Update 24 March 2020

Unfortunately, the Greater Magadha conference is canceled due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The idea of running it as a virtual tele-conference was considered but a large purpose of the symposium was to bring people together and stimulate conversation, just as much as hearing formal papers. Hopefully the symposium can be held next year if the waters have settled regarding the virus. 

Update 12 March 2020

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic this symposium may have to be cancelled or run as a virtual tele-conference.  I am monitoring the situation on a daily basis and will update this website as soon as a firm decision is made.  -- Dominik Wujastyk

In his 2007 book Greater Magadha, Johannes Bronkhorst proposed a new theory for the historical formation of Indian culture in the mid-first millennium BCE. The theory proposed that a cultural and geographical area, Greater Magadha, was settled by an early wave of Indo-European speakers.  A second wave of Indo-European speakers, carriers of Vedic culture, subsequently encountered the Greater Magadhans to the east and the resultant cultural meeting gave rise to the main features known in later Indian history.  The Greater Magadha theory addresses many deep problems about the early formation of Indian culture that have long puzzled historians.  It has been widely accepted, but has also given rise to serious criticism.  This workshop will bring together some of the principal scholars who have engaged with the theory to discuss and retrospectively evaluate the theory just over a decade after it was proposed.