Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center records, 1994-1998

The Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center was established at Columbia University in May 1994. Srichand P. Hinduja, chairman of the Hinduja Foundation, developed the concept of the Center, provided the funding, and named the Center for his late son, who studied at Columbia. The Center was dedicated to research on the Veda, the earliest religious texts in an Indo-European language, and the Vedanta, which offer a series of philosophical reflections on the self, society and the universe. The Center aimed to draw applications from this traditional body of knowledge to meet the needs and challenges of the current world. The Center offered post-doctoral fellowships; awardees include Gary J. Hausman (1996-1997) and Martha Anne Shelby (1997-1998). It hosted conferences on the Indian medical tradition of ayurveda, "Health, Science and the Spirit: Veda and Ayurveda in the Western World," (1996) and on Sita, "Empowered Women: Achievements of Indian and Pakistani Women" (1998). In 1999, the Foundation also funded a lectureship position in Sanskrit and classical Hinduism at Columbia, which was occupied by Gary Tubb, the Dharam Hinduja Lecturer in Sanskrit for the religion department. Center directors included John S. Hawley (acting 1994) and Mary McGee (1995-2000).