Malati Shendge
{{Short description|Indian indologist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2018}}
{{Use Indian English|date=May 2018}}
Malati J. Shendge (1934–2015) was an Indologist. She received her Ph.D. in Buddhism from the University of Delhi.“CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE.” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 10, no. 2/3, 1967, pp. 237–238. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24650172. She had been a fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Research, and of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. She was a faculty member at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Founder Director (Hon.) of the Rang Datta Wadekar Centre for the study of Indian Tradition, Pune.{{Cite journal|last=Yellapragada|first=Sudershan Rao|date=January–March 2016|title=In Memoriam|url=http://ichr.ac.in/newsletter/newsletter_jan_2016.pdf|journal=Newsletter|publisher=Indian Council of Historical Research|volume=13|issue=1|pages=29}}
Theories
Shendge has written a number of books on the connections between the Indus Valley civilization and Vedic culture.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UCEoAwAAQBAJ&q=Malati+Shendge+indology&pg=PT152|title=The Vedas: An Introduction to Hinduism's Sacred Texts|last=Dalal|first=Roshen|date=2014-04-15|publisher=Penguin UK|isbn=9788184757637}} Her early work, The Civilized Demons, reinterprets the heavenly battle between the Asuras and the Devas described in the Rigveda as a historical record of an earthly war in the Indus Valley between the Asuras (identified by her as being the Assyrian people) already living in the valley as the Harappan Civilization, and the invading Devas (identified by her with the Aryans). Her 1997 book The Language of the Harappans extends this theory by claiming that the unknown Harappan language was the Akkadian language of Mesopotamia, and that Sanskrit is a descendant of Akkadian. In Unsealing the Indus Script (2009) she purports to decode the Indus script based on this theory.
Books
- (1977) The Civilized Demons: the Harappans in Rig VedaReviews of The Civilized Demons: {{citation|title=none|last=Wilhelm|first=Rau|journal=Indo-Iranian Journal|volume=21|issue=4|date=October 1979|pages=281–282|jstor=24653349}}; {{citation|title=none|last=Nilmadhav|first=Sen|journal=Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute|volume=65|issue=1/4|year=1984|pages=316–322|jstor=41693150}}
- (1989) Rigveda: The Original Meaning and its Recovery
- (1993) Indian Historiography and {{sic|nolink=y|reason=error in source|Ethnolingustic}} History
- (1996) The Aryas: Facts Without Fancy and Fiction. Abhinav. {{ISBN|9788170173182}}
- (1995) Songs and Ruins: Rigveda in Harappan Setting
- (1997) The Language of the Harappans: From Akkadian to Sanskrit. Abhinav. {{ISBN|81-7017-325-6}}{{cite news|accessdate=2019-10-10|newspaper=The Sunday Tribune|title=Was Akkadian the language of the Indus Valley civilisation?|first=Ajay Pratap|last=Singh|url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000820/spectrum/main7.htm|date=20 August 2000|department=Spectrum}}
- (2004) Sat-Sashastrika Hevajratika
- (2009) Unsealing the Indus Script: Anatomy of its Decipherment{{Cite journal|last=Coulmas|first=Florian|date=2010-01-01|title=Sealed for eternity? Review of 'Unsealing the Indus Script. Anatomy of its Decipherment' Malati J. Shendge.|journal=Writing Systems Research|volume=2|issue=2|pages=169–171|doi=10.1093/wsr/wsq007|s2cid=143507856|issn=1758-6801}}
- (2009) Buddhahood in this Body: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism (Shin-gon) in Context
References
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Category:Delhi University alumni
Category:Indian women scholars
Category:Women writers from Delhi
Category:20th-century Indian linguists
Category:20th-century Indian historians
Category:Indian women science writers
Category:Women educators from Delhi
Category:20th-century women writers
Category:Academic staff of Jawaharlal Nehru University