About

Had internet been available in 1980s, this website would have been launched on the occasion of the foundation of the Association of Studies on Himalayas (ASH) by late Charles W. Brown (University of Lund, Sweden), late Allen C. Fanger (Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, USA), and Maheshwar P. Joshi (Kumaun University, India). Since its inception in 1990 the ASH has published four volumes of the Himalaya: Past and Present edited by the founders of the ASH (1990, Vol. I; 1992, Vol. II;1994, Vol. III; 2000, Vol. IV), and three monographs. The opening paras of the Preface of the Introductory Volume of the Himalaya:Past and Present reads:

With this publication we introduce our organization to the people interested in the Himalayan history and culture. For some time, South Asians have been carrying out investigations in the area under reference but their works have not always reached the Western World adequately; conversely most of the western publications on the subject also are not accessible to South Asian scholars. What we aim at now is to bridge this gap through a series of publications involving all concerned. The ASH intends to bring together scholars engaged specially in studies on Himalayas and to encourage joint researches and collaboration in various fields. As already well known that the Himalayas offer promising scope to every kind of human enquiry – earth, physical, life and social sciences and humanities. Like so much of the modern world, the cultures, ecology and environment of the entire Himalayan region situated between Pakistan and Burma (including Tibet) are in the process of rapid transformation. We feel a sense of urgency to focus on the social and cultural configuration of the Himalayas. Traditional, socio-political and cultural patterns are rapidly changing, indeed disappearing, in the face of modernization. Archaeological, historical and ethnographical resources are deteriorating due to lack of research support and public consciousness. Environmental deterioration has been rampant with serious ecological consequences.

Our website aims at furthering the ideas expressed by the founders of the ASH and invokes likeminded persons to participate in this venture.

This website purports to unfold Himalayan ecosystem from the diachronic point of view. Whether one agrees with the poet laureate Kālidāsa or not, when he says: ‘The culture developed in the Himalayan region may be “the “measuring rod” of the world’ (Kumārasambhavam I.1), presently the Himalaya is unequivocally the measuring rod of climate change caused by global warming and increased greenhouse gas emissions. We are approaching the point of no return. Significantly, genomic studies reveal that the people of Himalaya exhibit extreme-altitude genetic adaptation, and social science studies clearly show that this adaptive quality inheres in all walks of life of the Himalayan people. There are reasons to believe that due to its geophysical, linguistic, genetic, eco-social, cultural, and biological diversities, each and every micro-region of the Himalaya offers promising scope for creative writing in all branches of knowledge. We need to unfold this bewildering, vast mass of knowledge. The idea of Himalaya transcends narrow geopolitical bounds of nation-states and considers Himalaya as a vast niche with great potentials to sustain both animate and inanimate beings. If you are actively engaged in the Himalayan studies, and the idea of this website interests you, feel free to join it and promote it.

Let auspicious ideas come here to us from all sides—undeceivable, uncircumscribable, bursting out—so that the gods will be (ready) to increase us always, will be our unfaltering protectors every day (Ṛigveda, I.89.1).