Michael Witzel

Wales Professor of Sanskrit

Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University

1 Bow Street, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

phones 617 - 496 2990 (direct line) ; 495 3295, 496 8570, fax 617 - 496 8571

email: witzel@fas.harvard.edu

Election to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2003,
see: http://www.amacad.org/members/2003alpha.htm

Education:

Born: 1943 at Schwiebus, Germany

University of Tuebingen (Germany), 1965-1967 (P.Thieme, H.-P. Schmidt): Indology, Indo-European, Japanology

University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, (Germany), 1967-1971 (K.Hoffmann, J.Narten, B.Forssman, G.Klingenschmitt) concentration: Indology, Indo-Iranian philology and linguistics; Indo-European linguistics, Japanology

M.A. 1971, Erlangen; Ph.D. 1972, Erlangen

Dissertation: Das Katha-Aranyaka, textkritische Edition mit Uebersetzung und Kommentar. Erlangen 1972; Advisor (Promotor): K. Hoffmann

Sanskrit Campus, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, 1972/1973: Mimamsa philosophy (teaching medium Sanskrit: Nayib Gurujyu Jununath Pandit)

Teaching positions held

1972 Assistant Professor of Indology, University of Tuebingen, Germany

1978-1980 Associate Professor of Sanskrit ("gewoon lector in het Sanskriet"), Instituut Kern, University of Leiden, The Netherlands

1981-1986 Professor of Sanskrit language and literature ("hoogleraar in het Sanskriet en zijn letterkunde") University of Leiden, The Netherlands

1986-1987 Visiting Professor of Sanskrit, Harvard University

1987- Harvard University, Wales Professor of Sanskrit

1997 Invitation to become Prof. of Indology and head of the Department for Indology and Iranian Studies,

Munich University, Germany; declined, as to stay at Harvard.

(For German Indology see: http://www.indologie.info/ )

Other Employment/Visiting Positions

1972-1977 Director of the "Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project", a joint venture of the Department of Archeology, (Ministry of Education, His Majesty's Government of Nepal) and the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Morgenlaendische Gesellschaft) and the German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn), at Kathmandu
continued by NGMCP, online catalogue

1974-1977 Director of the Nepal Research Centre of the German Oriental Society, Kathmandu

May 1989 College de France, Paris

Sept. 1989 - Aug.1990 Research Fellow, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University

January 2001 College de France, Paris

Sept. 2004 - Aug. 2005: Visiting Professor, Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), Tokyo,
SARVA Project

Professional services

1979-1981 Chairman, Department of South & Central Asian and Old- and Middle Iranian, University of Leiden

1982-1986 Chairman, Dutch Indological Association

1987-95 Chair, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University

1992-1996 Fouding Chair, Committee on South Asian Studies, Harvard University

1999- President, Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, Boston

Editorial work

1975- Founding editor (with four colleagues) of: Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik (Journal, and monograph series)

1979-1983, Joint Editor; 1983- Editor-in-chief (with J. W. de Jong,; -- since 1990, H.W. Bodewitz, O. von Hinueber, H. Bakker), Indo-Iranian Journal

1985- Editor (together with J.C. Heesterman): Memoirs of the Kern Institute, Leiden (No.3 sqq.)

1990- Editor, Harvard Oriental Series

1990 Ed. of: W. Caland, Kleine Schriften (= Glasenapp-Stiftung, Bd. 27, Wiesbaden 1990

1995- Founder and Editor-in-Chief of: Electronic Jounal for Vedic Studies (EJVS), relocated to: http://ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/

1995- Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, ed. Albrecht Wezler and Michael Witzel. Berlin/New York (de Gruyter). (Vol. 1: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. The
Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, ed. G. Erdosy)

1995- Managing Editor, International Journal of Tantric Studies (IJTS) http://www.asiatica.org/ijts

1997 Ed. of: F.B.J.Kuiper, Selected Writings on Indian Philology and Linguistics, New Delhi, 1997, pp. 556

1997 Ed. of. Inside the Texts - Beyond the Texts. Proceedings of the First International Vedic Workshop, June 1989, Harvard University, Cambridge (HOS-Opera Minora)

PUBLICATIONS

see: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwbib.htm