Sheldon Pollock Awarded the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize for 2008

And he deserves it. This book, which includes but vastly moves beyond his highly-Cambodia-focused formulation of the notion of the Sanskrit Cosmopolitan Vernacular in his now-class article “The Sanskrit Cosmpolis, 300-1300: Transculturation, Vernacularization, and the Question of Ideology,” in the Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language. A short version of the basic argument can be found here.

His massive book “The Languages of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India,” does everything a book on that topic and with title shouldn’t be able to do, including making Sanskrit sexy.

Congratulations, Professor Pollock.