Hermann Kulke

Who is Hermann Kulke?

Hermann Kulke is a German Historian and Indologist, who was Professor of the South and Southeast Asian History at the Department of History, Kiel University. After receiving his Ph.D. in Indology from Freiburg University in 1967, he taught for 21 years at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University.

He was a founding member of the Orissa Research Project of the Southasia Institute, and was coordinator of the second ORP.

Specialization: pre-colonial South and Southeast Asian History; early state formation and historiography; regional cultures of India with emphasis on Orissa; Indianization of Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean Studies.

He was a Visiting Professor at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Asiatic Society, Calcutta, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. He was also the Fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, in Singapore and of the Asia Research Institute of the University of Singapore.

In 2005 he received the Gold Medal of the Asiatic Society of Kolkata.

In 2010 he was awarded the order of Padma Shri by the President of India.

The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany was awarded to him by the President of Germany in 2011.