Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist, comparative mythologist and Indologist. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50–100). He has researched a number of Indian sacred texts, particularly the Vedas.
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👉 Michael Witzel in the context of Comparative mythology
Comparative mythology studies myths from multiple cultures to identify recurring structures, symbols, and functions. Scholars use cross-cultural parallels to trace the development of religions and societies, to reconstruct ancestral narratives, and to evaluate psychological interpretations of myth. Comparative catalogs map recurring motifs such as world-egg cosmogonies, flood cataclysms, dying-and-reborn deities, and creative sacrifice narratives across disparate regional traditions.
The field expanded during eighteenth and nineteenth century comparativism, though twentieth century researchers increasingly favored particularist critiques of sweeping generalizations, while contemporary work blends linguistic, historical, and structural approaches, including E. J. Michael Witzel's efforts to model successive layers of global mythic traditions.
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: Michael Witzel
- 👉 Michael Witzel in the context of Comparative mythology
- Michael Witzel in the context of Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit
- Michael Witzel in the context of Saraswati River
- Michael Witzel in the context of Wales Professor of Sanskrit
- Michael Witzel in the context of Harvard Oriental Series
Michael Witzel in the context of Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit has a number of linguistic features which are alien to most other Indo-European languages. Prominent examples include: phonologically, the introduction of retroflexes, which alternate with dentals, and morphologically, the formation of gerunds. Some philologists attribute such features, as well as the presence of non-Indo-European vocabulary, to a local substratum of languages encountered by Indo-Aryan peoples in Central Asia (Bactria-Marghiana) and within the Indian subcontinent during Indo-Aryan migrations, including the Dravidian languages.
Scholars have claimed to identify a substantial body of loanwords in the earliest Indian texts, including evidence of Non-Indo-Aryan elements (such as -s- following -u- in Rigvedic busa). While some postulated loanwords are from Dravidian, and other forms are traceable to Munda or Proto-Burushaski, the bulk have no proven basis in any of the known families, suggesting a source in one or more lost languages. The discovery that some words taken to be loans from one of these lost sources had also been preserved in the earliest Old Avestan texts, and also in Tocharian, convinced Michael Witzel and Alexander Lubotsky that the source lay in Central Asia and could be associated with the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). Another lost language is that of the Indus Valley civilization, which Witzel initially labelled Para-Munda, but later the Kubhā-Vipāś substrate.
Michael Witzel in the context of Saraswati River
The Saraswati River (IAST: Sárasvatī-nadī́) is a deified mythological river, first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Vedic religion, appearing in all but the fourth book of the Rigveda.
As a physical river, in the oldest texts of the Rigveda it is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India," but in the middle and late Rigvedic books, it is described as a small river ending in "a terminal lake (samudra)." As the goddess Saraswati, the other referent for the term "Saraswati" which developed into an independent identity in post-Vedic times, the river is also described as a powerful river and mighty flood. The Saraswati is also considered by Hindus to exist in a metaphysical form, in which it formed a confluence with the sacred rivers Ganga and Yamuna, at the Triveni Sangam. According to Michael Witzel, superimposed on the Vedic Saraswati river is the "heavenly river": the Milky Way, which is seen as "a road to immortality and heavenly after-life."
Michael Witzel in the context of Wales Professor of Sanskrit
The position of Wales Professorship of Sanskrit in Harvard University is the first endowed chair for Sanskrit studies established in the United States.
Henry Ware Wales (1818–1856; Harvard, 1838) by a will dated April 24, 1849, provided for the endowment of the Professorship. The chair was established on January 26, 1903 with Charles Rockwell Lanman elected as the inaugural holder of the chair on March 23, 1903. Michael Witzel was appointed in 1987 and is the fourth and current Wales professor.
Michael Witzel in the context of Harvard Oriental Series
The Harvard Oriental Series is a book series founded in 1891 by Charles Rockwell Lanman and Henry Clarke Warren. Lanman served as its inaugural editor (1891–1934) for the first 37 volumes. Other editors of the series include Walter Eugene Clark (1934–1950, volumes 38–44), Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls (1950–1983, volumes 45–48) and Gary Tubb (1983–1990, volume 49).
Currently in its 93rd volume, the series is edited by Michael Witzel, the Wales Professor of Sanskrit in the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Harvard University, and distributed by the Harvard University Press. A subseries, Harvard Oriental Series Opera Minora, "aims at the swift publication of important materials that cannot be included in the mainly text-oriented Harvard Oriental Series."