Paul Hacker (Indologist)

Paul Hacker (6 January 1913 - 18 March 1979) was a German Indologist, who coined the term Neo-Vedanta in a pejorative way, to distinguish modern developments from "traditional" Advaita Vedanta.

Quotes

• My real profession is namely the science of India, specifically of Indian philosophies and religions. In contrast to nearly all of my colleagues, however, during my thirteen-month stay in India, I established connections with the mission, primarily the Catholic mission, but also the Protestant mission. I wanted to place my science in the service of the Church.
  •  Paul Hacker, Greuel der Verwüstung an heiliger Statte: Paul Hacker zur Lage der Kirche nach dem Zweiten Vatikanum, ed. Rudolf Kaschewsky (Heimbach/Eifel: Patrimonium Verlag, 2012), 140, n. 1; quoted in Jewish Contributions to the Hindu-Christian Dialogue by Joydeep Bagchee

Quotes about Paul Hacker

• Acting on Hacker's wishes, the editor of his collected works excluded the author's polemical Christian writings from the compilation... Many such polemical writings also appeared in fringe religious pamphlets and propaganda literature which are unknown to most scholars.
  Hacker's suppression of this material compromised his integrity as an objective scholar, as it misled readers into thinking his writings on Hinduism were objective evaluations when in fact they were, in Andrew Nicholson's words, the work of a 'Christian polemicist'. In his posthumously published writings, Hacker is as explicit in his support for Christianity as he is in his attack on contemporary Hinduism.
  • Indra's Net (2014) by Malhotra, Rajiv