The history and life of a tradition is conditioned by its dependance from an interpretative appropriation. This gives a tradition a new existence. A dead tradition, the one which could not be inter-preted or find some one to own it, appears only as a linguistic reiteration of its pristine form. That pure handing down of a cultural form falls actually in a semantic vacuum, alike those deserted monuments that keep their initial identity, an identity of cultural corpse. The critique of Tradition ought therefore to focus on methods and strategies of interpretation and the hermeneutic situation to which given methods and strategies accomodate.
Interpretation operates a particularisation or a concretisation of the tradition.
To understand is always to apply the text to oneself and this application cannot but always depend upon the technical conditions of the hermeneutical process obtaining at a given moment, and the strategical context in which socio-cultural actors resort to a particular hermeneutical methodology. The seminar is organised to give an opportunity to discuss contributions meant to explore and assess the methodological legitimacy of some modes of interpretation. In Invoking the Past. The Uses of History in South Asia. Oxford University Press, p. 192-227.