Re:PhD student solves 2,500-year-old Sanskrit problem
by svat on Thursday December 15, 2022 @09:39AM
(#34000135)
> “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.” — John Adams, 1780 (https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L178005...)
I think your "rise in wealth" answer is correct, but note that it is not just people being able to afford a career in the humanities: it's also people who studied STEM/whatever and now have jobs with a bit of free time to spend on reading, or a bit of wealth to donate to keep their culture alive.
I suspect the more likely answer is that we are about slightly more than a generation away from India’s fiscal opening in the 1990s which led to a tremendous rise in wealth, and it’s usually children of wealthier people who can afford to pay the opportunity costs of basing a career in the humanities as opposed to STEM or Finance related, so now there are more Indians who would take up the humanities.
And if you are taking up the humanities, it makes sense to research highly under-researched and yet extremely old areas of the culture your family is from, since it’s a wide open area with a lot of opportunities that you may have an edge in, having been raised in or adjacent to the culture.
In the languages space this would mean more research in Sanskrit and potentially other indigenous languages.