page5

The Norwegian Institute of Palaeography and Historical Philology (PHI)
was founded in March 2003 as an international research center based in Oslo. The purpose of PHI is to conduct and organise research within the various fields of comparative and historical philology, with special reference to palaeography and conservation, textual criticism, interpretation, translation, and comparative conceptual history.

So far, PHI covers Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian, Meso-American and the Graeco-Roman areas as well as Nordic philologies. The general aim of PHI is to make palaeography and philology relevant to the comparative study of texts as expressions of the intellectual and cultural heritage of the world, and to place historical philology in a dynamic relation to the modern world. Editing newly discovered texts and the close readings of traditional texts in their original languages in the light of modern methods and perspectives, remains the very basis of all studies on the development of human culture. During the last two centuries, the study of human history has been enriched by a number of important new methods, from disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and most recently from biology. We welcome these new perspectives as a necessary enrichment of the philological tradition.

In this spirit PHI was established in order to:

1. promote the publication of a series of monographs making hitherto unpublished manuscripts available;
2. establish databases on the Internet Web which facilitate the comparative study of cultural history;
3. promote the publication of relevant scholarly work for the general public;
4. promote the training of outstanding young scholars to work within textually orientated comparative philology;
5. develop up-to-date technolgical and methodological principles for the conduct of historical philology.

Current PHI projects and activities include the following:

I. Thesaurus Lingua Sericae (TLS), initiated by Christoph Harbsmeier.
II. Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae (TLB), initiated by Jens Braarvig.
The projects TLS and TLB are technologically integrated into one complex analytic system.
III. Projects in cooperation with Max Planck Institute of History of Science on the "Globalization of Knowledge", projects on the "Diffusion of Buddhist Culture throughout East-Asia" and on "Multilingualism in Archaic and Early History".
IV. Courses and seminars in various philologies are conducted, as for example the "Sumero-Akkadian Seminar" which has been ongoing for about twelve years, as well as "Seminars on Buddhist Philology" for the study of Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese trilingual Buddhist texts. The course aims at educating students in these philologies and providing materials for TLB. This kind of courses have been ongoing for a period of about eight years. In addition, beginners courses on Sumerian are conducted (for details see Activities).
V. The activities of PHI will also include popular lectures on the research projects, as well as presentations in press and other media, as well as publications in such projects as "Verdens Hellige Skrifter," ("Sacred Scriptures of the World", edited so far in 40 volumes by "Den Norske Bokklubben", The Norwegian Book Club). Presently, more than 20 additional volumes are under planning.

Organization:

The members of the Board of the PHI Foundation are:
Lutz Edzard (Univ. of Oslo, Semitic Philology),
Christoph Harbsmeier (Univ. of Oslo, Sinology),
Jens Braarvig (Univ. of Oslo, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese).
Jens Braarvig was elected chairman of the PHI board. The Institute, as owned by the PHI Foundation, presently has a board consisting of the three members of the Foundation Board, and in addition members representing various philological areas:
Jan Terje Faarlund (Nordic Philology, Univ. of Oslo),
Andrew George (Assyriology, SOAS, Univ. of London),
Jens-Uwe Hartmann (Sanskrit, Univ. of Munich),
Kazunobu Matsuda (Buddhist Philologies, Bukkyo Univ., Kyoto),
Michael Puett (Sinology and History of Ideas, Harvard Univ.),
Einar Thomassen (Coptology, Univ. of Bergen),
Dag Haug (Classical Philology, Univ. of Oslo).