After a preliminary meeting of a group of experts from around the world at the height of the Croatian homeland war in 1994 in Dubrovnik, the First Dubrovnik International Conference on Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas was held in August 1997. In regular three-year intervals, the conference was held nine times, including the pandemic year of 2021, when the conference was held hybridly, via zoom and with direct participation.
DICSEP is organized by the Department of Indology and Far Eastern Studies (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb University), Croatian Philosophical Society and the conference’s International Committee. The International Committee consists of Ivan Andrijanić (University of Zagreb), Renate Söhnen-Thieme (School of Oriental and African Studies, London), Christophe Vielle (Institut orientaliste, Louvain la Neuve), James Fitzgerald (Brown University, Providence), Mislav Ježić (University of Zagreb), Mandakranta Bose (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Sven Sellmer (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań), and McComas Taylor (Australian National University in Canberra). Attendees, including leading international experts, come from all continents where Indological research is undertaken.
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts publishes the conference proceedings in cooperation with Dev Publishers (Delhi) in English with Croatian summaries. Six volumes have already been published, while the seventh is in pre-press. DICSEP has evolved into the leading international conference in the field, inspiring new research trends and bringing scientists together.
DICSEP 1 participants, Dubrovnik 1997.