Advanced Sanskrit

Associate Professor


Maria Piera Candotti studied Classical Humanities at the University of Milan and then perfected her Sanskrit studies by completing a PHD at the University of Lausanne.  She has undertaken several study and research missions to India, in particular to the Bhandarkar Research Institute in Pune and the École Française d'Etrême Orient and the Institut Français de Pondichéry (Puducherri).  She has long taught in Lausanne and has been teaching in Pisa since 2019.  Her main areas of interest are ancient Indian language philosophy - in particular Pāini [c.a IV av-Ch.] and the early commentators - technical late Vedic literature, both grammatical and ritual, and the study of marginalised Vedic cultures (vrātya, Atharvaveda culture) always in a diachronic perspective and highlighting the strong connections with geographically neighbouring cultures.  She is familiar with several languages of the Indian subcontinent including, in addition to Sanskrit, her main research language, some Middle Indian languages (literary Pracrites, Pāli) and Hindī at a basic level. She has a good command of Latin and Greek and loves cross-cutting researches.