[Buddha-l] Sanskrit's end at Cambridge

[jkirk]

So far, it's the place of Sanskrit in the undergraduate Oriental Studies 
Tripos that is affected, but the Sanskrit scholars at Cambridge think more 
cuts are on the way (if someone doesn't jump in with some endowed chairs). 
This discussion of the university's status in the scholarship of a major 
liturgical language of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism covers the issue 
pretty well.
Joanna
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From
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2161235.cms
===============================

Cambridge closes door on Sanskrit, Hindi

Rashmee Roshan Lall

LONDON: Cambridge has finally closed the door on Sanskrit as a hallowed
subject of undergraduate study, nearly one-and-a-half centuries after it
first established a chair in the 3,000-year-old language. The Times of
India sought ? and received - confirmation of the university's decision
within hours of Cambridge honouring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
with a doctor of law degree, in what some scholars believe to be the most
cynical form of "tactless academic marketing".

On Thursday, Dr Gordon Johnson, Director of the Centre for South Asian
Studies at the University of Cambridge confirmed that "Sanskrit and
Hindi will no longer be offered to undergraduates within the Oriental
Studies Tripos". But Johnson insisted that "South Asian Studies are
thriving at the University of Cambridge and an agreed plan for their
expansion is underway. Students continue to study specialist papers with
a South Asian content in History, Geography, Economics, Social and
Political Sciences, Social Anthropology, Divinity and Archaeology ".

Even so, Dr John Smith, reader in Sanskrit at Cambridge, told TOI that
it is "not a trivial decision...this is a decision about letting the
subject wither on the vine. It is an administrative decision but should
actually have been an academic one".....[more in article]