An Absence Made Present

This essay introduces the remarkable correspondence in Sanskrit between the Dutch Indologist J. Ph. Vogel (1871–1958) and the Kashmiri pandit Nityanand Shastri (1874–1942). After presenting two Sanskrit letters from their correspondence together with an annotated English translation, the essay considers several aspects of these letters, both in the light of the Sanskrit epistolary tradition itself and in comparison with those of other cultures. The essay also draws attention to the difference in cultural idiom when Vogel writes in Sanskrit and when he writes to the same correspondent in English.