The South Asia Council is committed to promoting a comprehensive understanding of South Asia that embraces the pre-modern, modern and contemporary periods and the entire region: Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Srilanka, and neighboring cultural areas. It seeks to integrate teaching and research on traditional South Asia with the study of the region today, with the goal of fostering lively intellectual exchange on a variety of topics and from a wide range of different disciplinary perspectives. The Council endeavors to provide the Yale community, graduate and undergraduate students, and faculty, with a multi-faceted understanding of this vibrant region and how its traditional, common cultural dynamics continue to shape its various roles in the global community today.

Beginning in fall 2007, the program in South Asian Studies combines the requirements of a discipline-based first major with significant course work in South Asian studies. South Asian Studies can be taken only as a second major. The major is intended to provide students with a broad understanding of the history, culture, and languages of South Asia as well as the region’s current social, political, and economic conditions.

Yale has a remarkable diversity of resources on South Asia. Yale faculty teach and conduct research on the economy, anthropology, literature, and politics of contemporary South Asia. They are engaged in projects dealing with the environment, business management, and health care in the region. Yale has a distinguished history as a leader in the field of classical South Asian studies and a number of faculty teach and study classical South Asian religions and philosophies, the region’s classical literatures, its history and its music and art. The university offers students the opportunity to study several modern and ancient South Asian languages, including Sanskrit, Pali, Ardha Magadhi, Hindi, and Tamil. These rich curricular offerings are the essential starting point for the interdisciplinary work of the council.

Building on these strengths, the council seeks to promote cross-boundary exchange between its many fields and to integrate the study of the past with present concerns through innovative lectureships, conferences, and seminars. It also seeks to stretch geographical borders by emphasizing the links that South Asia has traditionally had and continues to have with other countries in Asia and the rest of the world. In many ways, an understanding of the complexity of the South Asian past and present can facilitate a dialogue on modernity in the global context and we hope to work actively with the other councils to address some of these larger issues. The Council provides a forum for student and faculty interactions, both social and intellectual, and promotes South Asian cultural events.