Indology and Tibetology at the University of Marburg

The discipline "Indology" is an academic occupation with the languages and cultures of the Indian subcontinent. On account of the ongoing continuity of Indian culture Indology encompasses a period from the early centuries of the common era to contemporary times.

The discipline "Indo-Tibetology" is an academic investigation into the literature of Indian Buddhism on the basis of Tibetan sources, the Tibetan reception of Indian-Buddhist cultural treasure, and also its further development within and outside Tibet up to present times. One of the focal points thereby is grasping the meaning of the extant works of both the rather voluminous canonical collections of Tibetan Buddhism (Kanjur and Tanjur), which entail by and large direct translations of Indian texts. Tibetan translations of Buddhist texts were prepared from around the seventh century of the common era and often present the only faithful rendering of their Indian texts which are no longer extant in the country of their origin.

Both the disciplines Indology and Indo-Tibetology thereby avail themselves not only of philological-historical methodology, but also that of cultural studies; one can therefore also call them cultural studies based on texts.

Within the framework of the BA programme "Historische Sprach-, Text- und Kulturwissenschaften" (HSTK), the "Main Area Indology and Tibetology" (Schwerpunkt Indologie und Tibetologie) may be chosen, where together with the general fundamentals and methods of an academic occupation with texts of different cultures, the specific linguistic, cultural and - together with the Department of Geography – regional areas of India and Tibet may also be studied. Another special feature of Indo-Tibetology in Marburg is that Tibetological studies are based on the fundamentals of Indological and Buddhological knowledge.

The various study programmes in Marburg offer a possibility, hardly found elsewhere, to occupy oneself with all the important languages of the Indological and Tibetological canon of languages on the basis of a philological methodology. The favourable ratio between the number of students and teachers guarantees an intensive personal supervision, something that has become totally impossible in mass departments.