbhAratA, two versions of srImad bhAgavatam, all in non-sanskrit form. sanskrit literature is obviously very vast, but the point that I am trying to make is that translation of sanskrit works is not what is needed to preserve these works. It has already been done and available across many libraries all over the world. Some of the more popular and spiritual works are preserved within our own lives which we will pass down to future generations. More and more people learning sanskrit and speaking it is what is needed. Therefore I find it very disconcerting when people who are essentially translators of sanskrit are labelled as scholars of sanskrit.

Measures of proficiency:

There are many analogies in other fields where the level of scholarship and familiarity needed to become a professional are way higher than the field of sanskrit studies in western universities. As far as I have seen, Sheldon Pollock, who is the person at the helm of Murty library, is not fluent at all in spoken sanskrit. His contribution to sanskrit literature in terms of his own compositions is shUnya (zero). How can such a person be a scholar of sanskrit, which places great emphasis on the ability to compose? The great art of avadhAnA tests the all round ability and proficiency of the contestant like no other contest that I am aware of. As a comparison, a carnAtic musician faithfully reproducing sangathIs would never be respected as a good artist since there is very high emphasis on impromptu composition. Someone who knows music or cooking can only be a music critic or food critic. So the inability to compose their own work makes Pollock, Doniger and the others in the translation business only sanskrit literary critics?

Another beautiful analogy comes from Maths, since it is also a language in some sense. If I am only able to take a theorem (Sanskrit poem), sit with a few textbooks (dictionaries) and tell you after a few days whether the theorem is correct or not (translate the poem), would I be considered a mathematician (sanskrit scholar)? This is unfortunately the definition of a Sanskrit scholar these days.

The case of Ingalls and devaluation of other methods of study:

Daniel Ingalls was a sanskrit professor who taught at Harvard. His academic progeny includes luminaries like Sheldon Pollock and Wendy Doniger. The curious case with this person is that he learnt sanskrit from shivrAm dattAtray jOshI and ended up advising jOshI for his Harvard PhD in sanskrit! This is the strangest student teacher relationship that I have come across. There are definitely cases when students are smarter than their teachers and end up accomplishing much more, but an American advising a sanskrit scholar for a PhD in sanskrit? In fact, joshi had to first do a BA since he only had "traditional training" in sanskrit. jOshI's sense of self worth should have been pitifully low for him to take this course instead of continuing his teaching at pUnA university. This episode goes to show how traditional methods of studying sanskrit are being systematically devalued.
As another analogy, this is similar to a westerner getting trained by someone as great as Semmangudi in Carnatic music, and inviting Semmangudi to Harvard to do a BA in music because he only has "traditional training". Because ragas are different from scales. Because gamakas do not even have notations on paper. Somehow western ideas on arts, music and society have got an upper hand. All the blame does not by any means lie on westerners. They are merely trying to understand India using the tools that they have. But we have completely forgotten and devalued our own tools, let alone sharpen them to analyze newer thoughts like marxism, feminism, etc. that have emanated from the west. These days veda pAthasAlAs do not even teach sanskrit to their students. Apart from a few centers, they only teach students memorization of vEdAs and unhealthy attitudes about other traditions. As a result we have all but lost our traditions of pUrvapakshA--the analysis of the "others" which Shankara from the advaitA school did on mimAmsakAs and baudhdhAs--which needs desperate revival. We have instead borrowed techniques and words like secularism, diversity, scientific temper, etc. from the west and lost out on our own ideas about these issues.

buddhA and baudhdhA studies:

Assume that a US university is starting a dhArmic studies department and is looking for a chair in Buddhist studies. I very much doubt if mahAtmA buddhA would even be able to get a tenure track position, let alone become the chair of Buddhist studies. The same thing goes for Advaita studies. Would any western university invite one of the shankarAchAryAs or ramaNa maharishi, who live and breathe the tradition, to teach them advaita in the "traditional" sense? But we can routinely see jesuits in the payrolls of divinity schools researching dhArmic traditions from Judeo-Christian viewpoints. I again come back to the earlier point of how dhArmic institutions have completely failed in analyzing other schools of thought. We had to wait till swAmi vivEkAnandA to get a clear, thoughtful and even scathing assessment of Abrahamic traditions. Waves and waves of invasions did not spur our institutions to analyze Abrahamic traditions. dhArmic thought probably got blunted by bhaktI. It remains blunt, subverted and totally incapable of understanding and producing counter narratives to any foreign idea, be it marxism, globalisation, capitalism, etc.

What to do:

स्वाध्यायान् मा प्रमथः |

Never waver from learning (sikshAvalli of taitrIya upanishad).

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Thoughts heavily borrowed from other people and discussions with seniors.