Water in India is an environmental challenge, just as it is a human one. In the context of a growing hydraulic crisis, it is clear that political, social and religious issues affect the question of access and quality of water just as much as technical and financial problematics do. Against this sometimes dramatic background, our objective is to map the knowledge and means of accessing and upgrading water in the pre-modern Indian World.
OIn a social context that is strongly influenced by Brahmanical material, water appears as an ambivalent element due to its sanitation functions: It is altogether a factor of exclusion (pure/impure) and an essential resource for the purification process. Thus, water represents both a border marker and border passer. The blog aims to communicate on studies regarding pre-modern hydraulic knowledge in an archeological, social and religious perspective.
The blog ‘MIWA. Metrology of Indian Waters’ presents the project and the construction of its database. It also communicates about upcoming events related to the project and it has a function of scientific watch in order to gather latest information regarding Water and studies related to hydro-knowledge in India.
In the summer of 2021, Sara Keller and her colleagues presented a photo exhibition on Life around Water in India at the Augustinerkloster in Erfurt.
The MIWA Blog is part of the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations” (FOR 2779) at the Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt. The group is founded by the German Research Foundation DFG.

The Religion and Urbanity group also runs a Hypotheses blog with reports on our field work and other related news.
Contact
This blog is managed by Sara Keller and Sarah Kusebach.