Infosys Honors U.S. Scholar Andrew Ollett for Pioneering Work on Prakrit

The Infosys Science Foundation has awarded the Infosys Prize 2025 in Humanities and Social Sciences to Prof. Andrew Ollett, an American scholar at the University of Chicago, for his groundbreaking research on Prakrit languages, a family of Middle Indo-Aryan tongues that shaped India’s literary and cultural history for over a millennium.

A Scholar of Prakrit

Prakrit, spoken across the Indian subcontinent between the 5th century BCE and the 12th century CE, served as the vernacular counterpart to Sanskrit. While Sanskrit was the language of ritual and elite scholarship, Prakrits were closer to everyday speech and became the medium of classical drama, poetry, and religious texts. Jain and Buddhist scriptures, as well as lyrical works like the Gāhā Sattasaī, were composed in Prakrit, making it a vital bridge between ancient Sanskrit and modern Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi, Marathi, and Gujarati.

Prof. Ollett’s research has illuminated how Prakrit was not a “lesser” language but a central cultural force in South Asia. His acclaimed book Language of the Snakes explores Prakrit’s role alongside Sanskrit and vernaculars, offering a magisterial analysis of India’s linguistic and intellectual traditions.

The Infosys Prize

The Infosys Prize, one of India’s most prestigious academic honors, carries a gold medal, citation, and USD 100,000 purse. By recognizing Ollett, Infosys has spotlighted the humanities and philology as essential to understanding India’s past and its global intellectual contributions.

Broader Impact

Ollett’s work underscores the democratizing power of Prakrit, which gave voice to ordinary people and enabled the spread of Jainism and Buddhism.

His scholarship situates Prakrit within the philosophy of language, exploring semantics and pragmatics in classical Indian thought.

The award highlights Infosys’s commitment to honoring not only scientific innovation but also cultural and historical scholarship that enriches global understanding.

Context

The 2025 Infosys Prize honored six laureates across disciplines, including MIT economist Nikhil Agarwal and genome repair pioneer Anjana Badrinarayanan. Ollett’s recognition places Prakrit studies at the center of global academic discourse, ensuring that India’s vernacular traditions receive the same scholarly attention long accorded to Sanskrit.

In essence, Infosys has elevated Andrew Ollett’s extraordinary philological depth and reaffirmed the importance of Prakrit as a living language of ancient India’s people and poets, a bridge between Sanskrit’s ritual authority and the rise of modern Indian languages.