By Bernama,
Jerusalem : India will help a group of Israeli researchers to carry out a project on the country’s civilisation, a top official has said.
Under the initiative ‘Scholar Invested Programme’, India will aid the students to carry out field work for a period of three to 12 months, India’s Ambassador Arun Kumar Singh was quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) as saying during a function here.
The project will help improve people to people ties between the countries, he noted during the release of a book ‘Karmic Passages: Israeli scholarship on India’. The embassy also plans to sign an MoU with Tel Aviv University on introducing an Indian rotating chair, Arun Kumar said.
The envoy noted that more universities in Israel have started teaching India-based subjects. “An introductory course on Indian philosophy has emerged as the largest class in Humanities at Tel Aviv University, with students learning ‘Sankara’, ‘Nagarjuna’ and ‘Vasubandhu’,” he said.
The book, edited by eminent Indologist David Shulman, deals with the classical Indian philological tradition, widespread interest in Buddhism and various manifestations of the ‘Indian’ impact in Israel. “Israel should become a vibrant centre for Indian Studies. Its unique geographical and cultural position has helped the emergence of a certain creative openness to India,” Shulman said.
Paying tributes to several Jewish scholars who were attracted to the Indian civilisation, the Indologist said, “same tradition of curiosity is still alive in Israel today and is seriously represented in the universities here.”