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{{Short description|Indian philosopher}}
'''Vishwa Adluri''' is a scholar of Western and Indian philosophy, a professor at [[Hunter College]] of [[City College of New York]]<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |date=2024-07-31 |title=Faculty |url=https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/artsci/philosophy/faculty/ |access-date= |website=Hunter College |language=en}}</ref> and a faculty member at the [[Hindu University of America]]. He is known for his work on ancient Indian and Greek philosophy and the modern reception of ancient philosophy.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Vishwa Adluri – Indian Knowledge Systems |url=https://iks.iitgn.ac.in/vishwa-adluri-2021/ |access-date= |language=en-US}}</ref> He is also noted for his critiques of the Western tradition of [[Indology]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite interview |last=Vishwa |first=Adluri |interviewer=Rahul Pandita |title=Open conversation with Vishwa Adluri, Indologist and philosopher |url=https://openthemagazine.com/columns/open-conversation/vishwa-adluri-we-have-become-so-used-to-hindu-self-effacement-that-we-now-view-hindus-as-being-assertive/ |date=26 July 2017}}</ref>

== Education ==
Adluri holds a PhD in philosophy from the [[The New School for Social Research|New School for Social Research]], a PhD in Indology from the [[Marburg University]], and a PhD in [[Sanskrit]] from [[Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute|Deccan College]].<ref name=":3" />

Adluri studied personally under [[Reiner Schürmann]], and credits him as a major influence on his work.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Remembering Reiner Schurmann – ELLOPOS |url=https://www.ellopos.com/blog/254/remembering-reiner-schurmann/ |access-date= |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Scholarship ==
=== Greek philosophy ===
Adluri approaches ancient Greek philosophy, especially [[Parmenides]] and [[Plato]], as a meditation on mortal existence rather than on timeless metaphysics. In his book ''Parmenides, Plato and Mortal Philosophy: Return from Transcendence,'' he draws on [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]], [[Reiner Schürmann|Schürmann]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]], [[Hannah Arendt|Arendt]] and related twentieth-century critiques of metaphysical abstraction to read Parmenides' poetry as a reflection on the mortal ''[[thumos]]'', bound to birth and death, as it aspires to transcendence but ultimately must return to finite, “radically individual” existence. Adluri argues that Socratic mortality and singularity overshadow purely metaphysical interpretations of the soul's ascent, challenging [[Deconstruction|Derridean deconstruction]] and emphasizing the embodied, finite human at the center of Greek thought.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Review of: Parmenides, Plato, and Mortal Philosophy: Return from Transcendence. Continuum studies in ancient philosophy|url=https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012.02.43/|journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review|issn=1055-7660}}</ref>

=== Indology ===
Much of Adluri's work has focused on textual criticism of the ''[[Mahabharata|Mahābhārata]],'' arguing for a reading of the text that focuses on its literary, philosophical, and spiritual integrity as opposed to [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] approaches that view it primarily as a disjointed or incomplete historical record.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-08-08 |title=Mahabharata & Modern Scholarship: An Interview With Dr. Vishwa Adluri |url=https://www.indiafacts.org.in/mahabharata-modern-scholarship-an-interview-with-dr-vishwa-adluri/ |access-date= |website=Indiafacts |language=en-US}}</ref> He argues that German scholarship in particular takes a Eurocentric approach to evaluating ancient Indian texts. He brings evidence for latent Protestant biases in Western scholarship, arguing that much of this work fails to understand the nature of Indian knowledge systems. Adluri argues that the apparent scientific objectivity of much modern scholarship on ancient Indian texts veils structural biases.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Aronstein |first=Adam-Jason |date=2017-08-07 |title=Against Occidentalism: A Conversation with Alice Crary and Vishwa Adluri on “The Nay Science” |url=http://socialresearchmatters.org/against-occidentalism-a-conversation-with-alice-crary-and-vishwa-adluri-on-the-nay-science-2/ |access-date= |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Reception ===
Adluri's criticism of what he calls "German Indology" has elicited mixed responses. The supervisory committee for his PhD thesis at the University of Marburg initially did not approve his dissertation defense, which was highly critical of the German tradition of Indology and linked it to [[Nazism]]. After protest by Adluri, the university reconstituted the committee without any German Indologists and he was conferred a PhD despite criticisms of the reconstitution by his supervisor, Michael Hahn.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Franco |first=Eli |date=2016-07-12 |title=The Nay Science. A History of German Indology, by Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee |journal=South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies |language=en |doi=10.1080/00856401.2016.1207281 |issn=0085-6401}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Hanneder |first=Jürgen |date=2011 |title=Pretence and Prejudice |url=http://crossasia-repository.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/4416/1/JH-A26-Pretence-and-Prejudice_cut.pdf |journal=Indologica Taurinensia |volume=37 |pages=123–137}}</ref>

In 2011, Hans Harder, Angelika Malinar and Thomas Oberlies, published an editorial for ''Zeitschrift für Indologie und Südasienstudien'' on combating "discrimination, racism and sexism", where they argued that Adluri engaged in polemics against multiple German scholars under the justification of probing the ideological orientations of their scholarship.<ref name=":2" /> [[:de:Jürgen Hanneder|Jürgen Hanneder]] mounted a detailed critique of Adluri's scholarship the same year.<ref name=":2" />

Adluri's work ''The Nay Science: A History of German Indology''<ref name=":1" /> was heavily critiqued by scholars such as Eli Franco, Jürgen Hanneder, and Bharani Kollipara.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kollipara |first=Bharani |date=July 2016 |title=Tradition and Discipline: How should one read ancient Indian texts? |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0026749X16000081/type/journal_article |journal=Modern Asian Studies |language=en |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=1327–1402 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X16000081 |issn=0026-749X |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Others, such [[Eric Kurlander]] and Nicholas A. Germana praised the book, with Garry W. Trompf praising it as an "extraordinary work".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Trompf |first=Garry W. |date=2016-01-26 |title=Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/684419 |journal=History of Religions |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=374–376 |doi=10.1086/684419 |issn=0018-2710 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kurlander |first=Eric |date=2015 |title=Review of Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43965184 |journal=Central European History |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=432–434 |issn=0008-9389}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Germana |first=Nicholas A. |date=June 2015 |title=Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee. The Nay Science: A History of German Indology. |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=120 |issue=3 |pages=1132–1133 |doi=10.1093/ahr/120.3.1132 |issn=1937-5239}}</ref>

== Selected works ==

* ''Initiation into the Mysteries: The experience of the irrational in Plato'', 2006, Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada.
* ''When the Goddess Was a Woman: Mahabharata Ethnographies.''
* ''Parmenides, Plato and Mortal Philosophy: Return from Transcendence,'' 2011, Continuum International.
* ''Reading the Fifth Veda: Studies on the Mahabharata'', 2011, Brill.
* ''Modernity and Plato: Two Paradigms of Rationality'', 2012, with Arbogast Schmitt, Camden House.
* ''Philosophy and Salvation in Greek Religion'', 2013, De Gruyter.
* ''The Nay Science: A History of German Indology,'' 2014, Oxford University Press.
* ''Argument and Design: The Unity of the Mahābhārata,'' 2016, Brill.
* ''Philology and Criticism: A Guide to Mahābhārata Textual Criticism'', 2018, Anthem Press.

== Awards and honors ==
Adluri received the [[Indian Council for Cultural Relations]] Distinguished Indologist award in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web |last=@theindpanorama |date=2022-07-01 |title=Dr. Vishwa P Adluri and Shri Rajiv Malhotra conferred the ICCR Distinguished Indologist Award |url=https://www.theindianpanorama.news/breaking-news/dr-vishwa-p-adluri-and-shri-rajiv-malhotra-conferred-the-iccr-distinguished-indologist-award/ |access-date= |website=The Indian Panorama |language=en-US}}</ref>

== References ==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Adluri, Vishwa}}
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Hunter College faculty]]
[[Category:Marburg University alumni]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:The New School alumni]]
[[Category:Indologists]]
[[Category:Philosophy academics]]

Vishwa Adluri - Revision history

AlbaTinker204: Done.