Indian Embassy in Türkiye holds event to mark first Indology Day

By Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) - The Indian Embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara held an event Friday to mark the first Indology Day.

The event was organized in association with Turkish Language Education Research and Application Center (TOMER) at Ankara University and was attended by the rector and senior leadership of the university as well as young students.

“This occasion is special because this is a step forward in relations between the Indian Embassy and Ankara University,” said Indian Ambassador to Ankara Virander Paul.

Paul underlined that there has been a long-standing relationship and cooperation between the embassy and the university.

“We have a tradition of working together in the promotion of Indian languages and, to some extent, Turkish language in India. We have also been working together in the translation of Indian into the Turkish language, as well as teaching and learning of the Hindi language and Sanskrit,” he said. “We have expanded the scope of joint work by enlarging the domain and describing our cooperation as ‘cooperation in Indology’ not just in languages.”

“By Indology what we mean is to know more and more about India and to know more and more about Türkiye in India so that there is a closer and deeper understanding between each other,” he said.

Underlining that ties between India and Türkiye is not new, Paul said it dates to when there was no present-day India or present-day Türkiye.

Paul underlined that contacts between the two civilizations, dating back centuries, have focused on the sentiments of “longtime friendship” and “mutual good.”

“Today we stand together as two diverse democracies as we are facing the contemporary challenges, but we have also some opportunities,” he said.

“Today’s important occasion provides an opportunity of being together to have more conversations on how we can work together to deepen and broaden the understanding between our countries,” he added.

The term Indology refers to the academic study of India, its people, culture, languages and literature. It is now more likely to be referred to as Indian or South Asian studies within Western academies.