Robert J. Zydenbos

Robert J. Zydenbos
Born	1957 (age 67–68)

Robert J. Zydenbos (born 1957)[1] is a Dutch-Canadian scholar who has doctorate degrees in Indian philosophy and Dravidian studies. He also has a doctorate of literature from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Zydenbos also studied Indian religions and languages at the South Asia Institute and at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He taught Sanskrit at the University of Heidelberg and later taught Jain philosophy at the University of Madras in India. Zydenbos later taught Sanskrit, Buddhism, and South Asian religions at the University of Toronto in Canada. He was the first western scholar to write a doctoral thesis on contemporary Kannada fiction.

Zydenbos is a strong opponent to some writers, like Koenraad Elst or N. S. Rajaram, who reject the scholarly consensus that the ultimate historical origin of the Indo-Aryan languages is outside India. Zydenbos characterizes such views, which are fringe positions outside India, as driven by the far-right political agenda of Hindutva ideology.

Zydenbos has written the first comprehensive Western history of Kannada literature and translated Kannada literature into both German and English. He also translated Dvaita, Virasaiva, and Jain writings from Sanskrit.

Zydenbos was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada,[1] and has lived in Mysore, India for 17 years.^[citation needed]

Books

• Mokṣa in Jainism, according to Umāsvāti (Steiner, 1983)[2]
• The Calf Became an Orphan: A Study in Contemporary Kannada Fiction (Institut Français de Pondichéry, 1996)[3]
• Jainism Today and Its Future (Manya, 2006)[4]

References

1. Curriculum Vitae
2. Reviews of Mokṣa in Jainism:
   • Gombrich, Richard (April 1985), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 117 (2): 213–214, doi:10.1017/s0035869x00138663, S2CID 162860294
   • Olivelle, Patrick (October 1985), Journal of the American Oriental Society, 105 (4): 804, doi:10.2307/602800, JSTOR 602800
   • Mette, Adelheid (1985), Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 135 (2): 436, JSTOR 43377372
   • Mehta, Mohan Lal (1985), Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 66 (1/4): 317–318, JSTOR 41693637
   • Gelblum, Tuvla (February 1986), Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 49 (1): 229, doi:10.1017/s0041977x00042828, S2CID 178055139
3. Reviews of The Calf Became an Orphan:
   • Rao, B. Damodar (April–June 2000), Journal of the American Oriental Society, 120 (2): 296–297, doi:10.2307/605067, JSTOR 605067, S2CID 161576447
   • Meisig, Konrad (2006), Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 156 (2): 518, JSTOR 10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.156.2.0518
4. Review of Jainism Today and Its Future:
   • Kono, Tomoyuki (2007), "Review" (PDF), Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism: Sambhāṣā, 26: 176–178

External links

• Robert Zydenbos (Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich) Archived 28 March 2006 at the Wayback Machine
• Journal of the American Oriental Society Archived 5 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine