Two CSMC Researchers Awarded ERC Consolidator Grants

9 December 2025

Photo: Private/Erika Jakab

Great success for two of our researchers: the Indologist Suganya Anandakichenin and Márton Vér, a historian specialising in Central Asia, have each been awarded the prestigious five-year grant to carry out ambitious research projects.

Manipravalam is a hybrid language that flourished in medieval South India between the 12th and 15th centuries. Literally meaning ‘pearls and corals’, the language adopts Tamil grammar as its base and integrates Sanskrit vocabulary and stylistic features. Manipravalam’s versatility made it the medium of choice for a range of groups, notably the Sri Vaishnavas, Shaivas, and Jains, who used it in poetic compositions, religious commentaries, and even royal inscriptions. For these groups, the language served as a bridge, facilitating dialogue and theological debate.

Despite its importance, there has hardly been any research on Manipravalam outside of India. The main reason for this is its daunting complexity and the breadth of expertise required for its analysis. Suganya Anandakichenin fulfils all the prerequisites for systematically researching this language in her ERC project titled ‘Manipravalam: Insight, Research, and Analysis’ (MIRA): Together with her team, she will produce the first comprehensive scholarly study of Manipravalam. She plans to collect, edit, and translate key Manipravalam texts from the Sri Vaishnava, Jain, and Shaiva traditions, many of which have never been fully studied. By combining philological analysis with theological and historical inquiry, Suganya seeks to reveal how this hybrid language both reflected and shaped cultural exchange in South India. Digital resources, such as searchable glossaries and electronic text editions, will also be developed to support future research. Collaborating with international partners, the project will offer a point of entry for a new generation of researchers who can navigate the linguistic and religious complexities, taking the first steps of establishing Manipravalam Studies as a fruitful field of research.

Márton Vér’s project zooms in on Central Asia and the so-called ‘Silk Road’ — a well-known concept whose historical complexity remains underappreciated. Coined in the 19th century, the term conjures images of a single grand route stretching from China to the Mediterranean, united by the trade in silk and other luxury goods. However, this image distorts reality. Much of what we believe about the Silk Road today has been shaped by external narratives, often written in Chinese, Middle Eastern, or European centres of power, far away from the regions where material exchange actually took place. These sweeping stories have tended to obscure the local and regional dynamics that were constitutive of the longest-lasting and most extensive Eurasian supra-network of interregional exchange.

In particular, Márton’s ERC project is designed to focus on the role of the Uyghurs, key figures of the Silk Road whose importance has thus far been overlooked. ‘Re-Centring Central Asia: A Global Microhistory of the Silk Road between the 9th and 15th Centuries’ (ReCent) will utilise the documentary heritage of the Uyghurs from this period, thereby integrating micro-historical analyses with the prevalent external narratives about the Silk Road. This ‘bottom-up’ history rooted in internal sources will challenge currently dominant Eurocentric and Sinocentric perspectives and place them in a global historical context. Márton and his team will analyse these sources and make them publicly available in a relational database to support future research. Overall, the project’s findings will shed new light on the history of Eurasia and the Silk Road.

ERC Grants enable researchers to pursue their own ideas in a broad range of disciplines. Set up by the European Union in 2007, the ERC is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants, and Synergy Grants. Three ERC projects are currently affiliated with the CSMC: ‘Hebrew Philosophical Manuscripts as Sites of Engagement’ (ERC Starting Grant), ‘Beyond Influence: The Connected Histories of Ethiopic and Syriac Christianity’ (ERC Consolidator Grant), and ‘The Development of Literacy in the Caucasian Territories’ (ERC Advanced Grant).