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Indian Studies at Oxford
Oxford has been host to the study of India since 1830 when the
Boden Chair of Sanskrit was created. Its first occupant was H. H.
Wilson, who published his Sanskrit-English Dictionary and laid the
foundation of the University's collection of Sanskrit manuscripts.
Friedrich Max Mueller, who came to Oxford as Professor of Comparative
Philology in 1848, laboured to produce his definitive Sacred Books
of the East series and helped to establish Sanskrit as a major classical
language. He spent 30 years of his life engaged in translation of
the full text of the Rig-Veda with Sayanacharya's fourteenth century
commentary. As the nineteenth century progressed, Indian studies
were dominated by the demands of government and Christian evangelism.
Sir Monier-Williams set up the Indian Institute at Oxford in 1883
- providing a training ground for the Indian Civil Service.
In 1936, H. N. Spalding endowed the Spalding Chair of Eastern Religions
and Ethics first occupied by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, later President
of India, who held the post until 1952.
 Indian
Independence in 1947 brought a chapter to a close at Oxford and
the Indian Institute's resources were dispersed. Its teaching faculties
moved to the new Oriental Institute, its art holdings went to form
the Ashmolean Museum's new Department of Eastern Art and its great
Sanskrit collections moved to the New Bodleian Library. With the
Indian Institute closed and its teaching posts dispersed the sense
of community amongst scholars and students of India was lost.
The formation of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies marked a return
to the original focus of Indian studies at Oxford, namely the religion
and culture of India, while at the same time inaugurating a new
phase in the study of contemporary Hinduism. The Centre benefits
from the University's unparalleled resources and its rich academic
tradition while at the same time introducing a new emphasis on the
contemporary role of Hinduism in a multi-cultural world.
Find out more about the OCHS
and its mission and aims.
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