Methodological Approaches to Hindu-Christian Studies: Some Thoughts

I was surprised that any one would want me to be a respondent for a panel which was primarily concerned with methodological approaches to Hindu-Christian Studies, my interest being mainly philosophical Sanskrit texts. However as a Hindu and having lived in India for most of my adult life I was interested to learn more about the way academics deal with this issue, which really is one that is fraught with many complications. Harold Coward, who gave a retrospect of the Society at the beginning of the session, did indeed give me a glimpse of the topics and methodology followed in this discipline. Harold's contribution over so many years in the area of Hindu-Christian (H-C) studies needs to be acknowledged and, in a certain sense, as I said at the meeting itself, Harold can be compared to the grandfather figure of Bhisma (Bhisma-pitamaha) in the Mahabharata (MBH)