PRASASTI

This volume comprises a collection of articles in honor of Professor Nalini Balbir, who turns seventy in 2025. The thirty-one contributions in English, French and German paint a portrait of Balbir. Some are authored by colleagues and friends with whom she worked throughout her academic career, others by junior and senior scholars who were her students, or who collaborated with her on research projects. The main topics that have occupied Balbir at the different stages of her career are represented, including Sanskrit, Middle Indic and Pali philology, Jainism, the history of Indian studies, manuscript studies and contemporary Indian literature. These contributions are preceded by a comprehensive bibliography of Balbir’s work. Her scholarship has many facets, covering nearly the whole of Indology, and involving fieldwork in India, research in libraries, archives and museums in many countries, as well as participation in international conferences. The introduction to the volume retraces the brilliant academic career of the honorand, who obtained a position as Professor of Indology in 1988 at the University Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, where she taught until her retirement in 2022. In 2000, she was also appointed as Professor of Middle Indic Philology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Section des Sciences historiques et philologiques. The transmission of knowledge and expertise was one of her major longstanding commitments. The ample Tabula Gratulatoria and the list of her awards testify to Balbir’s international renown as scholar, teacher and mentor. This publication has been made possible through grants obtained from several institutions, which are gratefully acknowledged: the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris Sciences et Lettres), the GREI research team in Indian studies in Paris (Groupe de Recherches en Études Indiennes, EA 2021, EPHE and University Sorbonne Nouvelle), and the Institute of Jainology in London.