Emmanuel FRANCIS (b. 1972) has a Master in Classical Philology (1994), a Master in Oriental Philology and History (1997), and a PhD in Languages and Letters (2009) from the Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
After working as lecturer at Université catholique de Louvain (2009–2010) and researcher at Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at Universität Hamburg (2010–2012), he joined Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in 2012 as research fellow and has been since posted at Centre d’études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS, UMR 8564), now become Centre d’études sud-asiatiques et himalayennes (CESAH, UMR 8077, École des hautes études en sciences sociales & CNRS, Paris, France).
Emmanuel FRANCIS is a historian of South India. He is a specialist of (1) royal Hindu Ideology, as evidenced in inscriptional discourse and temple patronage, with a focus on the Pallava and Cōḻa dynasties of present-day Tamil Nadu, and (2) Tamil textuality and written artefacts in Tamil, using inscriptions and manuscripts for his research on the social and cultural history of the Tamil language.
Emmanuel FRANCIS is responsible of the Task-force A of the ERC DHARMA project (The Tamil-Speaking South of India) and will focus on the Sanskrit and Tamil inscriptions of the Pallavas, Cōḻas (Cholas) and Pāṇḍyas (Pandyas), as well as on the epigraphical corpora of two sites in Tamil Nadu, Uttiramērūr and Koṭumpāḷūr. He will also contribute early Sanskrit inscriptions from Cambodia (Citrasena/Mahendravarman’s corpus) and Indonesia (Mūlavarman’s and Pūrṇavarman’s corpora).
Institutional personal webpage: http://ceias.ehess.fr/index.php?3595
Publications’ list and PDFs: https://cv.archives-ouvertes.fr/emmanuel-francis
Selected publications
2017 Le discours royal dans l’Inde du Sud ancienne. Monuments et inscriptions pallava (IVème-IXème siècles). Tome 2: Mythes dynastiques et éloges royaux. XL pp. + pp. 321–809. Louvain-la-Neuve: Université catholique de Louvain (Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 65).
2017 “Indian Copper-Plate Grants: Inscriptions or Documents?”, in: Manuscripts and Archives: Comparative Views on Record-Keeping, ed. by Alessandro Bausi, Christian Brockmann, Michael Friedrich & Sabine Kienitz, pp. 387–417. Berlin: De Gruyter (Studies in Manuscript Cultures 14).
2016 [edited with Charlotte Schmid] The Archaeology of Bhakti II: Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti. 609 pp. Pondicherry: IFP & EFEO, 2016 (Indologie 132).
2016 “Forerunners of Chola Meykkīrttis”, in: Abhyudaya. Recent Researches in Epigraphy and Numismatics: Commemoration Volume in Honour of Dr. K.V. Ramesh, ed. by T.S. Ravishankar & S. Swaminathan, pp. 27–42. Delhi: Bharatiya Kala Prakashan.
2015 “Tamil through Epigraphical Lenses” [Review Article of Murugaiyan (ed., 2012), New Dimensions in Tamil Epigraphy: Select Papers from the Symposia held at EPHE-SHP, Paris, in 2005, 2006 and a Few Invited Papers], Indo-Iranian Journal 58, pp. 49–69.
2014 [edited with Charlotte Schmid] The Archaeology of Bhakti I. Mathurā and Maturai, Back and Forth. XIII + 366 pp. with 93 ill. Pondicherry: IFP & EFEO, 2014 (Indologie 125). [Reviews by John Cort (Religious Studies Review 41.2 [2015], pp. 89–90), Martha Selby (Journal of the American Oriental Society, 137.1 [2017], pp. 164–167).
2014 “ ‘Woe to Them!’: The Śaiva Curse Inscription at Mahābalipuram (7th century CE)”, in: The Archaeology of Bhakti I. Mathurā and Maturai, Back and Forth, ed. by Emmanuel Francis & Charlotte Schmid, pp. 176–223. Pondicherry: IFP & EFEO, 2014 (Indologie 125).
2013 Le discours royal dans l’Inde du Sud ancienne. Monuments et inscriptions pallava (IVème-IXème siècles). Tome 1 : Introduction et sources. XLII + 319 pp. Louvain-la-Neuve : Université catholique de Louvain (Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 64), ― Reviews by Valérie Gillet (BEFEO, 101 [2015], 364–367), Leslie C. Orr (IIJ 59.3 [2016], 298–305).
2013 “Towards a New Edition of the Corpus of Pallava Inscriptions”, in: Puṣpikā: Tracing Ancient India, through Texts and Traditions. Contributions to Current Research in Indology, Vol. 1: Proceedings of the International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (September 2009, Oxford), ed. by Nina Mirnig, Péter-Dániel Szántó & Michael Williams, pp. 123–149. Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow Books.
2013 “Praising the King in Tamil during the Pallava Period”, in: Bilingual Discourse and Cross-cultural Fertilisation: Sanskrit and Tamil in Medieval India, ed. by Whitney Cox & Vincenzo Vergiani, pp. 359–409. Pondicherry: IFP & EFEO (Indologie 121).
2011 “The Genealogy of the Pallavas: From Brahmins to Kings”, Religions of South Asia 5.1–2 (2011), 339–363.
