History
The Institute of Indian Studies of the University of Groningen was founded in 1953 by Professor Dr Jacob Ensink (1921-2005), who has succeeded Johanna E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw as lecturer of Sanskrit in 1951. The Institute of Indian Studies was devoted to the study of Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature. Earlier, Sanskrit had been housed in one of the chairs in the Faculty of Arts.
The first to teach Sanskrit in Groningen was Barend Sijmons (1881), professor of comparative linguistics and Germanic languages. From 1889 to 1903 Sanskrit was taught by Jacob Samuel Speyer, professor of Latin. During his Groningen professorship Speyer published his translation of the Jatakamala and his famusVedic und Sanskrit Syntax in the Grundiss der Indo-Aryan Philology .
In 1996 the J. Gonda Foundation of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) endowed the then named Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen with a chair for The History of Hinduism in the Sanskrit Tradition and Indian Philosophy . The chair was held by Dr. Hans T. Bakker until 2013. From 2013 to 2020, building on the successful work of the Institute of Indian Studies, the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies hosted the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture in Asia under the direction on Dr. Stefania Travagnin.
Per 1 September 2020, Elena Mucciarelli is being appointed as Gonda university lecturer at the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society at the University of Groningen.
| Last modified: | 27 June 2023 11.20 a.m. |