This article discusses the nineteenth-century debate between German and British Indologists on ancient Indian commentators, shedding light on how Italian Indologists received and responded to this discussion. It reveals why Italian scholars, although trained under the most eminent German philologists, often disagreed on the status of native commentaries, sometimes viewing them as an unreliable guide to interpreting the Vedas and other texts. Moreover, Italian criticisms of the German approach to ancient Indian texts reflected differences in the ideological concerns underpinning the hegemonic discourses between Europe and India. Because of both transnational reception and nation-building concerns, the history of Italian Indological studies represents a unique perspective in the context of European approaches to the subcontinent.
Ernesto De Martino’s theorization and the considerations on the ‘crisis of presence’ represent a milestone in the field of Religious Studies. The crisis reveals itself in the daily events of the human being, such as death. Starting from the methodological frames provided by de Martino’s studies on the lament in ancient world, and the recent attention dedicated to the bodies, this article will analyse one of the most famous episode of kāvya literature as translated by nineteenth-century Italian Indologist Giuseppe Turrini: King Aja’s lament (vilāpa) upon his wife Indumatī, and particularly the stanza of Raghuvaṃa 8.43. The Italian translation reveals some element related to the Western opposition between body and soul, which challenge the original attention paid by Kālidāsa and the ancient Greek literature to the physiological effects produced by suffering.
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