Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls Sr. (May 4, 1916 – July 17, 1999) was the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Early life and education

Ingalls was born in

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and raised in

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. He received his A.B. in 1936 at Harvard University, as a major in

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and

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. He also earned his A.M. in 1938 studying

symbolic logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

under

Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...

He was appointed a junior fellow in the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intellect ...

in 1939 after which he set off for

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

for the study of Navya-Nyāya logic with Kalipada Tarkacharya (1938–41). His fellowship was interrupted by the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

during which he served as an Army code breaker decoding Japanese radio messages for the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...

(1942–44). After the war, Ingalls returned to Harvard as Wales Professor of Sanskrit. He was particularly known for his translation and commentary in ''An Anthology of Sanskrit Court

Poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

'', which contains some 1,700 Sanskrit verses collected by a Buddhist abbot, Vidyākara, in

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

around AD 1050. Ingalls was a student of the Indian grammarian Shivram Dattatray Joshi, and the teacher of many famous students of Sanskrit, such as

Wendy Doniger Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (born November 20, 1940) is an American Indologist whose professional career has spanned five decades. A scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions, her major works include '' The Hindus: An Alternative History'' ...

, Diana Eck,

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (; born March 28, 1941, as Jeffrey Lloyd Masson) is an American author. Masson is best known for his conclusions about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. In his '' The Assault on Truth'' (1984), Masson argues that Freud ma ...

Bimal Krishna Matilal Bimal Krishna Matilal (1 June 1935 – 8 June 1991) was an eminent philosopher whose writings presented the Indian philosophical tradition as a comprehensive system of logic incorporating most issues addressed by themes in Western philosophy. ...

, Robert Thurman, Sheldon Pollock, Karl Harrington Potter, Phyllis Granoff,

Indira Viswanathan Peterson Indira Viswanathan Peterson is a literary critic and the ''David B. Truman Professor of Asian Studies'' at Mount Holyoke College. She is a specialist in South Asian Studies. Background Peterson was born and raised in Mumbai, India. She came t ...

David Pingree David Edwin Pingree (January 2, 1933 – November 11, 2005) was an American historian of mathematics in the ancient world. He was a University Professor and Professor of History of Mathematics and Classics at Brown University. Life Pingree gra ...

, and Gary Tubb. He was renowned for the rigor of his introductory Sanskrit course. He was the editor of the

Harvard Oriental Series The ''Harvard Oriental Series'' is a book series founded in 1891 by Charles Rockwell Lanman and Henry Clarke Warren. Lanman served as its inaugural editor (1891–1934) for the first 37 volumes. Other editors of the series include Walter Eugene ...

from 1950 to 1983. He was an elected member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

. Ingalls was the father of the computer scientist

Dan Ingalls Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls Jr. (born 1944) is a pioneer of object-oriented computer programming and the principal architect, designer and implementer of five generations of Smalltalk environments. He designed the bytecoded virtual machine that m ...

and the author Rachel Ingalls. He was also chairman of the department of Sanskrit and Indian studies and president of the American Oriental Society.

An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry

Volume 44 of the Harvard Oriental Series, 'An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry', is the acclaimed English translation by Ingalls of the Sanskrit text 'Subhasitaratnakosa' of Vidyakara. The book has a lengthy introduction by Ingalls containing an incisive analysis of the structure of the Sanskrit language, and also of Ingalls's perspective on Sanskrit literature in general, and Sanskrit poetry in particular. It also has a section titled 'On the Passing of Judgements' in which Ingalls criticizes some critics of Sanskrit poetry.

Criticism of nineteenth and twentieth century western Sanskritists

Ingalls writes that after the initial excitement at the discovery of Sanskrit literature, which produced the enthusiastic and positive reviews of British Sanskritists like Hastings and

Sir William Jones Sir William Jones (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794) was a British philologist, orientalist, Indologist and judge. Born in Westminster, London to Welsh mathematician William Jones, he moved to the Bengal Presidency where Jones served as ...

, there was a long period in which English writers subjected Sanskrit literature to the literary canons of their own land. By doing this their judgements were sometimes "monstrous" according to Ingalls. The Sanskritist Fitzedward Hall, writes Ingalls, being troubled by the sometimes erotic imagery in the poetry of the Sanskrit poet Subandhu, exclaimed that Subandhu "was no better, at the very best, than a specious savage" and A. A. Macdonell according to Ingalls found nothing to say of the great Sanskrit poets Bharavi and Magha except that they favored 'verbal tricks and metrical puzzles". The judgement of these scholars, explains Ingalls, was clouded with bias in as much as it was based on nineteenth century western morals and nineteenth century western notions of literature. "At no point was it enlightened by reference to the critical literature of Sanskrit itself", writes Ingalls. Ingalls then goes on to criticize the British scholar

Arthur Berriedale Keith Arthur Berriedale Keith, FBA (5 April 1879 – 6 October 1944) was a Scottish constitutional lawyer, scholar of Sanskrit and Indologist. He became Regius Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology and Lecturer on the Constitution of t ...

of whom Ingalls writes that although Keith was a great scholar of Vedic studies and modern Indian law, 'it is obvious from his works that for the most part he disliked Sanskrit literature' and that 'of Keith's reading, it seems to me, no word ever passed beyond his head to the heart'. Ingalls notes that when criticizing Sanskrit poets, Keith never applies the remarks of any Sanskrit critic to the work he is judging.

Notes and references

Notes References

Early life and education

An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry

Criticism of nineteenth and twentieth century western Sanskritists

Notes and references

Further reading