Page:

The Orissa Project is an attempt to analyse the Jagannatha Cult, i.e. the temple city of Puri as an example of the formation and the present role of Hindu tradition in contemporary India. The multiplicity of aspects and implications of this tradition - historical, religious, philosophical, art-historical, ethnical, political, economical and social called for a broad research scheme, supported by different disciplines. Such as attempt is at least for Germany - quite new.       Indologists, especially German Indologists, have up to very recently primarily concentrated on ancient India. For all their important achievements they tended to neglect the developments of Hindu thoughts and religion of medieval and modern India. It may be mentioned in this connection, that the study of modern Indian languages which open the way to the regional traditions, was only very recently admitted as subsidiary subject in German Universities.       On the other hand Sociology, Ethnology, Economics and Political Science were hardly in touch with what was going on in the field of Indology, History of Religion, Art History etc. It was against this background of a wide gap between modern-oriented and merely historical studies that the Orissa Project was conceived. It is an attempt to overcome this unsatisfactory situation in research by starting a comprehensive research scheme where "modern" as well as "historical" disciplines should work together.       From the very beginning of such deliberations Orissa i.e. the temple cities of Bhubaneswar and Puri and their hinterland were chosen as an ideal region for that kind of study: the temple cities of Orissa are important centres of contemporary Hinduism, were Northern and Southern influences combined in a unique way. Nevertheless, the secluded position of Orissa at the rim of the Bay of Bengal, and the fact, that the resisted Islamic penetration until the 16th century A.D. enabled here to persist in a regional development. So the temple cities of Orissa are representatives of the regional formation of that tradition and the role which tribal religion, sanscritic "great tradition", sectarian development, political and economic history etc. played in it.       The present research scheme was developed in collaboration between the universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg and Indian Scholars to fit in the newly established "Sonderforschungsberaich 16". It was finally granted by the German Research Council in spring 1970. The work began in autumn of the same year when the first group started field work. The proejct is planned to go on for about four years, the final reports should start appearing in `974; in the meantime there will be a series of Data Papers. In order to enable a certain organic growth of the whole project the field work has been organised in different stages, so that only five persons are in the field at once. The first group mainly consisted of Indologists who started with the work of collecting, copying, analysing and translating Sanskrit and Oriya texts. This already enabled the second group, mainly social scientists, to partly rely on them.       The organisation in different stages is efficient from the technical side, the presence of only a few members in the field reduces the administrative work, which should not be underestimated in a project of that extension.

Page: