Andrew Ollett

Ollett studies the literary and intellectual traditions of South Asia, including works composed in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, and Kannada, mostly falling within the first millennium of the common era. His research has focused on the “question of language”: the availability and choice of certain languages for certain purposes, and the role of language in cultural production and change. 

Currently he is working with Sarah Pierce Taylor on an edition and translation The Way of the Poet-King (Kavirājamārgaṁ), a manual for composing literature in Kannada, one of the regional languages of south India. It was written in the 870s and hence is the oldest Kannada text to survive, apart from inscriptions. He is preparing an edition and translation of another work of poetics, this one in Prakrit, called the Mirror of Ornaments (Alaṅkāradappaṇaṁ). His edition and translation of Līlāvaī, a romance in Prakrit verse composed around 800, will appear in the Murty Classical Library of India. He is working on a monograph on the principle of context-sensitivity in Indian theories of language, which will situate the work of premodern thinkers such as Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Śālikanātha Miśra in contemporary debates within linguistics, especially semantics and pragmatics. Another longer-term project addresses the impact of manuscript technology on the ideas and practices of different communities in early historic South Asia.