Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici

This research aims to lay solid foundations for a systematic history of South Asia's rich and almost unique approach to the human – non-human animal relationship. It will address new or little explored aspects and unresolved knots of fundamental themes, proposing innovative interpretations. We will work on primary sources in various ancient and modern languages (especially Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi/Urdu, Persian), on iconographies, and with targeted field work, drawing on the diverse and varied expertise of the participants. In perspective, the aim is to initiate the construction of a large multidisciplinary repository on the subject. The purpose is to make an important contribution not only to South Asian Studies, but also to Western Animal Studies and related disciplines, in the conviction that in the West this topical issue is still addressed with little awareness of the contribution of other cultural systems.

More generally, an expected outcome here is to produce a substantial tool also for non-academic purposes, with an appropriate dissemination at many levels. Today's largest State in the region, India, is home to about one-sixth of humanity. Let us remark that, thanks also to tourism, the diffusion of yoga, and recent cultural product such as films and novels, its civilisation attracts a great interest in a very wide but generally scarcely informed public; that India is an increasingly important partner for Italy and the EU; and that immigrants from South Asia are very numerous also in Italy. The highly specific cultural complexity of the region requires interdisciplinary strategies of approach which the non-academic spheres often seem to ignore. This research appears particularly significant since it involves fundamental religious and dietary aspects.

The South Asian context is characterised by seamless cultural continuities with antiquity, but also by major historical processes of interaction and/or conflict with different cultural facies, such as Islam and British colonialism, besides a historically poorly documented contribution from subaltern social classes. On this basis, we believe that research on the subject must necessarily answer a first series of fundamental questions about the nature of:

1) The canonical classifications of human – non-human animals in terms of continuity or discontinuity, with the various views on the attribution of consciousness and sentience to animals.
2) The origins and meanings of theriomorphism or therioanthropism of divine/supernatural beings and their accompanying figures.
3) The genesis and motivations of 'do no harm' and vegetarianism, and their mutual relationship.

4) The outcomes of the Indo-Muslim and colonial cultural phases.