From conlon at u.washington.edu Thu Aug 1 00:20:26 1996 From: conlon at u.washington.edu (Frank Conlon) Date: Wed, 31 Jul 96 17:20:26 -0700 Subject: the oldest buddhist text found Message-ID: <161227025481.23782.13445064454929270530.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Colleagues: Since Richard Salomon is a subscriber to Indology, I suspect he will be in a position to forward some material on the project, but in brief, the British Library and the University of Washington have commenced a major research project of documentation and translation of a remarkable series of textual fragments inscribed on bark and which appear to be parts of a version of the Buddhist canon from the Gandharan region. Salomon and Professor Collett Cox, also of the University of Washington, have just commenced work on this undertaking during the past few months. The texts had been rolled and stored, reportedly in sealed pottery. The conservators at the British Library managed to "open" the rolls and they have been photographed. I do not have my notes on the project to hand, so possibly if Professor Salomon is "on line" these weeks, we may ask him for further detail. Frank Conlon University of Washington Co-editor of H-ASIA From jonathan.silk at wmich.edu Thu Aug 1 02:30:17 1996 From: jonathan.silk at wmich.edu (jonathan.silk at wmich.edu) Date: Wed, 31 Jul 96 22:30:17 -0400 Subject: the oldest buddhist text found Message-ID: <161227025483.23782.18427403939966209909.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The piece Michael Rabe just posted from the Chicago newspaper implies that the fragments -- though the article does not say it, they are in Gandhari, a fact which was apparently reported in the version of the announcemnt found in the Japan TImes -- have already been tentatively identified. I wonder whether this is true. Are you out there Rich? Do you want to fill us in a little bit, now that the proverbial cat seems to be out of the bag? jonathan From jpeterson at indo.uni-kiel.de Thu Aug 1 08:49:59 1996 From: jpeterson at indo.uni-kiel.de (John Peterson) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 09:49:59 +0100 Subject: how to reference list discussions Message-ID: <161227025485.23782.5145370748266128717.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I agree 100% with Madhav's caution when it comes to quoting from INDOLOGY or any other mailing list. Of course, if the contributor of the message is asked for permission there's no argument against it, but I'd hate to think what could happen if people started quoting my spontaneous contributions to a discussion somewhere as "my" view of the situation. That could have a devastating effect on discussion groups in general (sort of like quoting a personal conversation at a conference would kill any discussion between those taking part). These are very often people's first reactions to questions and by no means what they "really" think after considering the discussion in more detail, although their later views generally don't make it to the list. After all, this is only a discussion group and not a publication. John At 20:18 31.07.1996 BST, you wrote: > Communications on Indology or a similar network are scholarly, >but casual, and not to be treated as anyone's "considered final opinions" >on a given topic. Therefore, there is a great danger of citations from >e-mail messages leading to misrepresentation. Minimally, I would suggest >that the author of a message needs to be explicitly asked for his/her >permission for a specific quote, and be given an opporunity to review >that quote. > Madhav Deshpande > John Peterson Institute for Oriental Studies Department of South Asian Studies (Indologie) Christian-Albrechts-Universit?t zu Kiel Olshausenstra?e 40 D-24118 Kiel Germany Fax: +49-431-880-1598 From Oliver.Freiberger at uni-bayreuth.de Thu Aug 1 10:54:50 1996 From: Oliver.Freiberger at uni-bayreuth.de (Oliver.Freiberger at uni-bayreuth.de) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 10:54:50 +0000 Subject: "old indologists" Message-ID: <161227025487.23782.4631965140893287685.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Dear list members, >I need to know some details about the following scholars: >1. A. Venis (or Venice?), who was principal at Government Sanskrit >College (Queen's College?) at Banaras during the 1890s or 1900s. What was >his particular field and what publications he had. >2. L. de Baron Holstein (Baron de Holstein?), where was he from, what was >his special field, from where he published Kazyapa Parivarta? >I would appreciate very much any information in this regard. >Sincerely >Benjamin Preciado-Solis. I would recommend to get in contact with Klaus Karttunen, University of Helsinki, PF 13, Meritullinkatu 1, SF-00014 Helsinki, Finland. He has collected (bio- and bibliographical) material on "old indologists". Unfortunately, I don't know his e-mail-address. Good luck! Oliver Freiberger University of Bayreuth, Germany >> > > From rsalomon at u.washington.edu Thu Aug 1 18:36:25 1996 From: rsalomon at u.washington.edu (Richard Salomon) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 11:36:25 -0700 Subject: Early Buddhist manuscripts Message-ID: <161227025495.23782.17917636443385543099.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In response to the inquiry of H. Marlewicz and others, the following preliminary report on the newly-discovered Kharosthi manuscripts is meant to provide some more details about them than has been given in most of the recent media reports on this discovery. By the way, please note that, in the otherwise accurate New York Times article referred to by J. Silk (and in some other newspapers as well), the photograph of the manuscript fragment was printed upside-down! Richard Salomon Department of Asian Languages & Literature University of Washington Seattle WA 98103 USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The British Library has recently acquired a collection of fragments of manuscripts that are likely to be the earliest surviving specimens of Buddhist texts in any language. These texts are written on birch bark scrolls in the Gandhari (northwestern Prakrit) language and in the Kharosthi script, which were current in ancient Gandhara in the early centuries of the Christian era. Their exact provenance is unfortunately not known, but they are believed to have originally come from somewhere in Afghanistan. The fragments contain portions of about twenty separate scrolls, ranging in size from a few words to several hundreds lines of writing. So far, only a few of the texts have been definitely identified, though the scope of the find and the main genres included in it can be broadly determined. The scrolls include didactic verse texts, such as a rendering into Gandhari of the "Rhinoceros' Horn Sutra," previously known only in Pali (Khagga-visaana-sutta); a few sutra texts, with or without commentaries; abhidharma and other technical and scholastic texts, mostly as yet identified; and various avadanas, which do not seem to have direct parallels in other Buddhist traditions and which may represent local compositions. The texts may be provisionally dated to the first century AD. Among the grounds for this dating are a clear reference in an unidentified fragmentary text to the Great Satrap Jihonika, who is known from inscriptions and coins to have ruled around the early part of the first century. The manuscripts were found inside one or more clay jars bearing dedicatory inscriptions in Kharosthi script, some of which refer to the Sarvastivadin sect, which was previously known to have been influential in Gandhara. It is therefore believed that the manuscripts belonged to the library of a Sarvastivadin monastery. Some of them bear secondary interlinear notations which seem to indicate that their contents had been copied over onto new scrolls. Therefore the set of manuscripts may comprise discarded remnants of old and decrepit scrolls which had been recopied and were then accorded a ritual "burial" in the jars. Gandhara has long been known to have been one of the great centers of Buddhism during the early part of the Christian era, as is well attested by abundant archaeological, art historical, and inscriptional remains. But until now, only one specimen of a Gandharan Buddhist text in manuscript form, namely the Gandhari Dharmapada (definitively published by John Brough in 1962), has been known. The new manuscripts should enable us determine much of the scope and composition of the long-hypothesized, and now actually discovered, Gandhari Buddhist canon. More broadly, they will provide us with earliest documentary evidence of the contents of any of the Buddhist canons. The British Library has established an agreement with the University of Washington for the study of the new manuscripts. The primary goal of this program is to begin issuing as soon as possible a series of publications dedicated to them. In particular, an introductory volume providing a general overview and sample text will be published within the reasonably near future, hopefully within the next year or two. It must be emphasized, however, that at the moment the project is still in the preliminary cataloguing stage of deciphering, transliterating, arranging and reconstructing the fragments, and identifying them, where possible, by comparison to known Buddhist texts in other languages. While all attempts are being made to complete these tasks promptly, this is proving to be a laborious and time-consuming process, especially in view of the poor condition and fragmentary character of the manuscripts. We can assure interested scholars and members of the public that these documents will be published as soon as possible, but at the same time request some patience on their part, as it is important that this be done in a careful and accurate manner. With regard to the provision of further information about the manuscripts in advance of the planned published editions, a short statement, including sample picture, will be appearing shortly on the India Office and Oriental Collections (British Library) home-page on PORTICO. Also, Prof. Richard Salomon will be presenting preliminary reports on the material at the American Academy of Religion meetings in New Orleans on November 23, 1996, and at the American Oriental Society conference in Miami in March 1997. He also hopes to present the material at an appropriate venue in Europe within the near future, possibly at the ICANAS meetings in Budapest in July 1997. From thompson at jlc.net Thu Aug 1 16:24:01 1996 From: thompson at jlc.net (thompson at jlc.net) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 12:24:01 -0400 Subject: the oldest buddhist text found Message-ID: <161227025493.23782.6676596405357389469.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In the absence of a more detailed response from Graham Shaw [via Jerry Losty] or from Richard Salomon, and while we are waiting for for the picture forthcoming on OIOC's home-pages on the British Library's WWW link PORTICO... perhaps the best source of public information for now is a rather detailed article in the New York Sunday Times, July 7, 1996 [p.3], by John Darnton [unfortunately, or rather fortunately, it is too long to append here]. Besides asserting directly that the language of these texts is indeed Gandhari, the article is accompanied by a nice photograph of a fragment of a ms in Kharosthi script. The article also goes on to quote Salomon rather extensively. For example: "The importance of these new manuscripts for the study of Buddhism is potentially comparable to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls to Judaism and early Christianity...." Besides other interesting remarks by Salomon, the article also quotes a verse from a poem called "The Rhinoceros Horn", found on one of the mss, which I will not quote, however, so as to tantalize.... Best wishes, George Thompson From rsalomon at u.washington.edu Thu Aug 1 20:25:06 1996 From: rsalomon at u.washington.edu (Richard Salomon) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 13:25:06 -0700 Subject: "old indologists" (A. Venis) Message-ID: <161227025499.23782.12475059088679517773.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Arthur Venis seems to have done some work on Indian inscriptions. The only reference I have at hand, though, is to "A Note on the Two Besnagar Inscriptions" in JRAS 1910, pp. 813-815. It is dated "Government College, Benares, March 23, 1910." Richard Salomon University of Washington > >Dear list members, > >I need to know some details about the following scholars: > >1. A. Venis (or Venice?), who was principal at Government Sanskrit > >College (Queen's College?) at Banaras during the 1890s or 1900s. What was > >his particular field and what publications he had. > >2. L. de Baron Holstein (Baron de Holstein?), where was he from, what was > >his special field, from where he published Kazyapa Parivarta? > >I would appreciate very much any information in this regard. > > >Sincerely > >Benjamin Preciado-Solis. > From conlon at u.washington.edu Thu Aug 1 21:40:33 1996 From: conlon at u.washington.edu (Frank Conlon) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 14:40:33 -0700 Subject: Query on Nataraja (x-post H-ASIA) Message-ID: <161227025503.23782.15875010442549151372.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Colleagues: The following query was posted on H-ASIA today. I thought it might be of interest to Indology as well. Frank H-ASIA August 1, 1996 Query on Nataraja in Indian culture, popularity & distribution ************************************************************************* From: matallen at uoknor.edu (Matthew Allen) To my esteemed H-Asia colleagues: In connection with an article I'm writing on the "revival" of dance in South India earlier this century, I'm seeking opinions on the following statement by Dr. V. Subramaniam of Carleton University, Ottawa: "The Nataraja image itself, almost unknown outside South India round the turn of this century, is now found in all the posh lounges of Indo-Philic western homes..." The part I'm interested in is his belief that the Nataraja image was relatively obscure ca. 1900. The citation is Subramaniam, V., _The Sacred and the Secular in India's Performing Arts: Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Centenary Essays_. New Delhi: Ashish Pub. House, 1980:xviii. If anyone on the list has an opinion on this from any disciplinary perspective I'd be most grateful to hear it. Matthew ***** Matthew Allen matallen at uoknor.edu Assistant Professor ph (405) 325-5340 School of Music fx (405) 325-7574 University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 73019-0565 ======================================================================== From thompson at jlc.net Thu Aug 1 19:27:28 1996 From: thompson at jlc.net (thompson at jlc.net) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 15:27:28 -0400 Subject: upside photographs Message-ID: <161227025497.23782.2564844684741606789.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> To quote the Indology home-page: "Oops!" I guess it all depends on *who* is upside down. On the other hand, I believe that I have never claimed on this list to be competent in the editing of texts.... Sincerely, George Thompson From Jerry.Losty at mail.bl.uk Thu Aug 1 15:19:02 1996 From: Jerry.Losty at mail.bl.uk (Jerry.Losty at mail.bl.uk) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 16:19:02 +0100 Subject: the oldest buddhist text found Message-ID: <161227025489.23782.1374856536471624072.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In response to the points raised, I am asked by Graham Shaw, Deputy Director of the British Library's Oriental and India Office Collections, to make the following statement about the British Library-University of Washington Buddhist documents project. It is actually premature to make a more detailed announcement than what has appeared in the press, as we are literally in the 'cataloguing stage' - deciphering, transliterating, arranging and rearranging fragments, and trying to identify the Buddhist canonical texts represented by comparison with other language versions - a laborious and lengthy process. However, the following steps are being taken: a) a short statement (plus sample picture) will be appearing a.s.a.p. on OIOC's home-pages on the British Library's WWW link PORTICO - http://portico.bl.uk/oioc/ b) in collaboration with the University of Washington, the BL is planning to publish an overview volume on the scrolls in perhaps a year or so. c) Professor Richard Salomon will be making interim reports to various academic conferences e.g. that of the American Oriental Society in Miami. jerry.losty at bl.uk From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Thu Aug 1 20:32:09 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Thu, 01 Aug 96 22:32:09 +0200 Subject: Siddha Yoga Message-ID: <161227025501.23782.15566276587973745997.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thank you very much to Vidya Sankarsundar, Gene R. Thursby and Pullat Devas for taking interest in my questions concerning Siddha Yoga. I am very grateful to Vidya Sankarsundar who offered me some additional help. I am very honored by the answer of Gene R. Thursby who is an author of, I think, 5 or 6 publications related to Siddha Yoga. In his modesty he forgot to mention his authorship of the suggested chapter of the book edited by T. Miller. I think, major problem with Swami Muktananda thought is its ecclectic features. The organization as such is working quite well given the the scandals depicted by W. Rodarmor and Indian papers. However, I don't think this kind of organization is very much in fashion these days. As far as I know they are trying to find some place for themselves in Russia now. What surprises me is the secrecy about Siddha Yoga. Polish members don't want to talk about SY without permission of their leaders in South Fallsburg and the leaders didn't allow me to ask polish members for their personal opinions about SY. They also didn't answer to my very general questions about the structure of SY etc. I think the secrecy would leave rather bad impression in Poland. In fact, I think they overdid it. I was not asking about the official statut of SY and the working of its Board of Trustees. Gurumayi makes rather good impression but the present secrecy can make people suspicious. Is anything I said controversial? My regards Leslaw Borowski From nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov Fri Aug 2 14:22:58 1996 From: nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov (nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 09:22:58 -0500 Subject: Query on Nataraja Message-ID: <161227025512.23782.17295007033986391535.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> 8/2/96 Re: Query on Nataraja, *********************** Dear Matthew, YES. It is true that Nataraja was famous only in Madras/Tamil Nadu areas (ca. 1900). I think the world popularity of Nataraja comes from Ananda Coomaraswamy's writings. Also, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), the famous sculptor, praised Him with a French poem ... The first detailed book on Nataraja was written in Tamil. See ca. taNTapANi tEcikar (Dandapani Desigar), ATal vallAn, 1967, tiruvAvaTutuRai AtInam, 400+ pages, many plates. Desigar quotes all the relevent passages from old tamil literature. C. Sivaramamurti got the idea from ATal vallAn & wrote it in English. He added few more sculptures from Badami etc., He gives many Sanskrit slokas written in South India by Umapati Sivam, Appayya Diksita etc., (Nataraja in art, thought & literature, 1974, National Museum) See the more recent book on Nataraja. It is a Ph.D. thesis from Madras university. The author's grandfather was a well-known tamil professor (pU. AlAlacuntaram ceTTiyaar) mu. a. mANikkavElu, tamizh n^ATTil naTaraacar vazhipaaTu, Madras, 1994 Sincerely, N. Ganesan nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov From pf at cix.compulink.co.uk Fri Aug 2 10:27:00 1996 From: pf at cix.compulink.co.uk (pf at cix.compulink.co.uk) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 10:27:00 +0000 Subject: division of labour in ascetic groups Message-ID: <161227025507.23782.13793261968853484181.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In-Reply-To: Hello everyone! I have a query. Who knows (contemporary) empirical studies on the organization of work, ownership of property, exchange, use of money etc. within Hindu or Buddhist ascetic groups/monasteries? I am writing on Jain ascetics and could't find much comparative material so far. Any help is warmly appreciated! Peter Fluegel University of Mainz pf at cix.compulink.co.uk From pbilmo at deakin.edu.au Fri Aug 2 02:52:37 1996 From: pbilmo at deakin.edu.au (purushottama bilimoria) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 12:52:37 +1000 Subject: Siddha Yoga Message-ID: <161227025505.23782.374222160966447513.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> What about the scathing article in the NEW YORKER entitled: Blissed Out, etc. It is about the intriques in the Cats-killing Up-state New York ashram and the feud between the brother-sister claimants to the succession issue (talk about gurus leaving behind ambiguous traces!) and how the battle was won. A mini epic for someone to write a small granth on. !). I think the article had appeared in the September 1992 issue; I will post the exact reference in my next darshan round. Chelas please await the a/divine revelation. Cheers. Purushottama On Thu, 1 Aug 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote: > Thank you very much to Vidya Sankarsundar, Gene R. Thursby and Pullat Devas > for taking interest in my questions concerning Siddha Yoga. I am very > grateful to Vidya Sankarsundar who offered me some additional help. I am > very honored by the answer of Gene R. Thursby who is an author of, I think, > 5 or 6 publications related to Siddha Yoga. In his modesty he forgot to > mention his authorship of the suggested chapter of the book edited by > T. Miller. > I think, major problem with Swami Muktananda thought is its > ecclectic features. The organization as such is working quite well given the > the scandals depicted by W. Rodarmor and Indian papers. However, I don't > think this kind of organization is very much in fashion these days. As far as > I know they are trying to find some place for themselves in Russia now. What > surprises me is the secrecy about Siddha Yoga. Polish members don't want to > talk about SY without permission of their leaders in South Fallsburg > and the leaders didn't allow me to ask polish members for their personal > opinions about SY. They also didn't answer to my very general questions > about the structure of SY etc. I think the secrecy would leave rather bad > impression in Poland. In fact, I think they overdid it. I was not asking > about the official statut of SY and the working of its Board of Trustees. > Gurumayi makes rather good impression but the present secrecy can make > people suspicious. Is anything I said controversial? > My regards > Leslaw Borowski > > From jgardner at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu Fri Aug 2 18:13:02 1996 From: jgardner at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (JR Gardner) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 13:13:02 -0500 Subject: After the dust settles . . . Message-ID: <161227025517.23782.7323008496348179855.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> After the many postings, updatings, and format revisions, where best did Charles Wikner's Sanskrit Course wind up? THere were several FTP's suggested, as well as URL's-- I was hoping to find the 8 1/2 x 11" paper size format. Thank you very much in advance, John Robert Gardner From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Fri Aug 2 11:27:17 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 13:27:17 +0200 Subject: Siddha Yoga Message-ID: <161227025509.23782.7379041318720677810.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> My thanks to Prof. Prof. Gene Thursby, Vidyasankar Sundar,Cynthia Col and Purushottama Bilim for their help and offers of help (Prof. Thursby was most generous with three of his important articles). All the scientific articles I mentioned were written by prof. Thursby. On the other hand, none of the articles published in popular press was written by any of the mentioned list members. (At least to my knowledge.) I must have used some funny syntax to cause the impression to the contrary. Also, I know apologies to Prof. Vidyasankar Sundar for misspelling his name. I would like to ask him to give me his email address. I have been trying to answer his private letter using the v... at p... address but got in return only the communicate of "host unknown". I would like to give some more details on the subject of SY in private letters. As for Siddha Yoga, I know they stage a theater performance around/on Xmas in the nineties presenting poor Santa Claus beeing slendered by bad press despite his hard work. A blue figure of THE SELF came with consolations. So, siddhayogis know their image is not very clear still they don't want mehr Licht and prefere to stay in shadow despite the fact they bow to the Light of Consciousness. A bit strange. I seem to get conflicting messages about (a) New Yorker publication(s). One of them says it's an article by Lis Harris "O Guru, Guru, Guru" from Nov 1994, the other says about some article from 14 Dec 1994 (no pages mentioned). Am I right in thinking there is only one article from that period? Thanks and regards, Leslaw Borowski From sohum at ms.uky.edu Fri Aug 2 19:49:53 1996 From: sohum at ms.uky.edu (sohum at ms.uky.edu) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 15:49:53 -0400 Subject: After the dust settles . . . Message-ID: <161227025519.23782.3031037896064116161.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear John, You asked: ||After the many postings, updatings, and format revisions, where best did ||Charles Wikner's Sanskrit Course wind up? THere were several FTP's ||suggested, as well as URL's-- I was hoping to find the 8 1/2 x 11" paper ||size format. Well, I did download and print it. These are about 145 pages, though. Do you really want a copy? You can have the file from me, if you feel like downloading it. let me know. I do not feel like printing the file again - it took a long time and I had to fight with the cartridge (it was low on ink). I could have a xerox made in a commercial place and mail it! P.S. I had some more comments about your site: BTW, I got the message that the site http://vedavid.org/rvb.html does not exist (could not be found)! Also, the top title seems to be wrong, it reads: Welcome to Vedvid ##namaani## ^^^ You probably mean ##namaami## OR is this some obscure Vedic form and my face is about to become red..? More corrections: In rv.html : it reads ##R^igveda sa\m+hita## I find the \m+ or the Vedic chandrabindu unusual, but more importantly it should be ##saMhitaa##. About the Kashi font: The word ##aatman.h## appears as ##tman.h##. The word ##kratu## uses an unusual form of the ##rakaara##, besides, it is misplaced - shifted to the right, when done properly, the top of the angle should be at the foot of the letter ##ka##. The letter ##ha## in ##brahman.h## is missing its left lower curve. The letters also don't appear aligned properly, but that may be an html problem. I think, you should use something as nice as ITRANS-TeX, or use Madhav's madhushree font - it is WYSIWIG and beautiful! If you give me the list, I can easily make the ps files of these few words! But really, you should get the full implementation of ITRANS. As a poor-man's ITRANS, you can try this utility of Atul, whereby you send an ips or itx file and you get a postscript file back in mail! -- |Avinash Sathaye Phone:(606)277-0130(Home), (606)257-8832(Office) | And now, the next thought is from our CPU ... >>>>>>>>>>>> We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a fish. From HMARLE at Vela.filg.uj.edu.pl Fri Aug 2 16:04:31 1996 From: HMARLE at Vela.filg.uj.edu.pl (Halina Marlewicz) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 16:04:31 +0000 Subject: the oldest buddhist text found Message-ID: <161227025510.23782.13038390589467735596.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members, let me thank to Frank Conlon, Michael Rabe, George Thompson, Jerry Losty and Richard Salomon for their immediate response to my question. Doubts dispelled and curiosity fed for the moment, I still wonder about few things: will it ever be possible to determine the actual provenance of the scrolls? Will the history of Buddhism have to be written anew, considering the fact that, as R.Salomon writes "they (scrolls) will provide us with earliest documentary evidence of the contents of any of the Buddhist canons". I am no buddhologist but the discovery seems to be one one of greatest recent events in Indology, therefrom my interest. And, of course, my imagination is greatly stirred by hints from G.Thompson (who, by the way, not J.Silk refers to The New York Times article) as to unexpectable poetical valours of the text. Can't wait to read New York Times! thank you again, Halina Marlewicz Jagiellonian University Indology Dept. Krakow, Poland e-mail: hmarle at vela.filg.uj.edu.pl From falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de Fri Aug 2 16:13:53 1996 From: falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de (falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 18:13:53 +0200 Subject: director general of ASI Message-ID: <161227025514.23782.12438656004555005131.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> For several years Mrs. Moulik acted as director general of the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi. Does anyone know if she is still in office? Thanks Harry falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Fri Aug 2 18:10:52 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 19:10:52 +0100 Subject: University of Virginia Hinduism Position (fwd) Message-ID: <161227025516.23782.11052425491842301484.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Something went wrong with the original posting of this message; here is a copy: > The University of Virginia, Department of Religious Studies, invites > applications for a tenure-track position as assistant professor of Hindu > Studies, to begin September 1, 1997. Area of specialization is open. The > teaching load consists of five (5) courses per year, including undergraduate > lecture courses on Asian religions and seminars in the graduate program. > Candidates must also be able to offer reading courses in Sanskrit texts and > direct dissertations. Ph.D. is required. Salary is competitive. Closing > date for applications is September 30, 1996. Submissions for this > position in the spring of 1996 remain valid for this announcement unless > prior applicants withdraw (prior applicants may update/supplement their > materials if they wish). New applicants should send their dossier, c.v., and > three (3) letters of recommendation to Jeffrey Hopkins, Hindu Studies Search > Committee, Department of Religious Studies, Cocke Hall, University of > Virginia, Charlottesville VA 22903. EOE/AA. > > Prof. Paul Jeffrey Hopkins > Department of Religious Studies > 104 Cocke Hall > University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903 > phone (804) 924-6716; fax (804) 924-1467 > home phone and fax (804) 973-3256 > > > > From Hrid at aol.com Sat Aug 3 02:47:08 1996 From: Hrid at aol.com (Hrid at aol.com) Date: Fri, 02 Aug 96 22:47:08 -0400 Subject: Gita chronology Message-ID: <161227025521.23782.13796083784568438481.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In his book, "The Universal Gita", p xvi, Eric J. Sharpe states about the age of the Bhagavad-gita: "As with all ancient Hindu scriptures, absolute chronology cannot be arrived at by any means currently at our disposal; and relative chronology can only give the wide range of dates which we have mentioned [400 B.C. to A.D. 200]." Since in the absence of ANY absolute chronology, mere relative chronology could not produce absolute chronology, even within a wide range, and given that he has set the oldest possible date for the Gita at 400 B.C., I presume that Sharpe is here making an implicit, and customary, reference to a fairly reliable absolute date for a non-Hindu, i.e. Buddhist, scripture. The most obvious and common example of Buddhist influence, of course, would be the Gita's use of such terms as brahma-nirvaa.nam, found in the Gita at 2.72, and 5.24,25, and 26. We also know, of course, that many Hindus will claim that such terms demonstrate Buddhist borrowing from the Gita; and that in any case Buddha is an avatara of Vishnu, etc. Be that as it may, I would like to ask the following: which articles and books best present the relevant arguments used to date the Gita from both an academic and a Hindu perspective? I have just begun my inquiry into this topic, and my initial readings are a bit dissapointing. I am as always sincerely appreciative for any help in this regard. Howard Resnick From Hrid at aol.com Sat Aug 3 17:03:32 1996 From: Hrid at aol.com (Hrid at aol.com) Date: Sat, 03 Aug 96 13:03:32 -0400 Subject: Gita chronology Message-ID: <161227025525.23782.1221798496770043414.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Professor Fosse, Thank you very much for the references on Gita chronology, and also for your personal recommendations. Sincerely, Howard Resnick From L.M.Fosse at internet.no Sat Aug 3 11:11:28 1996 From: L.M.Fosse at internet.no (L.M.Fosse at internet.no) Date: Sat, 03 Aug 96 14:11:28 +0300 Subject: Gita chronology Message-ID: <161227025523.23782.8221542169157760303.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Dr. Resnick, the following articles might be of interest to you: George C. O. Haas (1922). "Recurrent and Parallel Passages in the Principal Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita." Journal of the American Oriental Society, 42: 1ff. Mislav Jezic (1986). Textual Layers of the Bhagavadgita as Traces of Indian Cultural History. Sanskrit and World Culture. Berlin, 628-638. Mislav Jezic (-). The First Yoga Layer in the Bhagavadgita. Ludwik Sternbach Felicitation Volume. Lucknow, Akhila Bharatiya Sanskrit Parishad. Georg von Simson (1969). "Die Einschaltung der Bhagavadgita im Bhishmaparvan des Mahabharata." Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens, Wien, : 159-174. Since I have been working with chronological problems myself, let me point out a few difficulties: Before you try to define the relative or absolute chronology of a given piece of writing, you must feel fairly certain that this piece of writing is homogeneous and not a composite work. The BG is a composite work. Furthermore, and generally speaking, you cannot use information deriving from one or two verses as a means of defining the chronology. Any single verse can, in principle, have been added at a later date. Only features that prevail in various parts of a work, with a reasonably even spread, can be used for dating purposes. You should also remember that Sanskrit works were sometimes rewritten to fit new purposes. Thus, a text may rest on an older, and somewhat different text, with a different ideological slant. This makes dating in many cases a very uncertain game. If you use linguistic criteria, it may seem older than it is in its present shape. Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudveien 76, Leil. 114, N-0674 OSLO Norway Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 E-mail: L.M.Fosse at internet.no From WIKNER at nacdh4.nac.ac.za Mon Aug 5 07:10:19 1996 From: WIKNER at nacdh4.nac.ac.za (Charles Wikner) Date: Mon, 05 Aug 96 09:10:19 +0200 Subject: After the dust settles . . . Message-ID: <161227025529.23782.13780231385638757990.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> John Gardner wrote: > After the many postings, updatings, and format revisions, where best did > Charles Wikner's Sanskrit Course wind up? THere were several FTP's > suggested, as well as URL's-- I was hoping to find the 8 1/2 x 11" paper > size format. There are only two editions: (1) The June edition is standard PostScript and readily printable, but older versions of GhostScript/GhostView have difficulty displaying properly it on-screen; and (2) the July edition (same contents) is readily viewable on-screen with the older versions of Ghostscript/GhostView but seems unprintable on standard PostScript printers. There are also two versions: for letter paper (US) and A4 paper (Europe). As to sites: so far as I have been informed, details are appended below. Regards, Charles Wikner. ----------------------- Summary of Sites -------------------------------- AUSTRALIA: (July edition, letter and A4 paper versions): ea.biz.usyd.edu.au/pub/sanskrit/ EUROPE: (July edition, letter and A4 paper versions) http://www.inca.de/user/will/ousia/Indologist.html SOUTH AFRICA: (Source Site): ftp.nac.ac.za/wikner/ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: (June edition, letter paper version only) ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu/private/sanskrit/sktintro.ps.Z, sktintps.zip (June edition, letter paper version only) http://reddy20.tamu.edu/~msr/sktintro.ps.gz ----------------------- From Announce Message ------------------------------ An introductory course to the Sanskrit language is now available by anonymous ftp from ftp.nac.ac.za/wikner/ BEWARE: there is a very thin piece of wire to South Africa, and it is stretched rather taut, so the best time to ftp would be Sunday morning local time (GMT+2:00). The files are: sktintro.ps600-a4paper-july96 (5695k) sktintro.ps600-a4paper-july96-zip (676k) - remember to set TYPE to BINARY sktintro.ps600-letter-july96 (5696k) sktintro.ps600-letter-july96-zip (677k) - remember to set TYPE to BINARY Enjoy! Charles Wikner. wikner at nacdh4.nac.ac.za ----------------------- Extracts from posts -------------------------------- From: Nandu Abhyankar Your file sktintro.ps file is loaded to jaguar site so that in case it is faster for people in US or UK they can access it. In case anyone had difficulty accessing your site you can ask them to try this. For size constraints, they are compressed as sktintro.ps.Z (Unix) and sktintps.zip (PC) and will be linked through ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu/private/sanskrit/ or through sanskrit.html. _____________________________ From: MSR Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 10:35:14 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: [Fwd: INTRODUCTORY SANSKRIT VIA FTP (FWD)] namaami I downloaded the book by shrii Charles Wikner. For the sake of convenience of folks in US ( as a support to the thin wire going to south africa), I have kept in http://reddy20.tamu.edu/~msr/sktintro.ps.gz With browsers like netscape and lynx, it is possible to download this file. It is a compressed file ( using gzip) of original letter format file. I don't have enough space to keep the file in original form ( close to 9 MB). May be sanskrit site at jaguar can host these files. Thanks for your attention. dhanyavaadaH - -- Ravi _____________________________ From: Scott Robson Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 23:50:09 +1000 (EST) Subject: Those big sanskrit files on ftp I have put that much talked about sanskrit file on the ftp site ea.biz.usyd.edu.au/pub/sanskrit These are both the a4 and letter size versions there. Note that this site is in Australia and hence may be slow for some people. I also ask that if people are having trouble getting the files, please email me and let me know. If the site gets too busy, they will be removed from there very quickly so please be responsible :> Hope this helps some people... Scott _____________________________ From: IN%"indology at liverpool.ac.uk" 8-JUL-1996 16:10:17.07 Subj: Wikner's Sanskrit Course Dear Indologists, Charles Wikner's materials for Introductory Sanskrit are now available under "Sanskrit" at the European mirror of ousia: http://www.inca.de/user/will/ousia/Indologist.html Please use this site instead of Wikner's FTP site to download the materials. That server is rather slow and overloaded. The larger files are zipped. Regards, Will Wagers "Reality is the best metaphor." ousia: http://www.iglobal.net/pub/wagers/ousia Web Mechanix: http://www.10mb.com/webmechanix _____________________________ From pbilmo at deakin.edu.au Mon Aug 5 06:37:05 1996 From: pbilmo at deakin.edu.au (purushottama bilimoria) Date: Mon, 05 Aug 96 16:37:05 +1000 Subject: Siddha Yoga Message-ID: <161227025527.23782.1550839602245127857.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The article I have in front of me is entitled" "Annals of Religion O Guru, Guru, Guru". It is by Lis Harris and it appears in the New Yorker Nov 14, 1994, pp. 92-109. However, the front cover bears the leader: "Blissed off How Gurumayi's brother fell from grace, and other secretas of the upscale upstate ashram". My earlier reference to the cover title might have given the impression that there are two different articles. There is only one such. By the way, the rejoinders from ashram-stalwarts was even more interesting. These appeared, from memory, in a subsequent issue of the New Yorker. Yours blissfully. From aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca Tue Aug 6 15:34:03 1996 From: aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca (aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca) Date: Tue, 06 Aug 96 08:34:03 -0700 Subject: One bibliographic and one lexical inquiry Message-ID: <161227025533.23782.425799847896967466.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dharma-caurya-rasaayana, a short text I have recently studied, was printed in 1946 in Brahma-vidy? or the Adyar Library Bulletin. Could anyone kindly give me the volume number (the photocopy I have does not contain the vol no) and also clarify if the text was subsequently published as part of the Adyar Library Text Series. In verse 3.50, the Dharma-caurya-rasaayan uses the expression arbhaa.ta-dhvani. Contextually, it should stand for some kind of loud noise - some sound like that of an alarm which was made to attract the attention of guards to a burglary etc. I have been unable to locate the word arbhaa.ta in the dictionaries accessible to me. It is said to occur in the usage of speakers in the Maharashtra-Karnataka border area in the sense of 'big, great' in a somewhat non-complimentary way. As the Dharma-caurya-rasaayana was most probably written in south India by an Andhra author, the word is very likely to come from a south Indian language. Can anyone throw light on the precise meaning and, if possible, the etymology of the word? Ashok Aklujkar Professor, Dept. of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z2 From mmdesh at umich.edu Tue Aug 6 13:40:57 1996 From: mmdesh at umich.edu (Madhav Deshpande) Date: Tue, 06 Aug 96 09:40:57 -0400 Subject: question? Message-ID: <161227025531.23782.8900752753347485235.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone have the fax number or email address for Professor Eric Pirart at Liege, Belgium? Thanks for assistance. Madhav Deshpande From srini at engin.umich.edu Tue Aug 6 18:32:37 1996 From: srini at engin.umich.edu (Srinivasan Pichumani) Date: Tue, 06 Aug 96 14:32:37 -0400 Subject: One bibliographic and one lexical inquiry Message-ID: <161227025535.23782.12242739486671479664.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >>arbhaa.ta-dhvani In Tamil, I have heard the word "aarpaa.t.tam" used to indicate a lot of noise... created by either a single person or a group... just checked the online webster definition of "din" and it seems to agree well with what I know of "arpATTam"... a loud noise; esp : a welter of confused or discordant sounds I don't know if the Tamil use of this word is restricted to a certain dialect or otherwise. -Srini. ps: Does kolAhala, or other Hindi colloquial terms like hullA seem synonymous ? From zwilling at facstaff.wisc.edu Tue Aug 6 20:41:58 1996 From: zwilling at facstaff.wisc.edu (leonard zwilling) Date: Tue, 06 Aug 96 14:41:58 -0600 Subject: E-mail address sought Message-ID: <161227025538.23782.3335378947171838900.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Can someone provide me with the e-mail address of Johannes Schneider at the Frei Universitat Berlin? Thanx. Leonard Zwilling From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Tue Aug 6 18:36:29 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Tue, 06 Aug 96 20:36:29 +0200 Subject: answer to Lis Harris Message-ID: <161227025536.23782.10407450042919833249.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear List Members, I learned there were reactions from SYDA to Lis Harris article "O Guru, Guru, Guru" from 14 Nov 1994 (The New Yorker) published in another issue of the same paper. The problem is I cannot ask library to send a demand for them for want of data concernig the date and numbers of pages of the issue the reactions were printed in. Does anybody know them? Leslaw Borowski From aparpola at cc.helsinki.fi Wed Aug 7 03:09:46 1996 From: aparpola at cc.helsinki.fi (Asko H S Parpola) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 06:09:46 +0300 Subject: One bibliographic and one lexical inquiry Message-ID: <161227025540.23782.16091387595294499637.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Tue, 6 Aug 1996 aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca wrote: > Dharma-caurya-rasaayana, a short text I have recently studied, was printed > in 1946 in Brahma-vidy? or the Adyar Library Bulletin. Could anyone kindly > give me the volume number (the photocopy I have does not contain the vol > no) and also clarify if the text was subsequently published as part of the > Adyar Library Text Series.> DharmacauryarasAyana was published as no. 9 of The Adyar Library Pamphlet Series, but is now out of print. That is all I can see from the Adyar Library's List of publications 1986 (with later handwritten additions from about 1990, bringing it up to date). Best regards, AP --- Asko Parpola (E-mail Asko.Parpola at Helsinki.Fi) ---------------------------------------------------------- Department of Asian and African Studies, Univ. of Helsinki From pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu Wed Aug 7 14:45:00 1996 From: pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu (Peter J. Claus) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 07:45:00 -0700 Subject: how to reference list discussions Message-ID: <161227025556.23782.11258727535767315059.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Members, Since both writers presumably have email and the address of the original is in the header, it would seem easy enough to email a request to the original author to publish the quoted matter. I think it is one thing to quote one another in LIST discussions (ie. public forum) and another to carry this to printed/published media where there is no possiblity for quick reply. Besides, email tends to be ephemeral, print is forever. Peter Claus On Wed, 7 Aug 1996, Axel Michaels wrote: > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 10:34:00 BST > From: Axel Michaels > To: Members of the list > Subject: Re: how to reference list discussions > > Madhav Deshpande wrote: > > > > Communications on Indology or a similar network are scholarly, > >but casual, and not to be treated as anyone's "considered final opinions" > >on a given topic. Therefore, there is a great danger of citations from > >e-mail messages leading to misrepresentation. Minimally, I would suggest > >that the author of a message needs to be explicitly asked for his/her > >permission for a specific quote, and be given an opporunity to review > >that quote. > > Madhav Deshpande > > I basically agree with this point. However, e-mails in a discussion > group are not private or personal communications. If one has to be aware > that one might be quoted, unneccessary messages could perhaps decrease. A > solution could be that one indicates in an e-mail, if one does not want to > be quoted. > > A. Michaels > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof.Dr. Axel Michaels > Universit{t Bern > Institut f}r Religionswissenschaft > Lerchenweg 36 > CH-3000 Bern 9 > Tel.: (0041)(0)31 631 80 62, Fax.: (0041)(0)31 631 35 51 > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > From Velu at relhist.uu.se Wed Aug 7 03:22:54 1996 From: Velu at relhist.uu.se (Velu at relhist.uu.se) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 08:22:54 +0500 Subject: Query on Nataraja Message-ID: <161227025544.23782.10451499537698707797.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Ganesan, you trip to Tamilnadu. How did your trip go? Do you plan to circulate any information about the trip through the Indology circle? Do you feel that the Tamilnadu government, on its own or through the Delhi government, can do anything to bring peace, on favourable terms to the Tamils, in Sri Lanka? I want to ask you a favour. I want to write a note on Kundalakeci to the fotrthcoming publication on Tamil Buddhism from Uppsala.I hope that you will be aware that a collection(from commentaries) of available Kundalakeci verses have been published in Tamilnadu many years ago. I am not sure of bibliographic details. Where can I get this? Is it available as source material in Internet? Regards, A.Veluppillai Alvappillai Veluppillai Uppsala University History of Religions P.O. Box 1604 S-751 46 Uppsala tel: +46 18 18 22 93 fax: +46 18 12 84 71 e-mail: Velu at relhist.uu.se From MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN Wed Aug 7 08:48:18 1996 From: MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN (MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 08:48:18 +0000 Subject: One bibliographic and one lexical inquiry Message-ID: <161227025542.23782.16331036216312150796.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Prof. Aklujkar, Yes, the word Arbu, Arubu, Arpu is Kannada meaning: crying aloud; ArbaTa = crying aloud, roaring; a loud note or sound; e.g. vAdyada ArbaTada permorahu (i.e. the loud note of the instrument); ArbaTasu = to cry aloud, to roar ArbATa is Telugu; in Tamil: ArppATTam. However, Arpu means valour, impetuosity. The root sememe is: Ar (-pp, -tt-) to shout, roar, bellow, slander, vilify (Tamil); The Sanskritization is: raT = to howl, roar, yell, etc. (to scream); AraTa = crying out (pANini); AraTi = noise; ArDA = loud bawling (Marathi); AraDai = cries out (Prakrt) roA-rAT = lamentation (Hindi) Regards. Kalyanaraman. From michaels at relwi.unibe.ch Wed Aug 7 08:41:09 1996 From: michaels at relwi.unibe.ch (Axel Michaels) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 09:41:09 +0100 Subject: how to reference list discussions Message-ID: <161227025550.23782.17220480273750638246.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Madhav Deshpande wrote: > > Communications on Indology or a similar network are scholarly, >but casual, and not to be treated as anyone's "considered final opinions" >on a given topic. Therefore, there is a great danger of citations from >e-mail messages leading to misrepresentation. Minimally, I would suggest >that the author of a message needs to be explicitly asked for his/her >permission for a specific quote, and be given an opporunity to review >that quote. > Madhav Deshpande I basically agree with this point. However, e-mails in a discussion group are not private or personal communications. If one has to be aware that one might be quoted, unneccessary messages could perhaps decrease. A solution could be that one indicates in an e-mail, if one does not want to be quoted. A. Michaels --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof.Dr. Axel Michaels Universit{t Bern Institut f}r Religionswissenschaft Lerchenweg 36 CH-3000 Bern 9 Tel.: (0041)(0)31 631 80 62, Fax.: (0041)(0)31 631 35 51 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca Wed Aug 7 17:04:19 1996 From: aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca (aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 10:04:19 -0700 Subject: Thanks Message-ID: <161227025558.23782.16264560848251403220.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I very much appreciate the prompt help received from Vidyasankar Sundaresan, Srinivasan Pichumani, Asko H S Parpola and S. Kalyanaraman with regard to the requests I had made for bibliographic and lexical information. Ashok Aklujkar Professor, Dept. of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z2 From Frank.VandenBossche at rug.ac.be Wed Aug 7 08:08:52 1996 From: Frank.VandenBossche at rug.ac.be (Frank Van Den Bossche) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 10:08:52 +0200 Subject: question? Message-ID: <161227025546.23782.12335642371689029308.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 14:50 6/08/96 BST, you wrote: >Does anyone have the fax number or email address for Professor Eric >Pirart at Liege, Belgium? Thanks for assistance. > Madhav Deshpande > >Prof. Eric Pirart: office phone 32-41-665545, fax 32-41-665655. With regards. Frank Van Den Bossche. > From Frank.VandenBossche at rug.ac.be Wed Aug 7 08:11:43 1996 From: Frank.VandenBossche at rug.ac.be (Frank Van Den Bossche) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 10:11:43 +0200 Subject: to M. Deshpande Message-ID: <161227025548.23782.9944536263688962816.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 14:50 6/08/96 BST, you wrote: >Does anyone have the fax number or email address for Professor Eric >Pirart at Liege, Belgium? Thanks for assistance. > Madhav Deshpande > > > From falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de Wed Aug 7 11:56:45 1996 From: falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de (falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 13:56:45 +0200 Subject: E-mail address sought Message-ID: <161227025552.23782.355524631528776724.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > > Can someone provide me with the e-mail address of Johannes Schneider at the > Frei Universitat Berlin? Thanx. Leonard Zwilling > Dr. Johannes Schneider Institut fuer indische Philologie und Kunstgeschichte Koenigin-Luise-Str. 34A D-14195 Berlin From falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de Wed Aug 7 12:00:31 1996 From: falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de (falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 14:00:31 +0200 Subject: E-mail address sought Message-ID: <161227025554.23782.1962178902953798025.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > > Can someone provide me with the e-mail address of Johannes Schneider at the > Frei Universitat Berlin? Thanx. Leonard Zwilling > > J. Schneider does not use e-mail. In case of urgency you can send a message at my address falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de Harry From pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu Thu Aug 8 00:59:15 1996 From: pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu (Peter J. Claus) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 17:59:15 -0700 Subject: South Asia/India booklist(old)available Message-ID: <161227025564.23782.1707097399117737804.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> My postal address is Peter Claus 1685 Arch St. Berkeley CA 94709 On Wed, 7 Aug 1996, ARB wrote: > Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 23:47:41 BST > From: ARB > To: Members of the list > Subject: South Asia/India booklist(old)available > > Booklist with out-of-print South Asia/India titles > just issued by Asian Rare Books(New York City) will > be posted to you through regular mail if you > send us your mailing address at ARB at maestro.com > > website http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccs/cuwl/clients/arb/ > Please visit us by appointment if you get to New york as we > have a large and mostly unlisted South Asia stock of books > > From magier at columbia.edu Wed Aug 7 23:19:27 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 19:19:27 -0400 Subject: S.Asia Position Announcements Message-ID: <161227025562.23782.13286889104151639123.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The following academic position announcements are being forwarded to your listserv or mailing list from the ACADEMIC POSITIONS section of The South Asia Gopher. Please contact the position advertisers directly for any further information. Thanks. David Magier South Asia Gopher ====================================================================== University of Chicago. The Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations invites applications for two positions, one at open rank and one a tenure-track position at the rank of assistant professor, to begin in the 1997-98 academic year. We are seeking individuals whose scholarly projects center on the analysis of South Asian-language texts (oral, written, or visual). Essential qualifications are mastery of one or more South Asian languages, demonstrated engagement with pertinent theoretical issues in the study of South Asia, and the ability to contribute to general education at the undergraduate level. The historical period is medieval or modern (not "classical"). Send a letter of application, a current c.v., and three letters of recommendation to: Chair, Search Committee, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago,1130 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637-1543, USA (e-mail: k-mosely at uchicago.edu). The Search Committee will begin reviewing applications on October 1, 1996. The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer From dvaita at eskimo.com Thu Aug 8 10:14:25 1996 From: dvaita at eskimo.com (dvaita at eskimo.com) Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 03:14:25 -0700 Subject: Dvaita Mailing List & Dvaita Digest Message-ID: <161227025566.23782.11813705498889634609.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Greetings. One resource of possible interest to Indologists is the duet of the Dvaita Mailing List and and Dvaita Digest (both mutually gatewayed) which are devoted to discussing Dvaita, the dualist school of Vedanta. The help file for the list/digest is at http://www.eskimo.com/~dvaita/list/list_help.html and a web archive is also available. If you haven't seen it before, please also try the Dvaita Home Page at http://www.rit.edu/~mrreee/dvaita.html Have a nice day. Regards, Shrisha Rao On behalf of the Cyber Maadhva Sangha From mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA Thu Aug 8 12:00:44 1996 From: mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 08:00:44 -0400 Subject: Email addresses Message-ID: <161227025569.23782.4554461016153619083.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Would anyone know the email addresses of -Steven Collins, University of Chicago -Frank Reynolds, University of Chicago -Janice Stargardt, University of Cambridge -Sudipta Kaviraj, ? Thanks in advance. sushil mittal iiis From mchari at bcm.tmc.edu Thu Aug 8 13:12:45 1996 From: mchari at bcm.tmc.edu (mchari at bcm.tmc.edu) Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 08:12:45 -0500 Subject: South Asia/India booklist(old)available Message-ID: <161227025570.23782.8818686180043599301.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Sir, I would appreciate receiving a list of books issued by you. Thanks. Mohan V. Chari, PhD, 4246 Meadowchase Lane, Houston, TX, 77014 From Peter.Schalk at relhist.uu.se Thu Aug 8 12:53:25 1996 From: Peter.Schalk at relhist.uu.se (Peter.Schalk at relhist.uu.se) Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 13:53:25 +0100 Subject: International workshop on the culture of the Ilankai Tamilar Message-ID: <161227025572.23782.944760488336750868.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> International Workshop on the Culture of the Ilankai Tamilar, in Uppsala, Sweden, 28-31 May 1998. First Call (August 1996) **************************************************************************** Dear colleagues. During the last few years several very good academic publications on the history, religions, language and ethnic characteristics of the Ilankai Tamilar have been published. There seems to be an interest for the study of the Ilankai Tamilar in several places of the world. So, why not co-ordinate all these efforts and arrange an "International Workshop on the culture of the Ilankai Tamilar" with studies that fall within the fields of social sciences and arts studies? If there is an interest, the workshop will be organised by professors Alvapillai Veluppillai and Peter Schalk in Uppsala from 28-31 May, 1998 (arrivals on 27 March, departures on 1 June). We need so much time to collect funds to make it possible for scholars from Ilankai and India, for those who are writing on Tamil culture in the regions of Yalppanam, Vanni, Tirukkonamalai, Mattakalappu, Kolumpu, Malaiyakam, and on Tamil places of worship in the South, to come to Uppsala. Scholars from other parts of the world, inclusive of countries of Tamil exile, will have to cover their own expenses for registration, travelling and accomodation in Uppsala. Ilankai Tamil culture is Ilankai Tamil exile culture also. There is an Ilankai Tamil culture in Toronto, Sydney, Paris, Bern, Oslo, etc. We know young Tamilar who read Strindberg in Swedish and Sartre in French, and we have met even "Kiwi Tamilar". There is a flood of Tamil exile literature. Regarding "culture of the Ilankai Tamilar", it will be the task of the workshop to consider different definitions and come to a conclusion. We just want to emphasise one dynamic and formative aspect of this culture, its shifting relations to South India, to Sinhala Buddhist culture, to the Tamilulakam and to the rest of the world. There is a tendency that social scientists constitute a majority in conferences. There is also a tendency that modern studies dominate. This is most welcome as long some historical disciplines also are represented. We want to enumerate some of these disciplines through which Lankan Tamil culture can be studied. Having been neglected, they are welcome in Uppsala. Epigraphy Pre-colonial history Historiography Pre-colonial literature Iconography Archaeology Art history Historical and comparative linguistics Dialect studies Prosody Tamil Saivism Tamil Buddhism Tamil Christianity Tamil Islam When we say "workshop", we mean a group of about 20 people who have sent a paper not later than Tuesday 31 March 1998 for preparation of all participiants, and especially of one appointed discussant. The paper delivered is a draft, that may be re-written by the author after the workshop, considering the comments having been made by the participiants. Each paper will be given much time to be commented upon. The aim is to publish the contributions in a series of academic publications from Uppsala University. The publication is expected to reflect many aspects of Ilankai Tamil culture. We are aware that there is a Sri Lanka Study Conference already. The next (6th) will be arranged in Nuvara in August 1997. The international workshop we have in mind focuses on the culture of the Lankan Tamilar in strictly academic presentations in an exclusive academic surrounding (that goes back to 1477, the date of the founding of Uppsala University). We are sending this letter to some selected scholars to which we have an e-mail address, fax and mail address. We request you kindly to foward it to scholars who might have an interest in contributing with a paper on the culture of the Lankan Tamilar. We are expecting your decision to participate with a working title of your paper, a summary of it in about 400 words and/or suggestions for improvement of the workshop's organisation. Having got your declaration of interest, we shall send you information about accomodation, Uppsala University and information about our publications pertaining to the culture of the Lankan Tamilar. With the best wishes Peter Schalk, professor in the History of Religions, Uppsala University Alvapillai Veluppillai, professsor of Tamil, Dr. h.c. (Uppsala). Phones: 46 18 182293(office), 46 18 252682 (residence, P Schalk), 46 18 403648(residence A Veluppillai). Email: Tamil.studies at relhist.uu.se Fax: 46 18 12 84 71 or 46 18 241786 Mail: P Schalk, A Veluppillai, Box 1604, 75146 Uppsala, Sweden ************************ From magier at columbia.edu Thu Aug 8 18:01:24 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 14:01:24 -0400 Subject: New Publication Message-ID: <161227025574.23782.2378794517948841094.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The following new publication annoucement is being forwarded to your listserv or mailing list at the request of the editor. Please contact Dr. Gambhir dirrectly if you have any questions or comments. Thank you. David Magier South Asia Gopher ================================================================== From: vgambhir at sas.upenn.edu (Dr. Vijay Gambhir) Subject: New Publication Dear David Magier, Please announce the publication of the following new book.. -------------------- The Teaching and Acquisition of South Asian Languages Edited by Vijay Gambhir, 1995 University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia Ph: 1-800-445-9880 Cloth, ISBN 0-8122-3328-x, $29.95 The first book to apply the latest methodological analysis to the languages of South Asia. The Teaching and Acquisition of South Asian Languages provides a much needed examination of learners and their learning patterns, language materials and their delivery, classroom environments, and learning conditions beyond the classroom. The contributors, accredited researchers and experienced teachers, test important universal learning hypotheses on "less commonly taught languages" and find that those circumstances have significant implications for theory and practice. The book brings out into focus a variety of issues related to lingusitic theory, second language acquisition research, non-verbal communication, discourse appropriateness, learner variation, and strategies for developing speaking, listening, and reading skills. It is also a valuable addition to the general body of knowledge in the field of adult language acquisition. A carefully prepared index and an extensive bibliography covering both the South Asian field and general literature enhance the book's usefulness as a reference guide. From jgardner at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu Thu Aug 8 19:53:32 1996 From: jgardner at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (JR Gardner) Date: Thu, 08 Aug 96 14:53:32 -0500 Subject: Commentaries? Message-ID: <161227025576.23782.12140294598449140718.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I am curious as to what the earliest, and most influential, as well as one "subaltern" (for lack of a better word) commentaries are on the Yoga Sutra's. As I am preparing a bibliography for a possible curriculum, please--where possible--include citation information. Thank you in advance, John Robert Gardner University of Iowa From Velu at relhist.uu.se Fri Aug 9 03:49:08 1996 From: Velu at relhist.uu.se (Velu at relhist.uu.se) Date: Fri, 09 Aug 96 08:49:08 +0500 Subject: International workshop on the culture of the Ilankai Tamilar Message-ID: <161227025578.23782.6781806154797678517.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Peter, In your draft, I can suggest some minor changes. There should be a comma and not a full-stop after ?Dear Colleagues?. Among the subjects listed, I think that we can leave out Prosody and substitute Grammatical Tradition in its place. We can add Folklore to the list. About the date for the receipt of papers here, I feel that we have to make it 1st of March and not 31st of March as I know that we may not get the papers by the first deadline. We can change the deadline later and make it early April. I am going through Dennis Hudson?s paper. Did you notice that he was referring to the Pallavas, trying to get Chinese aid to fight against against the Arabs and the Tibetans, who were threatening their trade in South-East Asia? I have checked the original of his paper and he indeed makes a statement in two places. The reference to the Tibetans in this context seems absurd and cannot be substantiated. As the editor,I wonder whether you have any responsibility for this statement. Velu. Alvappillai Veluppillai Uppsala University History of Religions P.O. Box 1604 S-751 46 Uppsala tel: +46 18 18 22 93 fax: +46 18 12 84 71 e-mail: Velu at relhist.uu.se From athr at loc.gov Mon Aug 12 15:27:49 1996 From: athr at loc.gov (Allen Thrasher) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 11:27:49 -0400 Subject: Ilankai Tamilar Message-ID: <161227025584.23782.9083210221665987678.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> If I may piggyback on Peter Schalk's first announcement of an International Workshop on the Culture of the Ilankai Tamilar, let me say that the Library of Congress would be most interested in acquiring materials on the subject and would be grateful to be notified of publications by them. We have already made several microfiche collections on the Sri Lanka troubles and have cataloged several collections of materials about them kept here in Washington in inkprint. We would of course be particularly grateful if the publications were sent to us free. :) Allen W. Thrasher Senior Reference Librarian Southern Asia Section Library of Congress Washington, DC 20540-4744 tel. 202-707-5600 fax 202-707-1724 Email: athr at loc.gov 3On Thu, 8 Aug 1996, Peter Schalk wrote: > International Workshop on the Culture of the Ilankai Tamilar, > in Uppsala, Sweden, 28-31 May 1998. > > First Call (August 1996) > > **************************************************************************** > > Dear colleagues. > > During the last few years several very good academic publications on the > history, religions, language and ethnic characteristics of the Ilankai > Tamilar have been published. There seems to be an interest for the study of > the Ilankai Tamilar in several places of the world. So, why not co-ordinate > all these efforts and arrange an "International Workshop on the culture of > the Ilankai Tamilar" with studies that fall within the fields of social > sciences and arts studies? If there is an interest, the workshop will be > organised by professors Alvapillai Veluppillai and Peter Schalk in Uppsala > from 28-31 May, 1998 (arrivals on 27 March, departures on 1 June). We need > so much time to collect funds to make it possible for scholars from Ilankai > and India, for those who are writing on Tamil culture in the regions of > Yalppanam, Vanni, Tirukkonamalai, Mattakalappu, Kolumpu, Malaiyakam, and on > Tamil places of worship in the South, to come to Uppsala. Scholars from > other parts of the world, inclusive of countries of Tamil exile, will have > to cover their own expenses for registration, travelling and accomodation > in Uppsala. > > Ilankai Tamil culture is Ilankai Tamil exile culture also. There is an > Ilankai Tamil culture in Toronto, Sydney, Paris, Bern, Oslo, etc. We know > young Tamilar who read Strindberg in Swedish and Sartre in French, and we > have met even "Kiwi Tamilar". There is a flood of Tamil exile literature. > > Regarding "culture of the Ilankai Tamilar", it will be the task of the > workshop to consider different definitions and come to a conclusion. We > just want to emphasise one dynamic and formative aspect of this culture, > its shifting relations to South India, to Sinhala Buddhist culture, to the > Tamilulakam and to the rest of the world. > > There is a tendency that social scientists constitute a majority in > conferences. There is also a tendency that modern studies dominate. This is > most welcome as long some historical disciplines also are represented. We > want to enumerate some of these disciplines through which Lankan Tamil > culture can be studied. Having been neglected, they are welcome in Uppsala. > > Epigraphy > Pre-colonial history > Historiography > Pre-colonial literature > Iconography > Archaeology > Art history > Historical and comparative linguistics > Dialect studies > Prosody > Tamil Saivism > Tamil Buddhism > Tamil Christianity > Tamil Islam > > When we say "workshop", we mean a group of about 20 people who have sent a > paper not later than Tuesday 31 March 1998 for preparation of all > participiants, and especially of one appointed discussant. The paper > delivered is a draft, that may be re-written by the author after the > workshop, considering the comments having been made by the participiants. > Each paper will be given much time to be commented upon. The aim is to > publish the contributions in a series of academic publications from Uppsala > University. The publication is expected to reflect many aspects of Ilankai > Tamil culture. > > We are aware that there is a Sri Lanka Study Conference already. The next > (6th) will be arranged in Nuvara in August 1997. The international workshop > we have in mind focuses on the culture of the Lankan Tamilar in strictly > academic presentations in an exclusive academic surrounding (that goes back > to 1477, the date of the founding of Uppsala University). > > We are sending this letter to some selected scholars to which we have an > e-mail address, fax and mail address. We request you kindly to foward it to > scholars who might have an interest in contributing with a paper on the > culture of the Lankan Tamilar. > > We are expecting your decision to participate with a working title of your > paper, a summary of it in about 400 words and/or suggestions for > improvement of the workshop's organisation. Having got your declaration of > interest, we shall send you information about accomodation, Uppsala > University and information about our publications pertaining to the culture > of the Lankan Tamilar. > > With the best wishes > > Peter Schalk, professor in the History of Religions, Uppsala University > Alvapillai Veluppillai, professsor of Tamil, Dr. h.c. (Uppsala). > > > Phones: 46 18 182293(office), 46 18 252682 (residence, P Schalk), 46 18 > 403648(residence A Veluppillai). > > Email: Tamil.studies at relhist.uu.se > > Fax: 46 18 12 84 71 or 46 18 241786 > > Mail: P Schalk, A Veluppillai, Box 1604, 75146 Uppsala, Sweden > > ************************ > > > > > From hueckst at cc.UManitoba.CA Mon Aug 12 19:26:49 1996 From: hueckst at cc.UManitoba.CA (Hueckstedt) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 14:26:49 -0500 Subject: Submergence of archaeological sites Message-ID: <161227025589.23782.6727619674792119925.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> This may be old news, but . . . I recently did a narch search for information about the Narmada Sagar dam project in Madhya Pradesh. One of the articles that I received in that context is from Feb. 1995 and states: "Areas of archaeological importance and remnants of archaeological monuments would be submerged because of the Sardar Sarovar, Narmada Sagar and Indira Sagar projects currently under implementation. "This was stated by the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr. Subhash Yadav in a written reply to a question from Mr. Sunil Jain of the Congress (I). "The minister said that these three projects would lead to the submergence of 24 archaeological sites and 56 remnants, temples or other archaeological material." this article was printed. I hope that my colleagues interested in archaeology are on top of these developments. Bob Hueckstedt Robert A. Hueckstedt, Associate Professor of Indic Languages Asian Studies Centre, 328 Fletcher Argue, University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 Canada http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/asian_studies fax 1 204-275-5781 phones 1 204-474-8964, 1 204-488-4797 From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Mon Aug 12 21:32:36 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 14:32:36 -0700 Subject: Source for Indian cabinets etc. Message-ID: <161227025591.23782.16017194446424197180.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 12 Aug 1996, Allen Thrasher wrote: > Does anyone know a source for the members of Indian state and national > governments (cabinets), when they come into power, who their members are, > cabinet reshuffles, etc.? A couple of patrons independently have asked > for this in general and specifically for U.P. from 1975 on and I have been > unable to find anything from the computer. I would be very grateful for > any help. > Such information is usually found in the periodical gazettes published by the central and state governments. Other sources could be the annual report of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, or journal of the Indian Institute of Public Administration or The Economic and Political Weekly. S. Vidyasankar From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Mon Aug 12 15:15:14 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 15:15:14 +0000 Subject: RFD soc.history.ancient (fwd) Message-ID: <161227025580.23782.15344841368352506078.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The person who is spearheading the creation of a new Usenet group on ancient history asked me to circulate this on INDOLOGY, since it is likely to be of interest. -- Dominik Wujastyk ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 08:10:11 -0600 From: Michael Martinez To: "Dominik Wujastyk (at UCL)" Subject: Re: RFD soc.history.ancient (fwd) The following article was posted to news.groups on the Usenet. We are distributing it to mailing lists with an interest in history to invite discussion of the proposal in the Usenet news group news.groups. I and the other proponents will be unable to discuss the proposal outside that forum. The purpose of the proposed news group is to provide intuitive location for ancient historical discussions on the Usenet, which currently are scattered across several other news groups and are off-topic for those groups. REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) unmoderated group soc.history.ancient Newsgroup line: soc.history.ancient Ancient history (up to AD 700) This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide unmoderated Usenet newsgroup soc.history.ancient. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. RATIONALE: soc.history.ancient Ancient history already is a topic of much interest on Usenet, where it is discussed in multiple newsgroups, and many mailing lists (some of which are named in the distribution section) are also devoted to it. However, the discussion on Usenet is often fragmented, and/or off-topic in the groups where it occurs. This proposal seeks to create an intuitively obvious central place for such discussion. Existing Usenet newsgroups where ancient history is discussed include sci.archaeology and its offshoots; soc.history.medieval; and sci.classics. In sci.archaeology, this discussion is at best marginally on-topic, to the extent that it concerns questions subject to archaeological investigation. Recent threads whose appropriateness by this criterion is questionable include ones about the historicity of Jesus, Josephus' account of Masada, the alleged salting of Carthage, Roman legions, and Celtic knowledge (from the classical period). In soc.history.medieval, where much of the current discussion takes place, ancient history is strictly off-topic; the charter defines the group's scope as beginning at approximately AD 500. Nevertheless, recent threads with enormous activity have included ones about Celtic religion and early Christianity. The connection between these subjects and popular images of the Middle Ages is obvious, but soc.history.medieval is mainly intended for discussion of later eras, and this proposal originated as an attempt by some of its regulars to address this problem. Sci.classics (which may become humanities.classics) is the most problematic case. The newsgroup's charter specifically includes the history of the Greco-Roman world and neighbouring regions as far as India. All the same, it's hardly an intuitively obvious place to look for such topics, and in practice, sci.classics is dominated by linguistic/literary discussions which are not immediately welcoming to the Greek-less and Latin-less visitor. While sci.classics is a thriving and worthwhile newsgroup, we submit that this aspect of its topic could be better served elsewhere. No rigid boundaries can be drawn among these topics. Discussions of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions, for example, are intrinsically both archaeological and historical in character; a sixth-century figure like Gregory of Tours is strictly on-topic in soc.history.medieval and sci.classics as well as the proposed soc.history.ancient. But with such important and intriguing topics of its own as the rise and fall of Rome, the Vedas and Buddhism, and with personalities like Caesar and Alexander, Jesus and Buddha, Asoka and the First Emperor of Chin available to it, soc.history.ancient is obviously a newsgroup with good prospects. CHARTER: soc.history.ancient This is a news group for discussion of ancient historical cultures existing up to circa AD 700. Appropriate types of articles would include discussions of ancient cultures, FAQs, booklists, personal insight essays, announcements of new publications and research, analyses of historical patterns (i.e., styles of warfare, travel, agriculture, etc.), and reviews of current research and television series or specials. Short, non-hype, commercial announcements of books, seminars, etc. are also acceptable. Inappropriate types of articles would include commercial advertisements, non-historical or pseudo-historical discussions (what if, alternate history, fantasy cultures, etc.), topics outside the date range of the news group, binary files, and articles concerning legendary cultures, individuals, and events. Discussion focuses more on historical aspects (what we know from contemporary textual sources) of these cultures and less on the literary and archaeological aspects. Articles on topics for which textual evidence is scant or non-existant should be posted to sci.archaeology.moderated. While discussions of the Maya, the only known American culture with surviving texts from our period, are welcome, posters should be aware that sci.archaeology.mesoamerican is more likely to be read by informed specialists in that subject. And for postings on topics *primarily about* Old World texts and/or languages of the texts themselves, sci.classics (or humanities.classics) will be a better place to go. This group will be unmoderated, allowing anyone with the proper access to create or participate in message discussions. END CHARTER. PROCEDURE: This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed news group should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups news.groups sci.classics sci.archaeology sci.archaeology.moderated soc.history soc.history.medieval soc.history.moderated soc.history.war.misc This RFD has been posted to the following mailing lists: aegeanet at acpub.duke.edu anahita at lsv.uky.edu ane at oi.uchicago.edu ancien-l at ulkyvm.louisville.edu arch-l at tamvm1.tamu.edu aztlan at ulkyvm.louisville.edu classics at u.washington.edu eaan at ccat.sas.upenn.edu earlyscience-l at listserv.vt.edu ethnohis at nic.surfnet.nl h-africa at msu.edu h-asia at msu.edu h-world at msu.edu history at ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu histonwr at ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu indology at liverpool.ac.uk world-l at ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu -- ++ ++ "Well Samwise: What do you think of the elves now?" ||\ /|| --fbaggins at mid.earth.com || v ||ichael Martinez (mmartin at basis.com) ++ ++------------------------------------------------------ From athr at loc.gov Mon Aug 12 19:26:38 1996 From: athr at loc.gov (Allen Thrasher) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 15:26:38 -0400 Subject: Source for Indian cabinets etc. Message-ID: <161227025586.23782.3361085205844580468.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone know a source for the members of Indian state and national governments (cabinets), when they come into power, who their members are, cabinet reshuffles, etc.? A couple of patrons independently have asked for this in general and specifically for U.P. from 1975 on and I have been unable to find anything from the computer. I would be very grateful for any help. Allen Thrasher From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Mon Aug 12 15:26:42 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 15:26:42 +0000 Subject: World Sanskrit Conference announcement (reformatted repost) Message-ID: <161227025582.23782.14372493808466279667.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> When I received the following posting from Dr Shivamurthy Swamiji, I had trouble with paragraphs and line-endings generally. (I think Dr S S composes his email using an editor that uses narrow fonts, and does its own line-wrapping, so paragraphs are saved as single, long lines.) Here is a reformatted version for those of you who, like me, have a basic 80 column, non-graphics terminal. I am also posting a copy of this announcement to the INDOLOGY web page, under "World Sanskrit Conference Announcements". (See .) Dominik ___________START__________________________________________________ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 22:11:48 +-5-30 From: Dr Shivamurthy Swamiji To: '2745 Dominik' Subject: CIRCULAR - Xth World Sanskrit Conference - 1997, Bangalore, India Xth WORLD SANSKRIT CONFERENCE - 1997 (Silver Jubilee Year) Taralabalu Kendra, Bangalore [ INDIA ] (3-9 January 1997) __________________________________________________________________ GENERAL INFORMATION Dear Participants, Welcome to the garden city of Bangalore! The conference is hardly six months away from now. We want to give you the following information to facilitate you to plan your visit to India more fruitfully. ------------------------------------- 1. ABOUT BANGALORE ------------------------------------- Bangalore is the capital of Karnataka, the Kannada-speaking state of India (the eighth largest state in the country). Once described as the "Paradise of the Retired People", Bangalore is known for its salubrious climate. Located 1000 m above the sea level, Bangalore has a moderate climate throughout the year. In the 'coldest' month of January, it is 18 degree Celsius and the maximum temperature during the day rarely exceeds 25 degree Celsius. This bustling capital city of Karnataka, has a perpetual holiday atmosphere. The city abounds in picturesque sight-seeing places. The cubbon park with extensive stretch of green land and beautifully laid out lawns and enchanting botonical garden with Glass House in the midst of Lal Bagh lend all the charming grandeur to the city. Bangalore is well connected by air and land with all major cities in India and directly connected by air with a few coutries. Founded in 1537 by a local cheiftan Kempe Gowda, Bangalore is the firth largest city in the country and one of the fastest growing in the world. Rapid industrial growth has not taken away from Bangalore the old charm of the city. Bangalore offers more than a day or two of sightseeing. Daily, there is something going on here - music and dance concerts, dramas, exhibitions etc. As a citadel of learning, Bangalore has some outstanding technical, scientific and research institutions. The Indian Institute of Science is one of the foremost scientific institutes in the country. In addition, Bangalore University, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Raman Research Institute and numerous professional and general colleges, give necessary impetus for educational progress. With many Computer Software development companies coming up in recent times, young skilful software engineers here, have earned for this "village of boiled beans" (BENGALURU) a world reputation of "The Silicon Valley of India". As a well planned modern city, it has many imposing structures conveniently located. The majestic Vidhana Soudha, a magnificient post-independence structure houses the Secretariat of the Karanataka Government and the State's legislature. It is a sheer delight to see the illuminated building during nights, especially on Sundays and holidays. It is here that the organizing committee is planning to hold the inaugural session of the Xth World Sanskrit Conference. -------------------------------------------- 1. PROGRAMME SUMMARY ------------------------------------------- Regular academic sessions will be held at Taralabalu Kendra, another important building of a Centre that has come up in recent times in the Rabindranath Tagore Nagar area (abbreviated as R T Nagar) of Bangalore to promote Indian cultural heritage and academic research. In the words of a common man on the street, it is a miniature of Vidhan Soudha in its architectural splendor. The magnificent 5-storey building of this Kendra with modern facilties like computers and e-mail communications, has an auditorium of 1000 seating capacity, a large community hall, conference hall, prayer hall, dining hall, guest rooms, dormitories etc. It is here and in the neighbouring educational institutions that all the academic sessions and cultural programmes will be held on all the days of the conference. *Venue: Taralabalu Kendra, R T Nagar, Bangalore __________________________________________________________________ 3.1.1997 Fri Arrival 11am - 6pm Registration at Taralabalu Kendra 6pm - 8pm Get-together/ Dinner _________________________________________________________________ 4.1.1997 Sat 10am Inaugural Session at Vidhana Soudha 2pm - 5pm Academic Sessions _________________________________________________________________ 5.1.1997 Sun 9am - 5pm Academic Sessions _________________________________________________________________ 6.1.1997 Mon Full Day In-conference Tours (four options): 1. Srirangapatna/Mysore 2. Sravanabelagola/Belur-Halebeed 3. Tirupati and 4. City Tour __________________________________________________________________ 7.1.1997 Tue 9am - 5pm Academic Sessions 8.1.1997 Wed 9am - 5pm Academic Sessions 6pm - 9pm Closing Session/Cultural programmes/Dinner __________________________________________________________________ 9.1.1997 Thu Departure __________________________________________________________________ * Special Panels and Pandit-Parishads are also being planned -------------------------------------------- 2. PAPERS AND SECTIONS ------------------------------------------- The broad subject areas mentioned in the first announcement are classified into 20 sections as given below. Scholars whose papers are accepted get 20 minutes for the presentation of their papers followed by 10 minutes discussions. Rescheduling of papers will not be done if for any reason the paper presenter does not show up. 1 Agamas and Tantras 2 Art, Architecture and Archaeology 3 Buddhist Studies 4 Classical Sanskrit Literature 5 Dharma Shastra and Artha Shastra 6 Epics and Puranas 7 Hindu Studies 8 Jaina Studies 9 Manuscripts and Historical Resources 10 Modern Sanskrit Literature 11 Music and Performing Arts 12 Philosophies (Darshanas) 13 Poetics and Aesthetics 14 Sanskrit and Regional Languages 15 Sanskrit Scientific Literature 16 Sanskrit Medical Literature 17 Sanskrit and the Environment 18 Sanskrit and Computer 19 Veda and Vedangas 20 Vyakarana and Linguistics ------------------------------------ 3. REGISTRATION FEE ----------------------------------- The Registration Fee is US $ 100 if it is paid before 31st August. If it is paid after this date, it would be US $ 125. (Students and the scholars retired from service are allowed 50 % concession.) The bank draft, drawn in favour of "Xth World Sanskrit Conference, Bangalore". (Account No.: SB A/c 11953, Syndicate Bank, RT Nagar Branch, Bangalore), should be mailed to the address of the conference secretariat. --------------------------------------------------------------- 4. FOOD AND HOTEL ACCOMMODATION --------------------------------------------------------------- Indian vegetarian food and soft drinks will be provided free of cost at the conference venue. M/s GAIN NET is appointed as the official travel agent for the Xth World Sanskrit Conference and is entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of the requirements like Hotel accommodation, Transportation from the airport to the hotel, in-conference tours, pre/post-conference tours, domestic & international bookings, reconfirmations, Foreign Exchange requirements, etc. Printed booklet containing all the necessary information about hotel tariff, in-conference tours, pre-post conference tours etc., is being mailed separately. He may be contacted directly for all such needs. His address is given below. The last date for booking hotel accommodation is 31 October 1996. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. ADDRESS OF THE OFFICIAL TRAVEL AGENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------- M/s GAINNET Raheja Plaza Ground Floor Richmond Road Bangalore - 560 025 Karnataka (India) E-mail: gainwell.gainnet at gems.vsnl.net.in Tel: + 91-80-551 2631 + 91-80-551 2651 + 91-80-551 2507 + 91-80-557 7549 Fax: + 91-80-559 3451 + 91-80-558 7769 Tlx: 0845-3218 GAIN IN ---------------------------- 6. HOTEL TARIFF ---------------------------- The following rates are the specially negotiated rates for the Xth World Sanskrit Conference. The rates quoted below are for single/double occupancy rooms (exclusive of taxes) and are subject to periodical revisions, if any. Distance from the conference venue is given against each name of the hotel. Free transportation facility is provided by the organizing committee, from the hotel to the conference venue and back. For further details, please contact the travel agent. The last date for booking hotel accommodation is 31 October 1996. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hotel Category Single Double Tax1+Tax2** Distance ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Taj Residency 5 Star $125 $135 15.75%+10% 9 Kms 2 The Oberoi* 5 Star $189 $207 15.75%+10% 9 Kms 3 Taj West End 5 Star $200 $225 15.75%+10% 6 Kms 4 Windsor Manor* 5 Star $150 $160 15.75%+10% 4 Kms $200 $210 5 Holiday Inn* 5 Star $110 $120 15.75%+10% 4 Kms $140 $160 6 Ashoka Hotel* 5 Star $110 $110 15.75%+10% 5 Kms 7 Gateway Hotel 4 Star $80 $95 15.75%+10% 8 Kms 8 Kensington Terrace* 4 Star $46 $58 16% NA 9 Kms 9 The Capitol* 4 Star $63 $71 15.75%+10% 6 Kms 10 The Atria* 4 Star $50 $61 15.75%*10% 6 Kms 11 Harsha Hotel* 3 Star $29 $34 15.75% NA 7 Kms $32 $37 12 Vijaya Residency* 3 Star $35 $43 18% NA 7 Kms ____________________________________________________________________ * Rates include breakfast ** Tax1 = Luxury Tax Tax2 = Hotel Exp Tax ------------------------------------------- 7. IN-CONFERENCE TOURS ------------------------------------------- The following four optional tours (one full day) are planned for 6th January 1997. Participants are requested to select any one of them and register their names with the official travel agent of the conference. 1. MYSORE/SRIRANGAPATNAM: ($ 7 per person) The city of Mysore, 140 kms from Bangalore, was once the capital of the kings Wodeyars. It still retains a quaint charm that never fails to enchant. The Mysore Palace, once the residence of the Wodeyar kings, is one of the largest of its kind in India and one of the most splendid. This Indo-Saracenic building has among other things - a carved silver door, a solid gold throne and gallery of exquisite paintings. Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery is a palace transformed into an art gallery with paintings dating from 1875. The collection includes paintings by Raja Ravi Varma, the Russian Svetoslav Roerich and the traditional Mysore 'gold leaf' style of painting. St. Philomena's Church, in the Gothic style, is one of the largest churches in the country and has beautiful stained glass windows. Chamundi Hills are 13 kms off Mysore City. Halfway-up is the Nandi Bull, a 4.8 m monolith. This Nandi Bull is the emblem selected for the Xth World Sanskrit Conference. About 19 kms north-west of Mysore is the KRS Dam. The adjoing Brindavan Garden attracts thousands of visitors with its ornamental terraced gardens, the swirling fountains dancing to the rhythm of soft music and the colourful fairy lights. Srirangapatna is 14 kms north-east of Mysore on the Bangalore-Mysore Highway. The island fortres that was once the capital of the Warrior-kings Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore. Tipu's summer palace, Daria Daulat, built in 1784, was his favourite retreat. It is now a museum and tells eloquently of his valour and his losing battle against British. It has ornate and beautiful frescoes. 2 SHRAVANABELAGOLA, BELUR AND HALEBEEDU ($10 per person) Shravanabelagola is 158 kms from Bangalore. This is one of the most important Jaina pilgrim centres with the 17 m. high monolith of Lord Bahubali - said to be the world's tallest monolithic statue. Thousands of devotees congregate here to perform the 'Mahamastakabhisheka', a spectacular ceremony held once in 12 years when the 1000-year-old statue is anointed with milk, curds, ghee, saffron and gold coins. The last 'Mahamastakabhisheka' was held in the year 1993. Belur and Halebeed with their exquisite temples are about 220 kms from Bangalore. The Chennakeshava Temple is one of the finest examples of Hoysala architecture. It took 103 years to complete. The facade of the temple is filled with intricate sculptures and friezes - with no portion lef blank. Elephants, episodes from the epics, sensuous dancers ... - awe-inspiring in their intricate workmanship. Inside are hand-lathe-turned filigreed pillars. What astounds one about the Hoysaleswara Temple in Halebeed is the wealth of sculptural details. The walls of the temple are covered with an endless variety of gods and goddesses, animals, birds and dancing girls. Yet no two facets of the temple are the same. This magnificent temple - guarded by a Nandi Bull - was never completed, despite 86 years of labour. . 3 TIRUPATHI: ($ 16 per person) Tirupathi, about 250 kms from Bangalore, is in the neighbouring Telugu speaking state of Andhra Pradesh. The famous Venkateswara Temple here, attracts thousands of Hindu devotees from all over the country. A day's offerings made by its ardent devotees, as reported in the news papers recently, were Rs 30 lakhs (approximately 85 thousand US dollars) 4 CITY TOUR: ($ 2 per person) The Vidhana Soudha, housing the State Legislature and Secretariat, was conceived and executed by Kengal Hanumanthaiya, the then Chief Minister of Karnataka, in the year 1956. It is built entirely of Bangalore granite in the Neo-Dravidian style. Directly opposite to it, stands the Gothic structure of the Attara Kacheri which houses the State Hight Court. Within the walking distance are the Public Library, the Government Museum, the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum and the Venkatappa Art Galery. The High Court building was completed in 1868 and stands in the green splendour of the Cubbon Park laid out in 1864 by Lieutenant General Sir Mark Cubbon. Bangalore's other sprawling park is in the South of the city, the Lalbagh Gardens, laid out in 1760 by Hyder Ali, has an area of 240 acres. The Glass House, inspired by the Crystal Palace in London, is a favourite spot in Lalbagh. The Bangalore Palace, built in 1887 by a Wodyar king, is today a favourite spot for picnickers and film-makers, with its vast grounds and Tudor-style architecture. At Basavanagudi is one of Bangalore's oldest temples, the Bull Temple. Nandi, the Sacred Bull, has been carved out of a single boulder and is 4.6 m tall. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 8. PRE AND POST CONFERENCE TOURS ---------------------------------------------------------------- The following tours are conducted by the travel agent, GAIN NET, for those who intend to do sightseeing in India before/after the conference. The rates will be furnished by him on request. 1 Mystical Caves 4 Nts/5 Days Aurangabad, Ajanta & Ellora Caves 2 Beaches & Palms 4 Nts/5 Days Mangeshi Temple, Vagator, Calangute, Anjuna Churches & Cathedrals of Goa, Miramar, Dona Paula, Colva and Dudhsagar falls. 3 Exotic Temple Tour 5 Nts/6 Days Madras, Kanchipuram, Pakshitirtham and Tirupati. 4 The Tiger Trail 4 Nts/5 Days Nainital, Corbett National Park and Delhi 5 The Golden Triangle 5 Nts/6 Days Mysore, Ooty, Coonoor, Kadaikanal 6 Desert Wonders 10 Nts/11 Days Udaipur, Mount abu, Jaipur and Delhi 7 Backwaters and the sea 5 Nts/6 Days Cochin, Spice Village, Periyar and Kumarakom 8 Heritage Tour 4 Nts/5 Days Delhi, Agra and Jaipur 9 The Palace on Wheels 7 Nts/8 Days Delhi, Jaipur, Chittaurgarh, Udaipur, Sawai Madhopur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bharathpur and Agra. 10 The Royal Orient Chittaurgarh, Udaipur, Palitana, Somnath, Ahmedpur-Mandvi, Diu, Junagadh-Sasan, Gir, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. 11 Scintillating Nepal 9 Nts/10 Days Kathmandu, Shambhunath, Pashupatinath, Dhulikhel, Pokhara, Tiger top, Chitwan National Park 12 Beautiful Maldives 3 Nts/4 Days Male. ----------------------------------- 9. DOMESTIC FLIGHTS ----------------------------------- Several airlines operate daily between Bangalore and other important cities in India. The following are the flight details from the four major cities having international airports: Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras. IC = Indian Airlines * 1 = Sun D2 = Damania * 2 = Mon 9W = Jet Airways * 3 = Tue M9 = Modiluft * 4 = Wed S2 = Sahara * 5 = Thu 4S = East-West Airlines * 6 = Fri D5 = NEPC Airlines * 7 = Sat 1. BOMBAY/BANGALORE: IC - 105 0615 0745 1,3 IC - 105 0615 0745 2,4,5,6,7 IC - 109 1040 1210 Daily IC - 107 1800 1930 Daily D2- 203 1745 1945 Daily D2- 201 0630 0800 Daily 9W- 411 0625 0755 Daily 9W- 441 1725 1900 Daily M9- 429 1700 1830 Daily S2- 901 0625 0755 Daily (Except Sat) 2. DELHI/BANGALORE IC - 803 0645 0915 Daily IC - 403 1630 1900 Daily 9W- 811 1655 1930 Daily M9 - 501 0605 0845 Daily 4S - 903 0615 0845 Daily 4S - 905 1720 1950 Daily S2 - 502 0650 0925 Daily (Except Sun) 3. CALCUTTA/BANGALORE IC - 771 0600 0825 Daily 9W- 511 1410 1745 M9- 429 1700 1830 Daily (Except Sat) 4. MADRAS/BANGALORE IC - 911 1750 1835 Daily IC - 929 0925 1010 1,2,4,6 IC - 917 1015 1100 1,3,5,7 IC - 951 1145 1230 3,5,7 IC - 923 1145 1230 2,4,6 D2 - 811 1130 1230 2,4,6 D2 - 811 1130 1230 2,4,6 D5 - 409 1700 1800 1,3,5 D5 - 205 0945 1045 2,4,6 ---------------------------------------------------------------- 10. CONFERENCE VENUE / SECRETARIAT ----------------------------------------------------------------- Secretariat Xth World Sanskrit Conference TARALABALU KENDRA 3rd Main, 2nd Block, RT Nagar BANGALORE - 560 032 Karnataka, [ India ] Tel: +91-(0)80-3430017 +91-(0)80-3332759 Fax: +91-(0)80-3334541 E-mail: swamiji at giasbg01.vsnl.net.in Webpage: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indnet-wscx-html ___________END____________________________________________________ From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Tue Aug 13 01:49:15 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 18:49:15 -0700 Subject: works of Sankaracharya Message-ID: <161227025595.23782.5290131296711831003.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > > _Atmabodha_ (trans. Svami Nikhilananda). Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math. 1946 was the first edition, from New York, with later editions in 1962 (2nd ed.) and 1967 from Madras and in 1970 from New York again. > > _Drg-drsya-viveka: an inquiry into the nature of the seer and the seen > (trans. Svami Nikhilananda). Mysore: Sri Ramakrishna Math. 4th edition: 1964, 5th edition: 1970, and 6th edition: 1976. All these editions are from Mysore. The author of Drg-drsya-viveka is listed as Sankaracarya, but the actual author seems to be Bharati Tirtha of the 14th cent. > > _Brahma-sutra-bhasya_ (trans. Svami Gambhirananda). Calcutta: Advaita > Ashrama. 1st edition in 1965, 3rd edition in 1977. > > _Vivekacudamani_ (trans. Svami Madhavananda). Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. The 9th edition is from Calcutta in 1964. There is a recent commentary to the Vivekacudamani by the late Sri Candrasekhara Bharati of Sringeri, that was published in 1973 along with a translation, by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. > > _Prabodhsudhakara: the nectar-ocean of enlightenment_ (trans. Samvid). > Madras: Samata Books. Prabodhasudhakara: 1984. Samata Books has also re-published the collection of Sankara's works that was originally printed around 1911 from Sri Vani Vilas Press, Srirangam. The older edition is usually referred to as the Memorial Edition. > > _Commentary on Katha Upanisad_ (trans. Svami Gambhirananda). Calcutta: > Advaita Ashram. I am unsure if Swami Gambhirananda's translation of the Katha Upanishad was published separately. There is a translation of eight upanishad commentaries, that was published in 1957-58 (1st ed.), 1965-66 (2nd ed.) and 1972-73 (3rd), in which the Katha Upanishad Bhashya translation is included. Other than these, Gambhirananda has translated the Aitareya Upanishad Bhashya separately. This was published in 1978 from Calcutta Advaita Asrama. S. Vidyasankar From mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA Mon Aug 12 23:59:44 1996 From: mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 19:59:44 -0400 Subject: works of Sankaracharya Message-ID: <161227025594.23782.8505960114371078242.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Can anyone give me the original (English edition) publication year of the following works of Sankaracharya? Thank you much. sushil _Atmabodha_ (trans. Svami Nikhilananda). Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math. _Drg-drsya-viveka: an inquiry into the nature of the seer and the seen (trans. Svami Nikhilananda). Mysore: Sri Ramakrishna Math. _Brahma-sutra-bhasya_ (trans. Svami Gambhirananda). Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. _Vivekacudamani_ (trans. Svami Madhavananda). Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. _Prabodhsudhakara: the nectar-ocean of enlightenment_ (trans. Samvid). Madras: Samata Books. _Commentary on Katha Upanisad_ (trans. Svami Gambhirananda). Calcutta: Advaita Ashram. --------------------- From mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA Tue Aug 13 02:16:26 1996 From: mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Mon, 12 Aug 96 22:16:26 -0400 Subject: Thanks Message-ID: <161227025598.23782.14006628823202836406.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thank you much, sundaresan. sushil From gabriele.zeller at ub.uni-tuebingen.de Tue Aug 13 11:59:36 1996 From: gabriele.zeller at ub.uni-tuebingen.de (Gabriele Zeller) Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 11:59:36 +0000 Subject: "old indologists" Message-ID: <161227025599.23782.8723054630113937936.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 09:56:27 BST Reply-to: indology at liverpool.ac.uk From: Oliver.Freiberger at uni-bayreuth.de To: Members of the list Subject: Re: "old indologists" >Dear list members, >I need to know some details about the following scholars: >1. A. Venis (or Venice?), who was principal at Government Sanskrit >College (Queen's College?) at Banaras during the 1890s or 1900s. What was >his particular field and what publications he had. >2. L. de Baron Holstein (Baron de Holstein?), where was he from, what was >his special field, from where he published Kazyapa Parivarta? >I would appreciate very much any information in this regard. >Sincerely >Benjamin Preciado-Solis. I would recommend to get in contact with Klaus Karttunen, University of Helsinki, PF 13, Meritullinkatu 1, SF-00014 Helsinki, Finland. He has collected (bio- and bibliographical) material on "old indologists". Unfortunately, I don't know his e-mail-address. Good luck! Oliver Freiberger University of Bayreuth, Germany *************************** Dear list members, about no 2 I found out: It is Stael-Holstein, Alexander (Freiherr or Baron von) who edited Kasyapaparivarta in the 1930ties. According to the NUC he lived from 1877-1937 and most of the works he edited were published from Peiping (China), one from St. Petersburg. Two of his works have been published in Bibliotheca Buddhica (no 12 and 15). He seems to have been a German (perhaps missionary?). I found several other Stael von Holsteins in biographical dictionaries although not him so far. Hope I could be of some help! And Klaus Karttunen - is your collection of bio-data of old Indologist accessible? I would be very interested in it, as I am working on 'the Rudolf von Roth-circle' and am collecting such datas as well! Gabriele > > Dr Gabriele Zeller Universitaetsbibliothek Tuebingen Wilhelmstr. 32 72016 Tuebingen Tel:+49-7071-2974030 Fax:+49-7071-293123 From mcdermot at wehle.canisius.edu Wed Aug 14 15:07:35 1996 From: mcdermot at wehle.canisius.edu (James McDermott) Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 11:07:35 -0400 Subject: Revista de Estudios Budistas Message-ID: <161227025601.23782.14687467948538531153.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Can anyone with access to the Revista de Estudios Budistas provide an indication of the Table of Contents [including inclusive page numbers] for Numero 8 (Octubre 1994-Marzo 1995)? Responses can be sent to me personally at: mcdermot at canisius.edu Thanks. Jim McDermott Canisius College From aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca Wed Aug 14 21:46:36 1996 From: aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca (aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca) Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 14:46:36 -0700 Subject: Two (make it four) inquiries Message-ID: <161227025605.23782.13237708162079644069.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Is there a proverb in (south?) Indian languages to the effect that if the eldest son is humiliated (through disciplining or depriving him of something), the younger two (less likely, three) are as good as humiliated? What I am looking for is an equivalent to the Sanskrit line jye.s.tha-putraavamaanena traya.h kupyanti sodaraaa.h. The context in which this vacana or 'statement? having the appearance of a proverb is cited is this: The speaker is making the point that robbing someone who has incalculable wealth earned legitimately is better than robbing someone who has limited wealth and robbing someone whose wealth is earned illegitimately. I would be grateful if someone could let me know the publication particulars of the following Bengali work: Author: Kalikumara Datta / Kaaliikumaara Datta. Title: Madhyayugiya Bharate Samskrta sahitya / Madhyayugiiya Bhaarate Sa.msk.rta saahitya. I particularly need to know the year of publication (of all editions if more than one edition is published), the place of publication and the name of the publisher. I also need to know the volume and page numbers of the following: Hillebrandt, Alfred. 1922. "Zur Charakteristic der [this should be des] ;Sarvilaka in der M.rcchaka.tikaa. Spuren eines Steya;saastra?" Zeitschrift f:ur Indologie und Iranistik [vol? pp?] Reprinted in Hillebrandt's Kleine Schriften [only one vol? pp?] George, Dieter. 1966. .Sa.nmukha-kalpa. Ein Lehrbuch der Zauberei unde Diebeskunst aus dem indischen Mittelalter. Marburg. This is said to have been republished from Berlin in 1991. Could anyone give me the publication particulars. From athr at loc.gov Wed Aug 14 22:24:07 1996 From: athr at loc.gov (Allen Thrasher) Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 18:24:07 -0400 Subject: Two (make it four) inquiries Message-ID: <161227025606.23782.4352357866606551384.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Wed, 14 Aug 1996 aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca wrote: > George, Dieter. 1966. .Sa.nmukha-kalpa. Ein Lehrbuch der Zauberei unde > Diebeskunst aus dem indischen Mittelalter. Marburg. This is said to have > been republished from Berlin in 1991. Could anyone give me the publication > particulars. Here is is: OCLC NO: 31412149 LCCN: 92-193768 LC CALL NO:BF1622 .I5 G46 1991 AUTHOR: George, Dieter. TITLE: Sanmukhakalpa : ein Lehrbuch der Zauberei und Diebeskunst aus dem indischen Mittelalter / PLACE: Berlin : PUBLISHER: D. Reimer, YEAR: 1991 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 209 p. ; 25 cm. SERIES: Monographien zur indischen Archaologie, Kunst und Philologie ; Bd. 7 NOTES: Includes bibliographical references (p. [197]-209). ISBN: 3496003936 SUBJECT: Magic, Hindu -- Textbooks. Magic -- India -- Textbooks. Magic in literature. Civilization, Medieval. ------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks for using FirstSearch. This e-mail account is only for distribution of FirstSearch documents. Please contact your librarian with comments or concerns. ------------------------------------------------------------ From MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN Wed Aug 14 21:10:20 1996 From: MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN (MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN) Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 21:10:20 +0000 Subject: An inquiry for contact addresses Message-ID: <161227025603.23782.10142442611835368878.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Friends, Can you help me with the email or other contact addresses of: David McAlpin, Bh. Krishnamurthy, Annamalai of Central Inst. of Indian Languages, Mysore? Thanks in anticipation and with the best regards. Dr. S. Kalyanaraman mdsaaa48 at giasmd01.VSNL.net.in From Royce.Wiles at anu.edu.au Wed Aug 14 22:28:57 1996 From: Royce.Wiles at anu.edu.au (Royce Wiles) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 08:28:57 +1000 Subject: Two (make it four) inquiries Message-ID: <161227025608.23782.6949157883210693526.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Wed, 14 Aug 1996 aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca wrote: > > George, Dieter. 1966. .Sa.nmukha-kalpa. Ein Lehrbuch der Zauberei unde > Diebeskunst aus dem indischen Mittelalter. Marburg. This is said to have > been republished from Berlin in 1991. Could anyone give me the publication > particulars. > The reprint details are: Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1991. 211 p. (Monographien zur indischen Archaeologie, Kunst und Philologie ; Band 7). DM 118.00. ISBN 3-496-00393-6. I haven't seen the reprint myself, these details are from a booklist. From raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu Thu Aug 15 19:35:35 1996 From: raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu (Narayan S. Raja) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 09:35:35 -1000 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025627.23782.14814085058207497397.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Michael Rabe wrote: > According to the World Almanac that comes with _Where in the World is > Carmen San Diego_ India has 16 major languages... > > Can anyone confirm that this is the set and order of appearance of the 13 > that appear (plus English) on Indian currency notes: > > Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, > Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu ^^^^^ Marathi I don't have a currency note right here, but would guess that it is actually Marathi (not Hindi) that comes after Malayalam. Also, Gujarati is missing from the above list, and I'm pretty sure "Rajasthani" isn't an official language. Hindi and English are on the center and margins, and don't reappear in the "list" area with all the other languages. > Presumably, Hindi gets pride of center place. I think that's Marathi. The list seems to be in (English) alphabetical order. > So, my related query is this: how many official state languages are there > all told and which are the additional ones? Marathi and Gujarati are missing from the above list; I don't think "Rajasthani" exists. I believe Konkani is the state language of Goa; possibly Manipuri for Manipur; English for Nagaland and possibly some other Northeastern states; maybe Nepali for Sikkim (there was a big controversy about it at one time, for fear of irritating the Nepalese government). I believe there is a language called "Divehi", which may or may not be an official language in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep. Just some educated guesses... Raja. From bprecia at colmex.mx Thu Aug 15 17:28:34 1996 From: bprecia at colmex.mx (Benjamin Preciado Solis) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 11:28:34 -0600 Subject: "old indologists" Message-ID: <161227025616.23782.8667470424732017721.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thanks to Oliver and Gabriele and Valerie for your replies to my query. About the Baron von Stael-Holstein I found an entry in A DICTIONARY OF INDOLOGY, by A.K. Roy and N.N. Gidwani (Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., New Delhi 1985 onwards, 5 vols.) It seems this work includes entries for the well known indologists of the past. It is worthwhile to look at it. Benjamin Preciado-Solis On Tue, 13 Aug 1996, Gabriele Zeller wrote: > Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 09:56:27 BST > Reply-to: indology at liverpool.ac.uk > From: Oliver.Freiberger at uni-bayreuth.de > To: Members of the list > Subject: Re: "old indologists" > > > > >Dear list members, > >I need to know some details about the following scholars: > >1. A. Venis (or Venice?), who was principal at Government Sanskrit > >College (Queen's College?) at Banaras during the 1890s or 1900s. What was > >his particular field and what publications he had. > >2. L. de Baron Holstein (Baron de Holstein?), where was he from, what was > >his special field, from where he published Kazyapa Parivarta? > >I would appreciate very much any information in this regard. > > >Sincerely > >Benjamin Preciado-Solis. > > I would recommend to get in contact with Klaus Karttunen, University > of Helsinki, PF 13, Meritullinkatu 1, SF-00014 Helsinki, Finland. He has > collected (bio- and bibliographical) material on "old indologists". > Unfortunately, I don't know his e-mail-address. Good luck! > > Oliver Freiberger > University of Bayreuth, Germany > > *************************** > Dear list members, > about no 2 I found out: It is > Stael-Holstein, Alexander (Freiherr or Baron von) who edited > Kasyapaparivarta in the 1930ties. According to the NUC he lived from > 1877-1937 and most of the works he edited were published from Peiping > (China), one from St. Petersburg. Two of his works have been > published in Bibliotheca Buddhica (no 12 and 15). He seems to have > been a German (perhaps missionary?). I found several other Stael von Holsteins in > biographical dictionaries although not him so far. > Hope I could be of some help! > And Klaus Karttunen - is your collection of bio-data of old Indologist accessible? > I would be very interested in it, as I am working on 'the Rudolf von > Roth-circle' and am collecting such datas as well! > > Gabriele > > > > > > > > Dr Gabriele Zeller > Universitaetsbibliothek Tuebingen > Wilhelmstr. 32 > 72016 Tuebingen > Tel:+49-7071-2974030 > Fax:+49-7071-293123 > From mrabe at artic.edu Thu Aug 15 17:03:54 1996 From: mrabe at artic.edu (mrabe at artic.edu) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 12:03:54 -0500 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025614.23782.14824342012182891860.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> According to the World Almanac that comes with _Where in the World is Carmen San Diego_ India has 16 major languages... Can anyone confirm that this is the set and order of appearance of the 13 that appear (plus English) on Indian currency notes: Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu Presumably, Hindi gets pride of center place. So, my related query is this: how many official state languages are there all told and which are the additional ones? From kichenas at math.umn.edu Thu Aug 15 17:50:17 1996 From: kichenas at math.umn.edu (kichenas at math.umn.edu) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 12:50:17 -0500 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025618.23782.4063452791464017110.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In answer to M. Rabe's query, some relevant texts are part XVII, Appendix 1(12), App. 2(18) and Schedule 8 of the Constitution of India. The latter lists (in alphabetical order) 1. Assamese. 2. Bengali. 3. Gujarati. 4. Hindi. 5. Kannada. 6. Kashmiri. 7. Konkani. 8. Malayalam. 9. Manipuri. 10. Marathi. 11. Nepali. 12. Oriya. 13. Punjabi. 14. Sanskrit. 15. Sindhi. 16. Tamil. 17. Telugu. 18. Urdu. Part XVII does note the importance of `the just claims and the interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to the public services'; also note that `the President may, if he is satisfied that a substantial proportion of the population of a State desire the use of any language spoken by them to be recognised by that State, direct that such language shall also be officially recognised throughout that State or any part thereof for such purpose as he may specify. ' I am sure experts on Constitutional Law will be able to give more detailed comments. Satyanad Kichenassamy School of Mathematics University of Minnesota E-mail: kichenas at math.umn.edu From Jayant.B.Bapat at sci.monash.edu.au Thu Aug 15 13:03:52 1996 From: Jayant.B.Bapat at sci.monash.edu.au (Bapat Jb) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 13:03:52 +0000 Subject: RFD soc.history.ancient (fwd) Message-ID: <161227025610.23782.7538483723531675951.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Dominique I would very very interested in joining such a group. Jayant ____________________________________________________________________ Dr J.B. Bapat Phone (03)9054510 Chemistry Department Fax (03)9054597 Monash University e-mail:jayant.b.bapat at sci.monash.edu.au Clayton, Victoria Australia ____________________________________________________________________ From pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu Thu Aug 15 21:08:37 1996 From: pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu (Peter J. Claus) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 14:08:37 -0700 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025634.23782.9191902277624729294.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> And Tulu, spoken in Tulunad, is not there either! Peter Claus From mmdesh at umich.edu Thu Aug 15 18:21:17 1996 From: mmdesh at umich.edu (Madhav Deshpande) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 14:21:17 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025622.23782.8602428399935525449.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The list of languages as they appear on Indian money in order should be revised as: Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu Hindi and English appear as frame languages, while other languages appear in a listed form. The list of languages is alphabetically organized. There is no separate Rajasthani in the list. Madhav Deshpande On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Michael Rabe wrote: > According to the World Almanac that comes with _Where in the World is > Carmen San Diego_ India has 16 major languages... > > Can anyone confirm that this is the set and order of appearance of the 13 > that appear (plus English) on Indian currency notes: > > Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, > Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu > > Presumably, Hindi gets pride of center place. > > So, my related query is this: how many official state languages are there > all told and which are the additional ones? > > > > From pdb1 at columbia.edu Thu Aug 15 18:32:46 1996 From: pdb1 at columbia.edu (Peter D Banos) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 14:32:46 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025624.23782.6736901998746715182.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Michael Rabe wrote: > Can anyone confirm that this is the set and order of appearance of the 13 > that appear (plus English) on Indian currency notes: > > Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, > Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu I used to keep a Rs10 note on me for just such a purpose, but unfortunately it didn't survive transfer into my current wallet. My recollection though is that Marathi was there, and not Rajasthani. -Peter D. Banos pdb1 at columbia.edu "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia... in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." From mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA Thu Aug 15 19:02:33 1996 From: mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 15:02:33 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025631.23782.9312930430785695315.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Madhav Deshpande wrote: > The list of languages as they appear on Indian money in order should be > revised as: > > Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, > Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu > > Hindi and English appear as frame languages, while other languages appear > in a listed form. The list of languages is alphabetically organized. > There is no separate Rajasthani in the list. > The 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 500 Rs notes that I have list 13, not 12, languages, whereas Hindi and English appear as frame languages. Could the one missing from the list be Gujarati? sushil mittal From mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA Thu Aug 15 19:14:02 1996 From: mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 15:14:02 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025629.23782.6793587957120372464.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Michael Rabe wrote: > > > So, my related query is this: how many official state languages are there > > all told and which are the additional ones? According to the Eight schedule of _The Constitution of India_, the following are the languages of India: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu. The official language of the Union is Hindi in devanagari script. sushil mittal From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Thu Aug 15 21:39:05 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 15:39:05 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025632.23782.11897968678228849786.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Konkani, Gujarati, and Sanskrit are the additional 3, if I am not mistaken. Gail Coelho. University of Texas at Austin. On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Michael Rabe wrote: > According to the World Almanac that comes with _Where in the World is > Carmen San Diego_ India has 16 major languages... > > Can anyone confirm that this is the set and order of appearance of the 13 > that appear (plus English) on Indian currency notes: > > Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, > Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu > > Presumably, Hindi gets pride of center place. > > So, my related query is this: how many official state languages are there > all told and which are the additional ones? > > > > From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Thu Aug 15 16:35:53 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 17:35:53 +0100 Subject: Ancient history list Message-ID: <161227025612.23782.12719252531345427.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> If you are interested in joining the ancient history list, information about which I forwarded a few days ago, please talk to the list owner directly: I have nothing to do with it at all. Best wishes, Dominik From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Thu Aug 15 18:04:27 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 19:04:27 +0100 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025620.23782.9011944912664894796.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Since we are talking about it, what is the official status of English in India? I seem to recall from somewhere that it was planned to be one of the "national" languages of India for 5 years after independence, but that thereafter the decision was taken to extend the period. Dominik From mrabe at artic.edu Fri Aug 16 01:14:06 1996 From: mrabe at artic.edu (mrabe at artic.edu) Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 20:14:06 -0500 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025636.23782.8643884418877419014.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Before leaving town for a few days, I thank the first eight of you (Peter Banos, Peter Claus, Gail Coelho, Madhav Deshpande, Satyanad Kichenassamy, Narayan S. Raja, Mittal Sushil and Dominik Wujastyk) for your immediate replies! Gujarati's absence on my initial list was a typographical oversight, but thanks Madhav for rectifying the alphabetical listing with Marathi and Sanskrit. From magier at columbia.edu Fri Aug 16 12:44:07 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 08:44:07 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025642.23782.16323549348068674799.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> And how can India not recognize the important of Marwari? David Magier From g.v.simson at easteur-orient.uio.no Fri Aug 16 10:06:17 1996 From: g.v.simson at easteur-orient.uio.no (g.v.simson at easteur-orient.uio.no) Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 11:06:17 +0100 Subject: Two (make it four) inquiries Message-ID: <161227025638.23782.2525386033128568844.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Wed, 14 Aug 1996 aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca wrote: >I also need to know the volume and page numbers of the following: >Hillebrandt, Alfred. 1922. "Zur Charakteristic der [this should be des] >;Sarvilaka in der M.rcchaka.tikaa. Spuren eines Steya;saastra?" Zeitschrift >f:ur Indologie und Iranistik [vol? pp?] Reprinted in Hillebrandt's Kleine >Schriften [only one vol? pp?] "Zur Charakteristik (sic) der (sic! apparently a misprint in the original) ...", according to Kleine Schriften first published in Zs. f. Indologie und Iranistik 1.1922, pp. 69-72. Reprinted in A. Hillebrandt, Kleine Schriften. Hrsg. von Rahul Peter Das. Stuttgart 1987 (=Glasenapp-Stiftung Band 28) (only one vol.), pp. 461-464. Best wishes, Georg v.Simson Professor Georg von Simson University of Oslo Department of East European and Oriental Studies Box 1030, Blindern 0315 Oslo, Norway From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Fri Aug 16 10:40:47 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 11:40:47 +0100 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025640.23782.9220848029379053968.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Narayan S. Raja wrote: > I believe there is a > language called "Divehi", which may or may not > be an official language in the Union Territory > of Lakshadweep. Divehi is the national language of the Republic of the Maldives. It is an Indo-European language, related historically to Sinhala, but is today written in a script that was invented by an Arab Muslim traveller in about 1200, and is written right-to-left with Perso-Arabic numerals acting as consonants, and vowels being marked with diacritics more or less in the style of Devanagari (but with different signs). So it looks, superficially, semitic. Pre-1200 copper-plate grants and inscriptions are in a script related to Sinhalese. Although there is ample evidence of a long Buddhist history before 1200, the Republic of the Maldives is today a Muslim state: no non-muslim may be a citizen. The people of the Lakshadweep islands -- which are part of the same undersea volcanic geological structure as the Maldives -- speak a variant of Malayalam. They are Muslims, probably by conversion from Buddhism by mainland Muslims from Kerala (rather than by Arab Indian ocean travellers, as in the case of the Maldivians). But curiously, the Nair-style system of matrilinear descent still survives amongst sections the Lakshadweep people. This combination of Malabar-matrilineality with a fundamentally Muslim patriarchal ideology is very unexpected (and matrilineality is on the decline in the islands). The island of Minicoy, exactly between the Lakshadweep islands to the North and the Maldives to the south, is a special case, culturally. For its early history it was part of the Maldives, and Divehi is still spoken there. In fishing and other matters the island is more closely aligned with the Maldives. But the island was ceded to Keralan rajas by a past Maldivian Sultan and is today part of India. Dominik From thomash at misnet.com Fri Aug 16 23:35:33 1996 From: thomash at misnet.com (Tom Head) Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 18:35:33 -0500 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025644.23782.572180634316740647.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Peter D Banos wrote: > > Can anyone confirm that this is the set and order of appearance of the 13 > > that appear (plus English) on Indian currency notes: > > > > Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi, > > Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu > > I used to keep a Rs10 note on me for just such a purpose, but > unfortunately it didn't survive transfer into my current wallet. > My recollection though is that Marathi was there, and not Rajasthani. I'm in the process of learning Hindi and Sanskrit; does anyone on this list know of a text (preferably fairly inexpensive -- I'm a student) that describes, compares, or otherwise explains India's national languages? (I would be especially interested in one published in India and available via mail-order.) Any help would be greatly appreciated. ---------------------------------- \ Thomas Head \ \ thomash at misnet.com \ \ http://www.misnet.com/~thomash \ ---------------------------------- From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Sat Aug 17 02:50:39 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 20:50:39 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025645.23782.16652346807377695625.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I don't know of a text that does this but the national languages are actually only Hindi and English -- that is, Hindi is the primary one and English is the associate national language. The other 17 mentioned in previous discussions are official languages; that is, each of them is a state language of at least one state, and schools in these languages are officially sanctioned. Gail On Sat, 17 Aug 1996, Tom Head wrote: > I'm in the process of learning Hindi and Sanskrit; does anyone on this > list know of a text (preferably fairly inexpensive -- I'm a student) that > describes, compares, or otherwise explains India's national languages? > (I would be especially interested in one published in India and available > via mail-order.) > > Any help would be greatly appreciated. > > ---------------------------------- > \ Thomas Head \ > \ thomash at misnet.com \ > \ http://www.misnet.com/~thomash \ > ---------------------------------- > > > From turstig at juno.com Sun Aug 18 04:47:42 1996 From: turstig at juno.com (turstig at juno.com) Date: Sat, 17 Aug 96 20:47:42 -0800 Subject: bhagavadgita in Russian Message-ID: <161227025647.23782.13431931780395172638.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone know whether there exists a translation of the Bhagavadgita into Russian? Thanks. Hans-Georg Tuerstig From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Mon Aug 19 03:23:33 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Sun, 18 Aug 96 20:23:33 -0700 Subject: Website for information on the Indian Parliament. Message-ID: <161227025654.23782.1572286856288986130.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> There were two recent discussions about ministers in India and the languages listed in the Indian Constitution. The following website might be useful in the future for such enquiries. http://alfa.nic.in, is a site devoted to the Indian Parliament and the Indian Constitution, maintained by the National Informatics Centre. There are a few obvious spelling mistakes, but otherwise the site is quite useful. There is also a link containing the debates of the Indian Constituent Assembly when the Indian Constitution was being written. S. Vidyasankar From pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu Mon Aug 19 05:24:04 1996 From: pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu (Peter J. Claus) Date: Sun, 18 Aug 96 22:24:04 -0700 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025656.23782.2825970278919008035.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Needless to say, perhaps: This is a political distinction between language and dialect, not a linguistic one. And one which causes much confusion between scholars and laymen. It is also responsible for much linguistic rivalry and many bitter political disputes in India. A linguistic definition of language would be based in mutual comprehesion. Peter Claus On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Pullat Devadas Das Menon wrote: > Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 03:12:09 BST > From: Pullat Devadas Das Menon > To: Members of the list > Subject: Re: Official State Languages query > > I believe that Marwari is a dialect amd mot a language - a language being > defined as having a script, and more importantly its own literature. There > are over 200 dialects in India, all of which are in use. Since these are > dialects they do not find mention in the list of official languages. > > Das Menon > > At 01:45 PM 8/16/96 BST, you wrote: > >And how can India not recognize the important of Marwari? > >David Magier > > > > > > > From ehersak at public.srce.hr Mon Aug 19 02:14:01 1996 From: ehersak at public.srce.hr (Emil Hersak) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 04:14:01 +0200 Subject: Russian translation Message-ID: <161227025652.23782.313827298140793169.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hans-Georg Teurstig asked: Does anyone know whether there exists a translation of the Bhagavadgita into Russian? Thanks. There exist various Russian translations and commentaries of the indiviudal books of the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavadgita. You might, for example, try: V.L. Smirnov, Maxabxarata VI. Lesnaja. Perevod, vvedenie, primeenija i tolkovyj slovar' Amshabad, 1962. Emil Hersak (ehersak at public.srce.hr) From magier at columbia.edu Mon Aug 19 13:47:53 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 09:47:53 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025659.23782.5543906773157220251.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > I believe that Marwari is a dialect amd mot a language - a language being > defined as having a script, and more importantly its own literature. There > are over 200 dialects in India, all of which are in use. Since these are > dialects they do not find mention in the list of official languages. Not to go into this too far, there are perhaps thousands of dialects in India, and probably more than a hundred languages. Your definition of "language" is not one used by any linguists or scholars of language. Very many of the world's languages have never had a script, and have not had written literature (though they are often quite rich in oral literature). In any case, Marwari itself has both a script *and* a rich literary tradition. However, most analyses would agree with you: Marwari is a "dialect" of Rajasthani, rather than a distinct language. In the context of a discussion of official languages, of course, I was just joking (like the person who mentioned Tulu - another language [not a dialect] that lacks such exalted status). David Magier Columbia University From dmenon at pacific.net.sg Mon Aug 19 02:02:26 1996 From: dmenon at pacific.net.sg (Pullat Devadas Das Menon) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 10:02:26 +0800 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025651.23782.5247105215384452876.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I believe that Marwari is a dialect amd mot a language - a language being defined as having a script, and more importantly its own literature. There are over 200 dialects in India, all of which are in use. Since these are dialects they do not find mention in the list of official languages. Das Menon At 01:45 PM 8/16/96 BST, you wrote: >And how can India not recognize the important of Marwari? >David Magier > > From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Mon Aug 19 16:36:07 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 10:36:07 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025665.23782.6472905721321707424.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> We *could* certainly be pragmatic about it, but the problem this leads to is discrimination against speakers of languages that continue to be treated politically as dialects: one obvious way in which they are discriminated against is that as long as their languages are considered 'dialects' they cannot claim the right to have schools in their own languages. Thus, Marwari speakers can potentially demand this right based on the definition of a language as one that possesses a script and written literary tradition, but speakers of various adivasi (tribal) languages cannot. Gail Coelho On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > > >Not to go into this too far, there are perhaps thousands of dialects in > >India, and probably more than a hundred languages. Your definition of > >"language" is not one used by any linguists or scholars of language. > >Very many of the world's languages have never had a script, and have > >not had written literature (though they are often quite rich in oral > >literature). > > ... We might be > pragmatic and simply say that what is defined - politically - as a language > is a language, no matter what the linguistic facts are. (Or vice versa: What > can be defined linguistically as a dialect, is a dialect no matter what the > political preferences are). > > Best regards, > > Lars Martin Fosse > > > From magier at columbia.edu Mon Aug 19 14:43:03 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 10:43:03 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025663.23782.15898528780633306622.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > It would seem quite impossible to make linguists and politicians agree upon > what is a language. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are mutually intelligible > (we often listen to each other's television with few difficulties), but > still count as three different languages and not as dialects. And the reverse is also sometimes found: what is frequently referred to as a language (e.g. "Chinese") can actually be a set of mutually UNintelligible "dialects", again for political/cultural/literary reasons. > We might be > pragmatic and simply say that what is defined - politically - as a language > is a language, no matter what the linguistic facts are. I have no objection to such a procedure is applied explicitly with such explanations. But note: the tiny set of "Official Languages" of India were never intended to be a set of all the spoken varieties that are politically, culturally, literarily, or historically treated as "languages". That is, "Official Languages" are a specialized subset of "languages" given a special recognition in the constitution, but never claiming that the other varieties are not languages. (Historians: please elucidate if I am mistaken). David Magier From KERNLIBRVN at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl Mon Aug 19 09:49:04 1996 From: KERNLIBRVN at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl (KERNLIBRVN at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 10:49:04 +0100 Subject: Bakker on Ramjanmabhumi temple Message-ID: <161227025658.23782.1251689765654731073.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ----- Begin message from IN%"BAKKER at let.rug.nl" 15-Aug-96 From: IN%"BAKKER at let.rug.nl" "H.T. Bakker" 15-AUG-1996 14:27 To: CC: Subj: RE: Bakker on Ramjanmabhumi tempel I don't know about this article, but many things have been ascribed to me, mostly bad things. I have not changed my mind. Hans Bakker ----- End forwarded message From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Mon Aug 19 16:56:26 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 10:56:26 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025667.23782.2083391700779943298.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> My impression of the situation regarding official languages in India is that the speakers of these languages had sufficient political power to get their languages on the list. I am sure that if Tulu and Marwari speakers made the effort they could get their languages considered as candidates too. The important issue concerning official languages is that speakers of these languages can receive education in their own language -- this is a right that, I believe, any speaker of any language should have (depending ofcourse on available financial resources). Personally, I think India needs three categories: (i) National languages -- Hindi and English, (ii) State languages -- the 18 that are currently called official languages and which are languages of government in at least one state, and (iii) Official languages -- all those that can linguistically be identified as languages rather than dialects. The status of Official Language should include the right to open schools in these languages. It is true the list of category (iii) would be huge, but after all the 'right to schools' does not necessarily mean that the government has to run these schools, only that people who have the money and energy for it can open such schools if they wish. It would be more feasible to restrict such schools to the elementary level because secondary level education involves the problem of holding public examinations in all these languages. In any case, India is a long way from being able to do this, so I just keep on dreaming!! Gail Coelho On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Pullat Devadas Das Menon wrote: > I believe that Marwari is a dialect amd mot a language - a language being > defined as having a script, and more importantly its own literature. There > are over 200 dialects in India, all of which are in use. Since these are > dialects they do not find mention in the list of official languages. > > Das Menon > > At 01:45 PM 8/16/96 BST, you wrote: > >And how can India not recognize the important of Marwari? > >David Magier > > > > > > > From Richard.Barz at anu.edu.au Mon Aug 19 01:49:54 1996 From: Richard.Barz at anu.edu.au (Richard.Barz at anu.edu.au) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 11:49:54 +1000 Subject: bhagavadgita in Russian Message-ID: <161227025649.23782.8733240936623684441.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> For a translation of the Bhagavadgita >into Russian try Bhagavadgitanuvada : a study in transcultural translation. AUTHOR Callewaert, Winand C. AUTHOR Hemraj, Shilanand. PUBLISHED Ranchi : Satya Bharati Publications, 1983. SUBJECT Mahabharata. Bhagavadgita --Translations. From athr at loc.gov Mon Aug 19 16:03:59 1996 From: athr at loc.gov (Allen Thrasher) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 12:03:59 -0400 Subject: bhagavadgita in Russian Message-ID: <161227025669.23782.15734812173967046757.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 18 Aug 1996, Hans G. Tuerstig wrote: > Does anyone know whether there exists a translation of the Bhagavadgita > into Russian? > Thanks. > Hans-Georg Tuerstig > OCLC shows the following trans. of the BG and trans. of or books on the Mbh. I have eliminated those which I could see were clearly translations of other parts excluding the BG. Allen Thrasher Library of Congress ACCESSION: 24068623 TITLE: Kniga o Bkhishme : otdel "Bkhagavadgita," kn. VI, gl. 13-24. Kniga o poboishche palitsami : kn. XVI / EDITION: Izd. 2. PLACE: Ylym : PUBLISHER: Ashkhabad, YEAR: 1981 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 289 p. ; 23 cm. SERIES: Makhabkharata ; 7, ch. 2 Mahabharata. Russian. Selections ; vyp. 7, kn. 2. NOTES: Translation of selections from Bhagavadgita and of Mausalaparvan. At head of title: Akademiia nauk Turkmenskoi SSR. ALT TITLE: Bhagavadgita. Russian. Selections. OTHER: Smirnov, B. L. (Boris Leonidovich) Turkmenistan SSR ylymlar akademiiasy. Mahabharata. Mausalaparvan. Russian. 1981. Kniga o poboishche palitsami. ACCESSION: 31976863 TITLE: Makhabkharata. PLACE: Sankt-Peterburg : PUBLISHER: "Nauka", YEAR: 1992 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 646 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. NOTES: On leaf preceding t.p.: Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk. Ordena Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni Institut vostokovedeniia. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN: 5020273295 ALT TITLE: Mahabharata. Drona parva. Russian. OTHER: Kalianov, V. I. Institut vostokovedeniia (Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk) Next Record ACCESSION: 28761175 TITLE: Makhabkharata. PLACE: Leningrad : PUBLISHER: Izd-vo "Nauka", Leningradskoe otd-nie, YEAR: 1976 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 590 p., [12] leaves of plates. SERIES: Akademiia nauk SSSR. Literaturnye pamiatniki. NOTES: IU Microform Master no. 91-1231/1. Includes bibliographical references. Microfilm. Moskva : Vsesoiuznaia gos. biblioteka inostrannoi lit- ry, 1991. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. ALT TITLE: Mahabharata. Udyogaparva. Russian. ACCESSION: 28067364 AUTHOR: Neveleva, S. L. (Svetlana Leonidovna) TITLE: Makhabkharata : izuchenie drevneindiiskogo eposa / PLACE: Moskva : PUBLISHER: "Nauka," Glav. red. vostochnoi lit-ry, YEAR: 1991 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 226 p. ; 22 cm. NOTES: "Nauchnoe izdanie"--Colophon. Title on p. 226: Mahabharata. At head of title: Akademiia nauk SSSR. Institut vostokovedeniia. Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-[225]). ISBN: 5020167401 : SUBJECT: Mahabharata. OTHER: Mahabharata. Next Record ACCESSION: 24401106 TITLE: Makhabkharata / PLACE: Moskva : PUBLISHER: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR, YEAR: 1950 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: v., plates ; 23 cm. SERIES: Akademiia nauk SSSR. Literaturnye pamiatniki. ALT TITLE: Mahabharata. Russian OTHER: Kalianov, V. I. Next Record (Record for Mbh trans. as whole:) ACCESSION: 19734733 TITLE: Makhabkharata : chetyre skazaniia / PLACE: Moskva : PUBLISHER: Izd-vo Khudoshch. lit-ra, YEAR: 1969 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 189 p. : ill. ; 20 cm. SERIES: Narodnaia biblioteka NOTES: Slovo predaniia / S. Lipkin -- Makhabkharata. Skazanie o syne Reki, o rybachke Satiavati i o tsare Shantanu -- Skazanie o Savitri, o zhene predannoi i liubiashchei -- Skazanie o chudesnykh sergakh i pantsire -- Skazanie o prikliucheniiakh piati bratev i ikh zheny. ALT TITLE: Mahabharata. Selections. Russian OTHER: Lipkin, Semen Izrailevich. Next Record ACCESSION: 17069559 TITLE: Sozhzhenie zmei : skazanie iz indiiskogo eposa Makhabkharata / PLACE: Moskva : PUBLISHER: Gos. izd-vo khudozh. lit-ry, YEAR: 1958 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 148 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Next Record ACCESSION: 13511972 TITLE: Makhabkharata. Ramaiana / PLACE: Moskva : PUBLISHER: Khudozh. lit-ra, YEAR: 1974 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 605 p., [15] leaves of plates (some col.) : ill. ; 21 cm. SERIES: Biblioteka vsemirnoi literatury. Seriia pervaia ; t. 2 OTHER: Grintser, P. A. (Pavel Aleksandrovich) Ramaiana. Next Record ACCESSION: 13307852 TITLE: Makhabkharata / EDITION: 2-e perer. izd. PLACE: Ashkhabad : PUBLISHER: Izd-vo Akademii nauk Turkmenskoi SSR, YEAR: ? 1959 9999 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: v. ; 23 cm. NOTES: At head of title vol. <1>- : Akademiia nauk Turkmenskoi SSR. l. Dve poemy iz III knigi. ALT TITLE: Mahabharata. Russian OTHER: Smirnov, B. L. (Boris Leonidovich) Turkmenistan SSR ylymlar akademiiasy. Next Record ACCESSION: 3026243 AUTHOR: Ilin, G. F. (Grigorii Fedorovich) TITLE: Starinnoe indiiskoe skazanie of geroiakh drevnosti Makhabkharata / PLACE: Moskva : PUBLISHER: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR, YEAR: 1958 PUB TYPE: Book FORMAT: 139 p. : ill., map ; 20 cm. SERIES: Nauchno-populiarnia seriia SUBJECT: Mahabharata. OTHER: Mahabharata. From magier at columbia.edu Mon Aug 19 16:26:00 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 12:26:00 -0400 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025671.23782.3544512540055515487.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > The status of Official Language should > include the right to open schools in these languages. It is true the list > of category (iii) would be huge, but after all the 'right to schools' does > not necessarily mean that the government has to run these schools, only > that people who have the money and energy for it can open such schools if > they wish. The situation may be a bit more politically complex than this implies. For example, there are tremendous state subsidies for production of textbooks (which is a very profitable business if you are publishing a officially required text), but only in the "official" languages. Thus, someone publishing a school textbook in, say, Marwari, will be unable to sell copies, and unable to garner the publication subsidies that would automatically go to the publisher of, say, a recognized Hindi textbook. David Magier From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Mon Aug 19 19:06:38 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 13:06:38 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025675.23782.7607028796508254367.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> It's true that the country couldn't afford to subsidize schools or textbooks in all of India's languages. It would have to continue doing that only with state languages (currently called official languages). Schools and provision of textbooks in the remaining languages could be done perhaps by private agencies or NGOs interested in this issue. Some of these languages are spoken by pretty wealthy and powerful communities who could perhaps finance schools in their own languages. The important point is granting people the *right* to open schools in their own languages. The implementation of that right is the next step. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that at present schools can be run only in the official languages plus English. Gail Coelho On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, David Magier wrote: > > The status of Official Language should > > include the right to open schools in these languages. It is true the list > > of category (iii) would be huge, but after all the 'right to schools' does > > not necessarily mean that the government has to run these schools, only > > that people who have the money and energy for it can open such schools if > > they wish. > > The situation may be a bit more politically complex than this implies. > For example, there are tremendous state subsidies for production of > textbooks (which is a very profitable business if you are publishing a > officially required text), but only in the "official" languages. Thus, > someone publishing a school textbook in, say, Marwari, will be unable > to sell copies, and unable to garner the publication subsidies that would > automatically go to the publisher of, say, a recognized Hindi textbook. > > David Magier > > From l.m.fosse at internet.no Mon Aug 19 14:21:29 1996 From: l.m.fosse at internet.no (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 16:21:29 +0200 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025661.23782.15528725228416728625.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Not to go into this too far, there are perhaps thousands of dialects in >India, and probably more than a hundred languages. Your definition of >"language" is not one used by any linguists or scholars of language. >Very many of the world's languages have never had a script, and have >not had written literature (though they are often quite rich in oral >literature). It would seem quite impossible to make linguists and politicians agree upon what is a language. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are mutually intelligible (we often listen to each other's television with few difficulties), but still count as three different languages and not as dialects. Some German dialects I have encountered seemed more like mutually unintelligible languages, at least compared to High German, but still count as dialects. (But being a non-German, I may be making too much out of the differences). Similar phenomena seem to apply to Indic languages/dialects. We might be pragmatic and simply say that what is defined - politically - as a language is a language, no matter what the linguistic facts are. (Or vice versa: What can be defined linguistically as a dialect, is a dialect no matter what the political preferences are). Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse From raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu Tue Aug 20 02:21:55 1996 From: raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu (Narayan S. Raja) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 16:21:55 -1000 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025681.23782.16016020535605724328.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 17 Aug 1996 gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote: > I don't know of a text that does this but the national languages are > actually only Hindi and English -- that is, Hindi is the primary one and > English is the associate national language. The other 17 mentioned in > previous discussions are official languages; that is, each of them is a > state language of at least one state, Actually, I believe it's the other way round -- English and Hindi are "official languages", whereas every language on the list (including Hindi, and presumably English too, since it's the state language of Nagaland) is a "national language". Pl. correct me if I'm mistaken. Regards, Raja. From raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu Tue Aug 20 03:41:31 1996 From: raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu (Narayan S. Raja) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 17:41:31 -1000 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025685.23782.8598427779771013540.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote: > The important point > is granting people the *right* to open schools in their own languages. I'm pretty sure that this is not an issue at all, i.e., i.e., it is perfectly legal, right now, to start a school and teach in any language one wants! Whether that school would be eligible for govt. subsidies, or whether govt. subsidies would be available to print textbooks in that language, is a different matter. There are three reasons why I think that this "right" already exists: 1. I would guess that there is, in fact, NO LAW that either explicitly permits, or prohibits, opening a school in whatever language one chooses -- just as there is probably no law that explicitly permits, or prohibits, people from wearing any ethnic clothes they feel like. I.e., I guess that just as there is no reason to press for a law that explicitly permits people to wear langotis -- the current legal position presumably being that the law is blind to langotis -- similarly, there is no reason to press for a law that explicitly allows, or disallows, teaching in any language. 2. Further, I would guess that the right to teach in any language is already implied by the Fundamental Right to "freedom of expression". Probably, this has never been tested in the courts, for the simple reason that in India, nobody could care less if you want to teach, in, say, Albanian, so long as you don't ask the govt. to pay for it. 3. New States are created, and additional languages are added to Section no. whatever of the Constitution, with monotonous regularity. For example, Nepali and Konkani were added only recently. I strongly doubt that Konkani- or Nepali- medium schools were illegal, or non-existent, before some politicians in Delhi got around to adding those languages to the list. Regards, Raja. From raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu Tue Aug 20 04:19:07 1996 From: raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu (Narayan S. Raja) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 18:19:07 -1000 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025687.23782.3552908140004482872.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Also, Tibetan refugees have had Tibetan-language schools for decades; ISCUS teaches Russian (in, of course, Russian :-) ), Alliance Francaise teaches French, Max Mueller Bhavan teaches German, etc., etc. Regards, Raja. PS: I myself argue that the national language of India is COBOL. From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Mon Aug 19 17:41:49 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 18:41:49 +0100 Subject: R. Salomon: electronic publicaction Message-ID: <161227025673.23782.6478401005590613643.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear indologists, With the kind permission of Prof Richard Salomon and of the American Oriental Society, I have republished Prof Salomon's review 1995 review article "On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts" on the INDOLOGY web page. See http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html and follow the links for "important position or review papers. It was hard converting Prof Salomon's paper to HTML because of the extensive use of diacritics and the reproduction of Brahmi and other characters (which I have not tried to reproduce, through lack of time). However, I believe the result is eminently readable, and I hope that many of you will enjoy and benefit from this exceptionally useful review article. Subject to general approval, I intend to reproduce other review, overview, or position papers which I feel usefully bring together or present the main issues in a particular area of indological studies. I should like to extend special thanks to Prof. Salomon for his agreement to the reproduction of his review article, and to Profs. Edwin Gerow and Johnathan Rodgers, and other officers of the AOS, for their permission to reproduce the material, and for their support of this experiment. Best wishes, Dominik Wujastyk From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Tue Aug 20 04:33:13 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 22:33:13 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025683.23782.2262967493379656159.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> No, I'm pretty sure I got that right. I dont know what the technical definition of national language is, but a simple layman's definition that I think describes the role of the Indian national languages is: one that works as a lingua franca for the country as a whole. The Indian official languages are used to a greater extent in specific states rather than throughout the country. Gail Coelho On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Narayan S. Raja wrote: > Actually, I believe it's the other way > round -- English and Hindi are > "official languages", whereas every > language on the list (including Hindi, > and presumably English too, since > it's the state language of Nagaland) > is a "national language". Pl. correct > me if I'm mistaken. > > Regards, > > > Raja. > > > From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Mon Aug 19 23:01:55 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 00:01:55 +0100 Subject: Transliteration standards (fwd) Message-ID: <161227025677.23782.16922718684382036563.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 17:57:46 GMT From: John Clews To: d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk Subject: Transliteration standards Dear Dominik Please could you post the following on the Indology list? I want to avoid subscribing just to post this one if possible. Thanks John Clews * * * * * * * * Transliteration standards I am the new chair of the International Organization for Standardization subcommittee responsible for transliteration (ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages). The new secretary (Evangelos Melagrakis from Greece) and I hope to make it far more visible and far more relevant to end users than it has been in the past. To enable this, an electronic mailing list for ISO/TC46/SC2 (tc46sc2 at elot.gr) has now been set up by ELOT (the Greek national standards body). We hope this list will attract researchers and scientists who can add useful information which might assist in developing standards on the Conversion of Written Languages. There are already quite a few with an interest in South Asian languages on this list. We also hope to have an emphasis on issues of using computers to do appropriate transformations necessary in automated transliteration, and also look forward to having regular contact with those on this list who are interested in such issues. One major advantage of email is the ability to involve far more people in the development of a common purpose than were involved before, to get user feedback, and expert opinion from various sources. Subscribing to the mailing list for ISO/TC46/SC2 In order to join the list you should be actively involved in using transliteration systems, or in developing transliteration systems, and should be prepared to contribute to the list from time to time. If you meet these criteria, and wish to join the list, send an email to majordomo at elot.gr with this message in the body of the text: subscribe tc46sc2 your at email.address (but with your real email address replacing the string your at email.address). To find out further commands you can use, send the command "help" as the text of an email either to tc46sc2-request at elot.gr or to: majordomo at elot.gr To unsubscribe, send the command "unsubscribe" instead, omitting the "quotes" marks in both cases. This will tell you how to obtain copies of past messages etc., and other useful features. Once you are subscribed, you can send messages to tc46sc2 at elot.gr and receive messages from other members of the list. Please reply where possible to the list as a whole, so that all can benefit: using the Group Reply function (pressing G on some email software) is the simplest way to achieve this. Other members will also be interested to see who else is joining the list, so it is useful to send a brief introduction (say, one or two short paragraphs) to tc46sc2 at elot.gr at the outset, saying what languages, scripts and other things you are involved in. That is the most likely way to stimulate others to write on the subjects you are interested in! You should also inform your national standards body to express your interest in participating in this list. I can provide some information on details of your national member body of ISO, if you send me an email requesting this. I look forward to seeing new participants on this list. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else who may be interested in transliteration standardisation issues, and to send any queries about the list to me. Yours sincerely John Clews -- John Clews (Chairman of ISO/TC46/SC2: Conversion of Written Languages) SESAME Computer Projects, 8 Avenue Rd. * email: Converse at sesame.demon.co.uk Harrogate, HG2 7PG, United Kingdom * telephone: +44 (0) 1423 888 432 From pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu Tue Aug 20 14:56:45 1996 From: pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu (Peter J. Claus) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 07:56:45 -0700 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025692.23782.4111334383337506451.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> While there is perhaps no law prohibiting having a school to teach any particular language, the question is rather what the medium of instruction is. I believe that several sates have, in fact, placed restrictions on even private schools teaching in English and other language (eg. Urdu; Marathi in Karnataka, etc.) mediums. But possibly this has only to do with government recognition -- which is required in order to get the government to pay the teachers' salaries. I am not clear on the details, but my point is that the examples cited evade the major political issues concerned. On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Narayan S. Raja wrote: > Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 04:52:55 BST > From: Narayan S. Raja > To: Members of the list > Subject: Re: Official State Languages query > > > > On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote: > > > The important point > > is granting people the *right* to open schools in their own languages. > > I'm pretty sure that this is > not an issue at all, i.e., i.e., > it is perfectly legal, right now, > to start a school and teach in > any language one wants! Whether > that school would be eligible for > govt. subsidies, or whether govt. > subsidies would be available to > print textbooks in that language, > is a different matter. There are > three reasons why I think that this > "right" already exists: > > 1. I would guess that there is, in > fact, NO LAW that either explicitly > permits, or prohibits, opening a school > in whatever language one chooses -- > just as there is probably no law > that explicitly permits, or prohibits, > people from wearing any ethnic clothes > they feel like. I.e., I guess that > just as there is no reason to press for a > law that explicitly permits people to wear > langotis -- the current legal position > presumably being that the law is blind > to langotis -- similarly, there is no > reason to press for a law that explicitly > allows, or disallows, teaching in any language. > 2. Further, I would guess that the right to > teach in any language is already > implied by the Fundamental Right > to "freedom of expression". Probably, > this has never been tested in the courts, > for the simple reason that in India, > nobody could care less if you want to > teach, in, say, Albanian, so long as > you don't ask the govt. to pay for it. > 3. New States are created, and additional > languages are added to Section no. whatever > of the Constitution, with monotonous > regularity. For example, Nepali and > Konkani were added only recently. I > strongly doubt that Konkani- or Nepali- > medium schools were illegal, or non-existent, > before some politicians in Delhi got > around to adding those languages to the list. > > Regards, > > > Raja. > > > From magier at columbia.edu Tue Aug 20 13:31:56 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 09:31:56 -0400 Subject: R. Salomon: electronic publicaction Message-ID: <161227025690.23782.11370299262973537892.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > With the kind permission of Prof Richard Salomon and of the American > Oriental Society, I have republished Prof Salomon's review 1995 review > article "On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts" on the INDOLOGY web > page. See > > http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html > > and follow the links for "important position or review papers. The direct URL to this paper is: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/salomon.html Many thanks to Dominik for doing this important conversion and electronic publishing. David Magier From dmenon at pacific.net.sg Tue Aug 20 02:01:11 1996 From: dmenon at pacific.net.sg (Pullat Devadas Das Menon) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 10:01:11 +0800 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025679.23782.9862126877568615585.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> India might be a lot closer to have the ability to start schools in "dialects" than people realise. I make this comment based on the observation that government "owned" schools in India has broken up and education is now more and more in the hands of private citizens/organisations. Private funded education appears to be a fast growing 'business' in India. So we might yet see schools in these 'dialects'. The main obstacle may be one of not belonging to a 'minority' religion which has special status (rights) for starting schools and keeping them without fear of being taken over by government, a consideration any 'business (money)' will have. Das Menon At 05:02 PM 8/19/96 BST, you wrote: deleted > The status of Official Language should >include the right to open schools in these languages. It is true the list >of category (iii) would be huge, but after all the 'right to schools' does >not necessarily mean that the government has to run these schools, only >that people who have the money and energy for it can open such schools if >they wish. It would be more feasible to restrict such schools to the >elementary level because secondary level education involves the problem of >holding public examinations in all these languages. In any case, India is >a long way from being able to do this, so I just keep on dreaming!! > >Gail Coelho > > From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Tue Aug 20 17:32:07 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 11:32:07 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025697.23782.1164256555562348080.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > While there is perhaps no law prohibiting having a school to teach any > particular language, the question is rather what the medium of > instruction is... But possibly > this has only to do with government recognition -- which is required in > order to get the government to pay the teachers' salaries. Right, the problem is not of a law prohibiting such schools, but of official recognition of them. We cant just start schools in an ad hoc manner, they have to be officially registered as schools. Further, students have to pass an officially recognised public examination at the end of the 10th grade, but at present these are held only in the national and state languages. Holding them in other languages would require official recognition of them as mediums of instruction. Even at the level of the elementary school, my impression is that if a child hypothetically spent her first 6 years of education in a 'school' where the medium of instruction is Tulu and then transferred to another school run in an official langauge, those initial years would not be recognised as formal schooling and the child would probably be ineligible to enter the new school in the 7th grade. But I'm not sure about this. > I am not clear on the details, but my point is that the examples cited > evade the major political issues concerned. > I'd like to hear from you about these political issues. I hope eventually to work on starting an elementary school in an adivasi language spoken in my hometown, but I'm still inexperienced about the issue. Gail Coelho. From tcahill at ccat.sas.upenn.edu Tue Aug 20 16:23:06 1996 From: tcahill at ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Tim Cahill) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 12:23:06 -0400 Subject: bibliographies Message-ID: <161227025694.23782.10664886695008904664.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indologists, Since things seem a bit slow on the list these days, I thought I'd mention that the complete bibliographies of Professors Ludo Rocher, Rosane Rocher, and Wilhelm Halbfass are available via their respective home pages. (Photos included!) These can be found on the 'faculty' list of the South Asia Regional Studies home page. The address: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/asia/faculty.html best, Tim Cahill From vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu Tue Aug 20 18:49:39 1996 From: vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 14:49:39 -0400 Subject: The review article about history Braahmii Message-ID: <161227025701.23782.8194653256278718933.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I scanned through the review article about Brahmi. I did not notice any reference to the `recent' finds of potsherds from Sri Lanka which are supposed to marked with Brahmi letters. Due to limited library facilities, I do not have access to the primary literature. My only reference is ``Archaeology of Early Historic India'' by Allchin et al. On pp 176--177, there is a reference to these potsherds. Radiocarbon dating is said to put these in the period of 450BCE--350BCE, with the original excavator dating them to 600BCE--500BCE, presumably on archaeological grounds. Elsewhere (p.165), it is said that the `radiometric determination' is `unclear'. I wonder if further research has thrown any doubt on the dates quoted in the book. If not, these finds raise serious questions about the theory that Brahmi writing was invented during Maurya times. -Nath Nath Rao (nathrao+ at osu.edu) 614-366-9341 From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Tue Aug 20 17:02:07 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 18:02:07 +0100 Subject: R. Salomon: electronic publication Message-ID: <161227025699.23782.7058983439281013052.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, David Magier wrote: > The direct URL to this paper is: > > http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/salomon.html I'm afraid this has changed since David sent his note. However, the links from the INDOLOGY home page are unchanged. Dominik From aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca Wed Aug 21 01:17:23 1996 From: aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca (aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 18:17:23 -0700 Subject: Thanks and a rephrased inquiry Message-ID: <161227025705.23782.12654047340287044840.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thanks to James Nye, Allen Thrasher, Royce Wiles, Asko Parpola and Georg v.Simson for the bibliographic information they supplied. Has anyone come across a jye.s.tha-putra-nyaaya? What are the proverbs, particularly in Telugu, in which the eldest son is mentioned? I ask these questions because, somewhat surprisingly, there was no response to the following inquiry of mine: "Is there a proverb in (south?) Indian languages to the effect that if the eldest son is humiliated (through disciplining or depriving him of something), the younger two (less likely, three) are as good as humiliated? What I am looking for is an equivalent to the Sanskrit line jye.s.tha-putraavamaanena traya.h kupyanti sodaraaa.h. The context in which this vacana or 'statement? having the appearance of a proverb is cited is this: The speaker is making the point that robbing someone who has incalculable wealth earned legitimately is better than robbing someone who has limited wealth and robbing someone whose wealth is earned illegitimately. " The intended parallelism seems to be that a victim (or only an apparent victim) of robbery who has incalculable wealth earned legitimately is like the eldest son. From turstig at juno.com Wed Aug 21 04:33:12 1996 From: turstig at juno.com (turstig at juno.com) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 20:33:12 -0800 Subject: Antiquariu@AOL.COM: Help - URDU Message-ID: <161227025703.23782.11464285967229911650.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- From: Antiquariu at AOL.COM To: LANTRA-L at SEGATE.SUNET.SE Subject: Help - URDU Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 15:20:32 -0400 Message-ID: <960820152031_183550390 at emout18.mail.aol.com> ALS, Inc has an urgent need for Urdu translators in the Greater Washington area. Respond to Rebecca at 703-904-1046 as soon as possible! Werner/Vladimir ALS, Inc --------- End forwarded message ---------- From dmenon at pacific.net.sg Wed Aug 21 02:16:15 1996 From: dmenon at pacific.net.sg (Pullat Devadas Das Menon) Date: Wed, 21 Aug 96 10:16:15 +0800 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025707.23782.14780079784279451341.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> There are a number of 'experimental' schools in India that does not conform to the official syllabus. THese schools generallu cater for students upto "eighth standard". From 8th onwards these students transfer to a 'normal' school and continue their education so that they can get a paper certificate for the 10th etc. This 'transfer' to a standard school is strictly an arrangement between the experimental school and the standard school (as long as the school is a private school) at the discreeetion of the school principal. There might be an entrance test to gauge at whether the student can go into 8th itself or at what level. One school that comes to my mind is the Mirambika school run by the Aurobindo Ashram in New Delhi, The medium here is English, but they do not follow any formal syllabus. The other school is the one started by Jiva Institute in Faridabad (Hariyana) in 94. So I feel that it is quite possible to have a school that is different, but it must have built in hooks so that the student can move over to a standard school for the purpose of certification which is a requirement for jobs. Such a hook necessarily will have to be one of the official languages that is a medium of instruction in these standard schools. India unfortunately have quite a few obstacles to get admission to official schools. To cite a personal example, my daughter has been refused consideration even to appear for an entrance examination to std. VII at Lawrence School Sanawar because she is 12 years old. They say she is too old!. This has more to do with the fact that Lawrence School is a govt. school which prescribes certain age for certain class. Das > >Right, the problem is not of a law prohibiting such schools, but of >official recognition of them. We cant just start schools in an ad hoc >manner, they have to be officially registered as schools. Further, >students have to pass an officially recognised public examination at the >end of the 10th grade, but at present these are held only in the national >and state languages. Holding them in other languages would require >official recognition of them as mediums of instruction. Even at the level >of the elementary school, my impression is that if a child hypothetically >spent her first 6 years of education in a 'school' where the medium of >instruction is Tulu and then transferred to another school run in an >official langauge, those initial years would not be recognised as formal >schooling and the child would probably be ineligible to enter the new >school in the 7th grade. But I'm not sure about this. > >I'd like to hear from you about these political issues. I hope eventually >to work on starting an elementary school in an adivasi language spoken in >my hometown, but I'm still inexperienced about the issue. > >Gail Coelho. > > From gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu Wed Aug 21 16:56:31 1996 From: gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu) Date: Wed, 21 Aug 96 10:56:31 -0600 Subject: Official State Languages query Message-ID: <161227025709.23782.8516057403198677824.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thanks, I need to find out more about avenues for opening such experimental schools. Gail Coelho On Wed, 21 Aug 1996, Pullat Devadas "Das" Menon wrote: > There are a number of 'experimental' schools in India that does not conform > to the official syllabus. THese schools generallu cater for students upto > "eighth standard". From 8th onwards these students transfer to a 'normal' > school and continue their education so that they can get a paper certificate > for the 10th etc. > > This 'transfer' to a standard school is strictly an arrangement between the > experimental school and the standard school (as long as the school is a > private school) at the discreeetion of the school principal. There might be > an entrance test to gauge at whether the student can go into 8th itself or > at what level. > > One school that comes to my mind is the Mirambika school run by the > Aurobindo Ashram in New Delhi, The medium here is English, but they do not > follow any formal syllabus. The other school is the one started by Jiva > Institute in Faridabad (Hariyana) in 94. > > So I feel that it is quite possible to have a school that is different, but > it must have built in hooks so that the student can move over to a standard > school for the purpose of certification which is a requirement for jobs. > Such a hook necessarily will have to be one of the official languages that > is a medium of instruction in these standard schools. > > India unfortunately have quite a few obstacles to get admission to official > schools. To cite a personal example, my daughter has been refused > consideration even to appear for an entrance examination to std. VII at > Lawrence School Sanawar because she is 12 years old. They say she is too > old!. This has more to do with the fact that Lawrence School is a govt. > school which prescribes certain age for certain class. > > Das > > > > >Right, the problem is not of a law prohibiting such schools, but of > >official recognition of them. We cant just start schools in an ad hoc > >manner, they have to be officially registered as schools. Further, > >students have to pass an officially recognised public examination at the > >end of the 10th grade, but at present these are held only in the national > >and state languages. Holding them in other languages would require > >official recognition of them as mediums of instruction. Even at the level > >of the elementary school, my impression is that if a child hypothetically > >spent her first 6 years of education in a 'school' where the medium of > >instruction is Tulu and then transferred to another school run in an > >official langauge, those initial years would not be recognised as formal > >schooling and the child would probably be ineligible to enter the new > >school in the 7th grade. But I'm not sure about this. > > > >I'd like to hear from you about these political issues. I hope eventually > >to work on starting an elementary school in an adivasi language spoken in > >my hometown, but I'm still inexperienced about the issue. > > > >Gail Coelho. > > > > > > From magier at columbia.edu Thu Aug 22 00:32:03 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Wed, 21 Aug 96 20:32:03 -0400 Subject: Event announcement: Testing Workshop Message-ID: <161227025713.23782.10111472640692631597.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The following event announcement is being forwarded to your listserv from the EVENTS CALENDAR section of The South Asia Gopher. Please contact event organizers directly if you seek any further information. Thank you. David Magier ================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 17:31:36 -0500 From: vgambhir at sas.upenn.edu (Dr. Vijay Gambhir) Subject: A Testing Workshop Announcement The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Presents an Oral Proficiency Interview Workshop on Novemeber 18-21, 1996 at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia It will include a special section for Hindi. For details call or write to Regan Greene Professional Development Department ACTFL, 6 Executive Plaza, Yonkers NY 10701 Ph: 914-963-8830, ext. 229 Fax: 914-963-1275 Registration deadline: October 4, 1996 Fee: $790 (Non-member), $630 (member) From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Thu Aug 22 03:40:33 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Wed, 21 Aug 96 20:40:33 -0700 Subject: commentaries on maa.n.duukya kaarikaas Message-ID: <161227025717.23782.17640094240445821926.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Is there a commentary on the maa.n.duukya kaarikaas by anubhuutisvaruupa-aacaarya? I am aware of a commentary to Sankara's commentary by aanandagiri, but I recently found a commentary attributed to anubhuutisvaruupa in the catalog of the U. Washington library. Is this a different work, or is there some confusion between aanandagiri and anubhuutisvaruupa? On the suject of anubhuutisvaruupa, is there a definitive list of compositions of this author? The praka.taartha-vivara.na is listed as his composition in the same catalog. However, S. N. Dasgupta's History of Indian Philosophies lists this work as that of an unknown author. Throughout the volume dealing with advaita, Dasgupta talks of the philosophy of "the author of the praka.taartha-vivara.na," without mentioning his name. But Karl Potter's vol. 1 of the Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies lists this work under anubhuutisvaruupa. How was the authorship decided? S. Vidyasankar From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Wed Aug 21 20:30:33 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Wed, 21 Aug 96 22:30:33 +0200 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025712.23782.2723888639189905434.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I have just read a forwarded letter about standards and it reminds me ... More than 1,5 year ago I presented my way of writing Sanskrit. There was no reaction to it. However, I still do not know why other systems are thought better. I guess, some computer reasons may be at stake. Here again is my way. Let us call it BO. 1) long vowels are double repetitions of their short counterparts 2) diacritical marks written above a letter are rendered by a dash (or an upper stroke) behind that letter ie "-" 3) diacritical marks written below a letter are rendered by a lower stroke written behind that letter ie "_" 4) eventual divisions are marked by "/" 5) to distinguish between two "n-"s, one of them is written as "n~" and the other as "n-" (you guess from Spanish which is the right way) And that's basically all. (I have further details ready in my pocket just in case.) You don't have to use strange big letters in the middle of your words. You don't have to do such unnatural things as writing diacritics before (!) writing a letter. You don't have to memorise strange combinations of keys. The only really funny thing about it is you have sometimes write r_r_ . But it is quite easy to remember and is not that often. One more advantage of the system is you can use your old tapewriter to write Sanskrit without much effort. (of course you must choose some other mark for "~"). So what do you think. I noticed the heat of the discussion about languages on banknotes is getting cooler so maybe I don't disturb it much. Thank you for your time. Leslaw Borowski From mhcrxlc at dir.mcc.ac.uk Thu Aug 22 06:43:26 1996 From: mhcrxlc at dir.mcc.ac.uk (mhcrxlc at dir.mcc.ac.uk) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 07:43:26 +0100 Subject: review article Message-ID: <161227025719.23782.17072136050001301847.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidhyanath K. Rao writes: >I scanned through the review article about Brahmi. I did not notice >any reference to the `recent' finds of potsherds from Sri Lanka which >are supposed to marked with Brahmi letters. Due to limited library >facilities, I do not have access to the primary literature. My only >reference is ``Archaeology of Early Historic India'' by Allchin et al. >On pp 176--177, there is a reference to these potsherds. >Radiocarbon dating is said to put these in the period of 450BCE--350BCE, >with the original excavator dating them to 600BCE--500BCE, presumably >on archaeological grounds. There are several other published papers. I think you have put your finger on the one significant weakness in Salomon's otherwise excellent paper. Possibly it was drafted before fuller information had become available on the Anuraadhapura finds. >Elsewhere (p.165), it is said that the `radiometric determination' is >`unclear'. I wonder if further research has thrown any doubt on the >dates quoted in the book. If not, these finds raise serious questions >about the theory that Brahmi writing was invented during Maurya times. There is now enough radiocarbon evidence to rule out a complete invention during the reign of Asoka. Of course the potsherds evidence only particular letters not the whole alphabet. I doubt whether the material from Ceylon would prohibit the possibility of a deliberate invention early in the reign of Candragupta (accession between 325 B.C. and 302 B.C.). It would suggest rapid communication between Maaagadha and Anuraadhapura, if it is assumed that the invention took place in Maagadha. But trade and other links make that fairly likely anyway. Alternatively, the invention could have taken place on the island of Ceylon - not impossible if that was already a maritime communication link between the Near East and South Asia. Lance Cousins MANCHESTER, UK Email: mhcrxlc at dir.mcc.ac.uk From turstig at juno.com Thu Aug 22 17:36:22 1996 From: turstig at juno.com (turstig at juno.com) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 09:36:22 -0800 Subject: Shaktipat Yoga Sutras Message-ID: <161227025727.23782.12377336262384404466.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone know anything about such a text? Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Hans-Georg Tuerstig From dmenon at pacific.net.sg Thu Aug 22 02:05:23 1996 From: dmenon at pacific.net.sg (Pullat Devadas Das Menon) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 10:05:23 +0800 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025715.23782.13952105102549575645.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Perhaps you can list out the full scheme? Then it will be easier to compare it with the other methods like ITRANS, Harvard-Koyoto, T.G. etc.? Das At 09:33 PM 8/21/96 BST, you wrote: >I have just read a forwarded letter about standards and it reminds me ... >More than 1,5 year ago I presented my way of writing Sanskrit. There was >no reaction to it. However, I still do not know why other systems are >thought better. I guess, some computer reasons may be at stake. >Here again is my way. Let us call it BO. > >1) long vowels are double repetitions of their short counterparts >2) diacritical marks written above a letter are rendered by a dash (or an >upper stroke) behind that letter ie "-" >3) diacritical marks written below a letter are rendered by a lower stroke >written behind that letter ie "_" >4) eventual divisions are marked by "/" >5) to distinguish between two "n-"s, one of them is written as "n~" and >the other as "n-" (you guess from Spanish which is the right way) > deleted > Leslaw Borowski > > From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Thu Aug 22 10:44:50 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 11:44:50 +0100 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025721.23782.13077628208093440649.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Leslaw's system "BO" seems just as good as any other 7-bit scheme. I think it is probably better to decide which side of a letter your accents will appear -- BO has accent-markers on the left and on the right of letters, which makes automatic parsing much more fiddly. However, Peter Schreiner's transliteration scheme is very similar to BO in general principle, and more fully worked-out. In addition, there is a significant corpus of work in Peter's coding, which makes it worthwhile to develop conversion tables for moving in and out of his scheme (to TeX, for example). Finally, I should like to say *again*, pace Lars M. Fosse's remarks which I consider refutable, that no 7-bit coding scheme for Sanskrit is essentially better than any other, as long as ambiguity is avoided. And the tools for converting from one scheme to another are so widespread and easy to use, that surely we must ask whether the topic remains interesting? Might we seriously consider replacing any typing on this topic by typing actual Sanskrit texts (in any coding :-)? Dominik From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Thu Aug 22 10:50:30 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 11:50:30 +0100 Subject: commentaries on maa.n.duukya kaarikaas Message-ID: <161227025723.23782.1739732692840183000.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 22 Aug 1996, Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote: > Is there a commentary on the maa.n.duukya kaarikaas by > anubhuutisvaruupa-aacaarya? The best place to look for this kind of query is Raghavan et al.'s _New Catalogus Catalogorum_ (Madras: U. of Madras, 1968- ). Abbrev: NCC. NCC lists about three S. Indian manuscripts of some notes by Anubhuuti. on the Gaudapadiyabhasya. > On the suject of anubhuutisvaruupa, is there a definitive list of > compositions of this author? The praka.taartha-vivara.na is listed as his > composition in the same catalog. NCC lists a dozen works by A., including the [Brahmasuutrabhaa.sya] praka.taarthavivara.na, which survives apparently in a single manuscript in Madras. Dominik From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Thu Aug 22 13:53:46 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 14:53:46 +0100 Subject: WWW Database of Chinese Buddhist texts (fwd) Message-ID: <161227025725.23782.9669522114507160962.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 18:21:58 +0100 From: Christian Wittern Reply-To: asiandoc at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu To: asiandoc at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Subject: WWW Database of Chinese Buddhist texts Announcement ------------ Dear colleagues, today I installed my WWW database of Chinese Buddhist texts in my Web area at http://www.gwdg.de/~cwitter/ and made it thus publicly accessible. Please distribute this announcement and provide links wherever it seems appropriate to you. The WWW Database of Chinese Buddhist texts is a comprehensive list of Chinese Buddhist texts. It currently contains 4375 texts by 1349 authors. It makes available conveniently all texts contained in the following collections or catalogues and provides convenient cross-references among these sources of information: 1.Taishoo Shinshuu Daizookyoo 2.Tripitaka Koreana 3.Dainippon Zokuzookyoo 4.'A catalogue of the Chinese translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka' by Bunyiu Nanjio, Oxford 1883 There were two general aims in compiling this information: 1.Linking entry numbers and references from different catalogues and collections to ease access to this information by researchers, and make it available online. 2.Providing a seed crystal for information about Chinese Buddhist texts that are available electronically. Information of the second type is not yet included in this release, but I hope this will grow in the future following the public release of the database. The whole database is encoded in the Japanese encoding (ShiftJIS), with additional characters made visible as graphical images. I hope to make available a Chinese version at least downloadable for local use, since online installation seems to be difficult because of space limitations. Christian Wittern University of Goettingen Ernst-Fahlbusch-Str.2 Department of East-Asian Cultures 37077 Goettingen Visit the WWW Database of Chinese Buddhist texts at Tel. +49-551-378092 http://www.gwdg.de/~cwitter/ From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Thu Aug 22 14:00:37 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 16:00:37 +0200 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025729.23782.13970011080608054405.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > Leslaw's system "BO" seems just as good as any other 7-bit scheme. I > think it is probably better to decide which side of a letter your accents > will appear -- BO has accent-markers on the left and on the right of > letters, which makes automatic parsing much more fiddly. I don't quite understand. 1) You don't have to put diacritical marks BEFORE writing a letter (which goes against normal practice), 2) you don't have to use capital letters inside a word (which leaves you possibilities of using them in a traditional way or otherwise), 3) you can use both tapewriter and computer in the same way 4) you don't have to learn a system which is very different from international convention of writing Sanskrit - these are the advantages some other systems lack. It may be all the same for computers to use this or that system but not for new people who are learning Sanskrit with the help of a computer and have to memorise strange sequences of keys to type a letter and a diacritical mark. If you mean computerwise it's all the same so the better for BO. Also, I did not write about accents. It has definitely not been my idea to put their marks on the left and on the right of letters! We don't have to use them that often but if you have to then put them right after the letter. It's natural to do it that way. > However, Peter Schreiner's transliteration scheme is very similar to BO in > general principle, and more fully worked-out. In addition, there is a > significant corpus of work in Peter's coding, which makes it worthwhile to > develop conversion tables for moving in and out of his scheme (to TeX, for > example). It's nice to know somebody had similar ideas. I don't know Peter Schreiner's transliteration. Could somebody advise me please where in the net could I read a good presentation of it. > Finally, I should like to say *again*, pace Lars M. Fosse's remarks which > I consider refutable, that no 7-bit coding scheme for Sanskrit is > essentially better than any other, as long as ambiguity is avoided. And > the tools for converting from one scheme to another are so widespread and > easy to use, that surely we must ask whether the topic remains > interesting? Again, for a computer it may be all the same. It is not so for a man, especially for those who are not both computer specialists and Sanskrit scholars ;-) Might we seriously consider replacing any typing on this > topic by typing actual Sanskrit texts (in any coding :-)? Didn't got the allusion. BO is meant not for eliminating devanagari. It is meant for electronic (and typed) texts where you mix latin script words with words from Sanskrit. I also think devanagari has some disadvantages in electronic presentations of text. That's all this time Leslaw > > > > > From mmdesh at umich.edu Thu Aug 22 22:06:23 1996 From: mmdesh at umich.edu (Madhav Deshpande) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 18:06:23 -0400 Subject: question? Message-ID: <161227025741.23782.11358433592792235721.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone know Professor O.v. Hinuber's email address? Thanks. Madhav Deshpande From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Thu Aug 22 18:02:21 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 19:02:21 +0100 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025736.23782.3824784383232954402.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 22 Aug 1996, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > May I, by the way, suggest that all typing of Sanskrit texts should be > done with compound analysis the way it is done in the TZ-format? Proper > compound analysis makes the texts far more valuable for electronic > analysis than entering the texts in the way they appear in a Sanskrit > book or manuscript. It is definitely "value added" text entry! I agree with you 100%. For the grief that comes from not marking compounds systematically, see John Smith's comments at his web site about his editorial work on the Tokunaga Mahabharata. Dominik From l.m.fosse at internet.no Thu Aug 22 17:54:37 1996 From: l.m.fosse at internet.no (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 19:54:37 +0200 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025733.23782.18211954810828452992.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Finally, I should like to say *again*, pace Lars M. Fosse's remarks which >I consider refutable, that no 7-bit coding scheme for Sanskrit is >essentially better than any other, as long as ambiguity is avoided. And >the tools for converting from one scheme to another are so widespread and >easy to use, that surely we must ask whether the topic remains >interesting? Might we seriously consider replacing any typing on this >topic by typing actual Sanskrit texts (in any coding :-)? Good grief, Dominik, have I said something refutable, and I don't even remember what! Anyway, generally speaking I agree with you. The main thing is to type Sanskrit texts, not to quarrel about how to. May I, by the way, suggest that all typing of Sanskrit texts should be done with compound analysis the way it is done in the TZ-format? Proper compound analysis makes the texts fare more valuable for electronic analysis than entering the texts in the way they appear in a Sanskrit book or manuscript. It is definitely "value added" text entry! Best regards, Lars Martin From hueckst at cc.UManitoba.CA Fri Aug 23 01:33:06 1996 From: hueckst at cc.UManitoba.CA (Hueckstedt) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 20:33:06 -0500 Subject: Q: Wikner's Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025744.23782.8514707288815316591.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Colleagues, A long time ago I reported to this list that "our computer guy" had promised to compile Charles Wikner's ANSI-C file for me to produce DOS and OS/2 exe files. It looks like he won't be able to do that. Has anyone else done that? If not, can anyone tell me how to do it? Gratefully, Bob Hueckstedt Robert A. Hueckstedt, Associate Professor of Indic Languages Asian Studies Centre, 328 Fletcher Argue, University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 Canada http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/asian_studies fax 1 204-275-5781 phones 1 204-474-8964, 1 204-488-4797 From mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA Fri Aug 23 01:21:45 1996 From: mittals at ERE.UMontreal.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 21:21:45 -0400 Subject: New fax number / email address Message-ID: <161227025746.23782.3408483376223533260.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone have the email address and new fax number of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi? Thanks in advance. sushil mittal iiis/whp From JHOUBEN at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl Thu Aug 22 22:05:28 1996 From: JHOUBEN at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl (JHOUBEN at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 23:05:28 +0100 Subject: review article Indian script Message-ID: <161227025739.23782.4726861039367091385.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On 19 August Dominik Wujastyk wrote: Dear indologists, With the kind permission of Prof Richard Salomon and of the American Oriental Society, I have republished Prof Salomon's review 1995 review article "On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts" on the INDOLOGY web page. See http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html and follow the links for "important position or review papers. ********* On 20 August Vidhyanath K. Rao wrote: I scanned through the review article about Brahmi. I did not notice any reference to the `recent' finds of potsherds from Sri Lanka which are supposed to marked with Brahmi letters. Due to limited library facilities, I do not have access to the primary literature. My only reference is ``Archaeology of Early Historic India'' by Allchin et al. On pp 176--177, there is a reference to these potsherds. Radiocarbon dating is said to put these in the period of 450BCE--350BCE, with the original excavator dating them to 600BCE--500BCE, presumably on archaeological grounds. Elsewhere (p.165), it is said that the `radiometric determination' is `unclear'. I wonder if further research has thrown any doubt on the dates quoted in the book. If not, these finds raise serious questions about the theory that Brahmi writing was invented during Maurya times. ********** On p. 176 of his recent book "The Archeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States (Cambridge University Press: 1995), F.R. Allchin writes: "As we have seen, the recent excavations at Anuradhapura have yielded a substantial body of important data relating to the rise of the city and its absolute chronology. They have also provided remarkable evidence for the appearance and use of early writing. The first report of this work was by Deraniyagala, to whom credit for the discovery must be given (Deraniyagala 1990c). It has been confirmed by the current Sri Lankan British excavations. Inscriptions on pottery begin during the course of period J, which is dated by radiocarbon to between BC 450 and BC 350, if not earlier (as suggested by Deraniyagala 1992, 739-48). . . . This would indicate that the use of writing began some two centuries earlier than the first datable inscriptions currently known from any other part of South Asia." On p. 178 we read further: "The script in all cases appears to be an early stage of the Indian Brahmi alphabet, written from left to right. With one or two problematic exceptions the language, wherever enough letters are present to make identification possible, appears to be Prakrit, that is an early Middle Indo-Aryan language rather than a Dravidian or other language. Probably even the originally complete inscriptions were short and apparently often consisted of a single name, sometimes given in the dative case." The publications to which Allchin refers are: Deraniyagala, S.U., "Radiocarbon dating of early Brahmi script in Sri Lanka," Ancient Ceylon 11 (1990):149-168; and: The Prehistory of Sri Lanka, Colombo: Department of Archaeological Survey, Government of Sri Lanka, 1992. The first publication of Deraniyagala has been mentioned by Falk in his bibliography (Schrift in alten Indien, Tuebingen 1993), but, as far as I could see, he did not take it into consideration in his conclusions regarding the date of origin of script in India. If Deraniyagala and Allchin are right - and I am not the person to decide in this matter - Salomon's review article (Journal AOS 115; Indology-home page) and the recent works discussed (Falk's, von Hinueber's, Fussmann's, Norman's) are already now outdated with regard to their main conclusion (to cite Salomon: the "later date of origin for the Indian scripts), although these works will remain valuable as collections and overviews of decades of research on this topic. Jan E.M. Houben Leiden University From MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN Thu Aug 22 23:11:59 1996 From: MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN (MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN) Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 23:11:59 +0000 Subject: review article Message-ID: <161227025731.23782.9556429421699160506.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thanks to Dominik for creating a review section in the indology website. Salomon's excellent paper on braahmi script is lucid and precise. Some research leads to follow are: the references to Indus script ard the need to rationally explain the long gap between the dates of the Indus script and braahmi script during which writing appears to have fallen out of use in India. The closest to a monumental inscription is the Dholavira find (1990) of a 3-metre long text near the city gate containing ten large signs which are to be read from LEFT TO RIGHT. This is in contrast to the majority of the 3k Indus inscriptions (averaging 5 signs + pictorial motifs) on seals and tablets which are to be read from RIGHT TO LEFT. Is there any significance in this apparent preference for writing from left to right on monuments? Regards. Kalyanaraman. From falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de Fri Aug 23 10:59:52 1996 From: falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de (falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 12:59:52 +0200 Subject: question? Message-ID: <161227025748.23782.8453251433309309265.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> OvH does not use e-mail. There shoul be a FAX No., but I don't have it. H. Falk From ukhalidi at ids2.idsonline.com Fri Aug 23 17:05:42 1996 From: ukhalidi at ids2.idsonline.com (Usama Khalidi) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 13:05:42 -0400 Subject: Help identiy the publisher of a recent book Message-ID: <161227025755.23782.14828036671494619750.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I recently came across a reference to a recent book titled "Indian Heroes and Heroines of World War II". The author is Vidya Anand, and it was supposed to have been published in London. I will be grateful to anyone on the list who could identify the publisher. I would like to obtain this book. Thanks in advance, Usama Khalidi Reston, VA From falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de Fri Aug 23 12:03:59 1996 From: falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de (falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 14:03:59 +0200 Subject: review article Indian script Message-ID: <161227025753.23782.16292963531569832583.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> There were some contributions to the origin of Brahmi lately, with statements which should not remain without comment. In Richard Salomon's review article the recent finds from Anuradhapura are not mentioned, simply because the books under review did not deal with them. > I scanned through the review article about Brahmi. I did not notice > any reference to the `recent' finds of potsherds from Sri Lanka which > are supposed to marked with Brahmi letters. Due to limited library > facilities, I do not have access to the primary literature. My only > reference is ``Archaeology of Early Historic India'' by Allchin et al. > On pp 176--177, there is a reference to these potsherds. > Radiocarbon dating is said to put these in the period of 450BCE--350BCE, > with the original excavator dating them to 600BCE--500BCE, presumably > on archaeological grounds. The author S. Deraniyagala, being the excavator mentioned above, had several very early dates on stock, at least when he was reporting on his findings at Berlin, about 2 years back. These included: horses in Ceylon around 1000/900 BC, rouletted ware around 200 BC (although invented in Italy around 50 BC!), and Brahmi around 500 BC. These findings, based on C14, are either a series of sensational discoveries, or something is wrong with C14-dates from Ceylon. I firmly believe in the latter possibility, mainly on the basis of my studies of the development of Ceylonese Brahmi (please read the long chapter "Die Brahmi Ceylons" in H.F. "Schrift im alten Indien", Tuebingen 1933, pp. 205-218. There cannot be the least doubt: the developments of Brahmi regarding the shape of characters, the orthography, layout of text etc. all point to North India, followed by the adaptation in Tamil/Telugu speaking areas to the needs of Dravidian languages, and then the adapted forms come to Ceylon. Thinking of any alternative direction would imply that Dravidians in Ceylon developed the script for their language, but never used it there for that purpose. Rather unlikely. Now for the publications of Profs. Allchin and Coningham. I talked to both of them and they firmly believe in their C14 dates. But if you check the latest article in Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6,1 (1996), 73-97, you have to realise that their material is rather scanty: 8 sherds with 2 to 4 characters each. Their ideas about which character looks old and which does not displays a not too deep acquaintance with that script at all. They make a whole set of conclusions depend on their dating and their interpretation of the sequence of their sherds. There is something I cannot evaluate. On page 79 they state that "no Southern Hemisphere correction was used as the validity of such a correction in the latitude of Sri Lanka has yet to be established". What does that mean? Would such a correction change the dates to something earlier or later? What does that correction mean in those areas where it has been established? To make it short: I have severe doubts about the conclusions reached by Allchin and Coningham, not to speak of the dates forwarded by Deraniyagala. And I am not the only one to doubt. In addition I can say that I am working on the sherds coming from the Cultural triangle in Sri Lanka. There are hundreds coming from all levels, not just 8. There will be a series of C14 dates dating them. After finishing the new batch, which just arrived from Sri Lanka 2 weeks back, we will know more - sooner or later. Inthe meantime it should be made clear that all epigraphists, European or American, who can distinguish between the characters, are not willing to change their conclusions regarding a most likely young date for the development of Brahmi. As I have made it clear more than once: there is nothing either literary or circumstantial that would favour a date before Ashoka. It is tiresome to realise that old arguments are repeated time and again - without putting new flesh on old bones. > The first publication of Deraniyagala has been mentioned by Falk in his > bibliography (Schrift in alten Indien, Tuebingen 1993), but, as far as I could > see, he did not take it into consideration in his conclusions regarding the > date of origin of script in India. no, it came too late. And a reply needs material I can check myself, like the sherds from the Cultural triangle. > and the recent works discussed (Falk's, von Hinueber's, Fussmann's, Norman's) > are already now outdated with regard to their main conclusion (to cite Salomon: > the "later date of origin for the Indian scripts), although these works will > remain valuable as collections and overviews of decades of research on this > topic. How fast can one decide without checking the evidence? Harry Falk From nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov Fri Aug 23 21:04:03 1996 From: nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov (nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 16:04:03 -0500 Subject: Review Article (Indian script) Message-ID: <161227025757.23782.13002080524540975831.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Re: Review Article (Indian script) ************************************ Two recent articles are relevent here. 1) Iravatham Mahadevan, Ancient Tamil contacts abroad: Recent epigraphical evidence, Jl. of the Institute of Asian Studies, Madras, p. 136-155, XII, 1, Sep. 1994. (Earlier delivered as Father X. S. Thani Nayagam Memorial Lecture, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1994) 2) Iravatham Mahadevan, Recent trends in early Tamil epigraphy: An overview, Jl. of the Institute of Asian Studies, Madras, p. 1-32, XIII, 1, Sep. 1995. Tamil Brahmi is a linguistic variant of the Brahmi script adapted to tamil phonetic pattern. Short Tamil Brahmi inscriptions on potsherds with letters special only to tamil/dravidian have been found in Poonagari and Kantarodai regions of Northern Sri Lanka. Photographs are given in Dr. Mahadevan's papers. His conclusions are in line with Prof. Falk's statement earlier: "The developments of Brahmi regarding the shape of characters, the orthography, layout of text etc. all point to North India, followed by the adaptation in Tamil/Telugu speaking areas to the needs of Dravidian languages, and then the adapted forms come to Ceylon." I heard that Dr. I. Mahadevan is writing a book on early tamil epigraphy. He is National Fellow, Indian Council of Historical Research and his reading of Pukalur inscriptions fixed the dates of Tamil Sangam era. N. Ganesan nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov From jakub at unipune.ernet.in Fri Aug 23 22:03:39 1996 From: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (Jakub Cejka) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 17:03:39 -0500 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025750.23782.2761806705737986622.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 22 Aug 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote: > I don't quite understand. 1) You don't have to put diacritical marks BEFORE > writing a letter (which goes against normal practice) I wonder what means "normal practice here". My native tongue is one of those which use the latin alphabet with various diacritics. On the typewriter as well as on the computer one has to pres the diacritics key FIRST and then the plain letter key to get the combination of a consonant with "hacek", the same with long vowels. I do not know how about the other European languages using diacritics, but I guess it's the same. At least my old typewriter is a German one and the Umlaut is typed first too. I wonder how one can say it is unnatural. In handwritten Czech we put diacritics afterwards and in typed before and no one complains about either way being unnatural. Not only the diacritics, note that the Indian scripts write even the vowel signs of the syllable-letters (which are somewhat analogical to diacritics in fonological scripts) before the consonant sign (short i everywhere and e in the East and South). Is that unnatural? And in music most of the auxiliary or modificatory signs are written before the actual note sign ... ______________________________________________________________________________ Mr. Jakub Cejka Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Sat Aug 24 01:56:27 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 18:56:27 -0700 Subject: commentaries on maa.n.duukya kaarikaas Message-ID: <161227025759.23782.12468804957148693688.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > NCC lists about three S. Indian manuscripts of some notes by Anubhuuti. on > the Gaudapadiyabhasya. I would like to thank Dominik for the information on Anubhuutisvaruupa. S. Vidyasankar From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Sat Aug 24 02:20:46 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 19:20:46 -0700 Subject: review article Message-ID: <161227025761.23782.11905738001903574631.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> While it may be possible that the Brahmi script was completely invented in Asoka's time, shouldn't one expect some record of such invention somewhere? Surely, the introduction of a script and its widespread use (with regional variations) over vast regions in Asoka's empire must have meant a significant change in the culture of a people who had absolutely no writing prior to the event. Didn't a king who meticulously recorded the missions of various dhamma-mahamatras feel the need to record so significant a change as introducing writing in a preliterate society? I am not asking this question lightly. The absence of evidence of writing prior to Asoka's time is interpreted as evidence of absence of writing. Similarly, does not Asoka's silence on the issue qualify as evidence that the Brahmi script was not invented by him? My point is that nowhere does absence of evidence imply evidence of absence. Just as arguments for the existence of a script prior to Asoka are weak, so also is the argument that Asoka (or a team of scholars sponsored by him, or by some other Mauryan king, for that matter) invented the script. Given that the radiocarbon dating from the recent finds from Sri Lanka have been doubted, all that can be legitimately said is that the earliest evidence of the Brahmi script is in Asoka's inscriptions, which is nothing more than a statement of fact. S. Vidyasankar From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Sat Aug 24 10:30:14 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Sat, 24 Aug 96 12:30:14 +0200 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025765.23782.4086709601122278504.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thank you all for taking interest in BO. Pullat Devadas Das have asked for the actual rendering of the whole sequence of marks in BO. Here you are: a, aa, i, ii, u, uu, r_, r_r_, l_, l_l_, e, ai, o, au, k, kh, g, gh, n-, c, ch, j, jh, n~, t, th, d, dh, n, t_, t_h, d_, d_h, n_, p, ph, b, bh, m, y, r, l, v, s-, s_, s, h, h_ (visarga), m- (anusvara), [if necessary: m= (anunaasika), l-] . In response to Jacob Cejka' letter: > On Thu, 22 Aug 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote: > > > I don't quite understand. 1) You don't have to put diacritical marks BEFORE > > writing a letter (which goes against normal practice) > > I wonder what means "normal practice here". My native tongue is one of > those which use the latin alphabet with various diacritics. On the > typewriter > I wonder how one can say it is unnatural. In handwritten Czech we put > diacritics afterwards and in typed before and no one complains about > either way being unnatural. Well, most of man's activity is not purely "natural". What I mean by natural way of writing is the order of marking diacritics in the handwritten form. Why I call it "normal practice"? For 1) I compare number of people who can write with a pencil with number of people who can type; 2) I notice people who can type with no exception can write with a pencil. So, all people (with possible few exceptions) start with writing diacritics after a given letter that need it. For them to get accustomed to mark diacritical mark the way typewriter demands is not natural. You may call it "second nature" etc. but the fact seems to be it is not convenient for most people (maybe for you or a few other natural talents this is not true). > Not only the diacritics, note that the Indian scripts write even the > vowel signs of the syllable-letters (which are somewhat analogical to > diacritics in fonological scripts) before the consonant sign (short i > everywhere and e in the East and South). Is that unnatural? If you are interested in my humble opinion - YES, it is unnatural. For that simple reason the way people speak is different from the way they write. Shall I elaborate? > And in music most of the auxiliary or modificatory signs are written > before the actual note sign ... Composers rather don't type their compositions while composing them. And I don't say you cannot learn all those systems. I say they very often go against your earlier customs (in that sense they are unnatural) which makes them inconvenient. Regards, Leslaw Borowski PS Polish also has diacritical marks as many other languages and if I remember it right one either uses separate fonts or writes the way you described it. ______________________________________________________________________________ > Mr. Jakub Cejka > Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune > Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 > > e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) > > > > From jakub at unipune.ernet.in Sat Aug 24 18:11:32 1996 From: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (Jakub Cejka) Date: Sat, 24 Aug 96 13:11:32 -0500 Subject: comment on books, please Message-ID: <161227025763.23782.12452828121201847116.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I would be glad to hear others' opinions on: Skilton's History of Buddhism Hiriyanna's Outlines of Ind. Philosophy (and) Essentials of .... These three works seemed quite recommendable as the first introduction textbooks. By Hiriyanna I saw only the Essentials in what respect are the Outlines better or worse ? Thanks. ______________________________________________________________________________ Mr. Jakub Cejka Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) From jakub at unipune.ernet.in Sat Aug 24 22:27:19 1996 From: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (Jakub Cejka) Date: Sat, 24 Aug 96 17:27:19 -0500 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025767.23782.18316477684079322659.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 24 Aug 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote: > a, aa This has, IMHO, a great drawback: Using sequence aa for long vowel makes it impossible to type also Prakrit in the same way. So it's for example unusable for inputting "Sanskrit" dramas.> From andren.warnemyr at lund.mail.telia.com Sat Aug 24 18:49:05 1996 From: andren.warnemyr at lund.mail.telia.com (Lennart Warnemyr) Date: Sat, 24 Aug 96 18:49:05 +0000 Subject: Pune Dictionary Message-ID: <161227025769.23782.3160278131048295696.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Michael Coulson wrote the following in "Sanskrit -- An Introduction To The Classical Language" (Teach Yourself Books), Appendix 1 p. 277: "All present dictionaries are grossly out of date: Sanskrit studies will be revolutionised when the vast work at present [1976?] under preparation in Poona finally sees the light of day." At the Navrang site (http://catalog.com/navrang/) i found the following item in their "Indian Books on Sanskrit" catalogue: "DECCAN COLLEGE, Pune. An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles: Vol:V,Pt.II. Pune: The author,1995. 2607-2686p. $22.50(Pb)" I have few questions about this: 1) Is the statement of Dr. Coulson true? 2) Is the Navrang item a part of the Poona dictionary that Dr. Coulson mentions? 3) If so, a) how much has been done? b) when are they expected to be finished? c) where can I find rewievs of the already finished volumes? d) is there an electronic version forthcoming? Many thanks for any learned response, Lennart Warnemyr From mrabe at artic.edu Sun Aug 25 09:56:20 1996 From: mrabe at artic.edu (mrabe at artic.edu) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 04:56:20 -0500 Subject: review article Message-ID: <161227025777.23782.5719416975027210637.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> As an Art historian I wish to affirm S. Vidyasankar's points about the absense of pre-Ashokan epigraphs. No one, to my knowledge, doubts the presumption of a long pre-Ashokan visual arts tradition in North India, carving in wood and ivory, painting on plaster. etc. The great novelty of the Mauryan period, and pre-Ashokan at that, was the introduction of stone carving (and epigraphy) on a monumental scale -- and yes, under the influence of contacts with Achaemenids and Alexander's Yavanas. Still the best word on this subject is John Irwin's series of articles in the Burlington Magazine, c. 1973.* >While it may be possible that the Brahmi script was completely invented >in Asoka's time, shouldn't one expect some record of such invention >somewhere? Surely, the introduction of a script and its widespread use >(with regional variations) over vast regions in Asoka's empire must have >meant a significant change in the culture of a people who had absolutely >no writing prior to the event. Didn't a king who meticulously recorded >the missions of various dhamma-mahamatras feel the need to record so >significant a change as introducing writing in a preliterate society? > >I am not asking this question lightly. The absence of evidence of writing >prior to Asoka's time is interpreted as evidence of absence of writing. >Similarly, does not Asoka's silence on the issue qualify as evidence >that the Brahmi script was not invented by him? > >My point is that nowhere does absence of evidence imply evidence of absence. >Just as arguments for the existence of a script prior to Asoka are weak, so >also is the argument that Asoka (or a team of scholars sponsored by him, or >by some other Mauryan king, for that matter) invented the script. Given that >the radiocarbon dating from the recent finds from Sri Lanka have been doubted, >all that can be legitimately said is that the earliest evidence of the Brahmi >script is in Asoka's inscriptions, which is nothing more than a statement of >fact. > >S. Vidyasankar * Irwin, John, "'Ashokan' Pillars: a reassessment of the evidence," Burlington Magazine 115 (Nov. 1973): 706-20. Irwin, John, "'Ashokan' Pillars: a reassessment of the evidence, Part II: Structure" Burlington Magazine 116 (Dec. 1974): 712-727. Irwin, John, "'Ashokan' Pillars: a reassessment of the evidence, Part III, Capitals" Burlington Magazine 117 (Oct. 1975): 631-643. Irwin, John, "'Ashokan' Pillars: a reassessment of the evidence, Part IV, Symbolism" Burlington Magazine 118 (Nov. 1976): 734-53. From MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN Sun Aug 25 08:27:47 1996 From: MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN (MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 08:27:47 +0000 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025773.23782.12360527858635532034.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> This is fine for classical Sanskrit. But, wouldn't the problem get compounded when there is a demand to include vedic accents and the typical (1) Mundarica, (2) Tamil or (3) Persian sounds such (absorbed into later-day repertoire of the languages) as the following required for comparative linguistic or Praakrt studies: (1) ng; (2) n and n- (vallina na-karam); Z (ZZHA); L; R; (3) f? Regards. Kalyanaraman. >Thank you all for taking interest in BO. > >Pullat Devadas Das have asked for the actual rendering of the whole sequence >of marks in BO. Here you are: > >a, aa, i, ii, u, uu, r_, r_r_, l_, l_l_, e, ai, o, au, >k, kh, g, gh, n-, >c, ch, j, jh, n~, >t, th, d, dh, n, >t_, t_h, d_, d_h, n_, >p, ph, b, bh, m, >y, r, l, v, >s-, s_, s, >h, h_ (visarga), >m- (anusvara), [if necessary: m= (anunaasika), l-] . > > >In response to Jacob Cejka' letter: > >> On Thu, 22 Aug 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote: >> >> > I don't quite understand. 1) You don't have to put diacritical marks BEFORE >> > writing a letter (which goes against normal practice) >> >> I wonder what means "normal practice here". My native tongue is one of >> those which use the latin alphabet with various diacritics. On the >> typewriter > >> I wonder how one can say it is unnatural. In handwritten Czech we put >> diacritics afterwards and in typed before and no one complains about >> either way being unnatural. >Well, most of man's activity is not purely "natural". What I mean by natural >way of writing is the order of marking diacritics in the handwritten form. >Why I call it "normal practice"? For 1) I compare number of people who can >write with a pencil with number of people who can type; 2) I notice people >who can type with no exception can write with a pencil. So, all people (with >possible few exceptions) start with writing diacritics after a given letter >that need it. For them to get accustomed to mark diacritical mark the way >typewriter demands is not natural. You may call it "second nature" etc. but the >fact seems to be it is not convenient for most people (maybe for you or a >few other natural talents this is not true). > >> Not only the diacritics, note that the Indian scripts write even the >> vowel signs of the syllable-letters (which are somewhat analogical to >> diacritics in fonological scripts) before the consonant sign (short i >> everywhere and e in the East and South). Is that unnatural? >If you are interested in my humble opinion - YES, it is unnatural. For that >simple reason the way people speak is different from the way they write. Shall >I elaborate? > >> And in music most of the auxiliary or modificatory signs are written >> before the actual note sign ... >Composers rather don't type their compositions while composing them. And I >don't say you cannot learn all those systems. I say they very often go >against your earlier customs (in that sense they are unnatural) which makes >them inconvenient. > Regards, > Leslaw Borowski >PS Polish also has diacritical marks as many other languages and if I >remember it right one either uses separate fonts or writes the way you >described it. > > > ______________________________________________________________________________ >> Mr. Jakub Cejka >> Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune >> Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 >> >> e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) >> >> >> >> > > > > From lehmann at alcor.concordia.ca Sun Aug 25 14:38:02 1996 From: lehmann at alcor.concordia.ca (Jutta K. Lehmann) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 09:38:02 -0500 Subject: Pune Dictionary Message-ID: <161227025779.23782.10223413832494686931.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I am afraid I cannot provide much insight into Lennart Warnemyr's first two questions about the "Poona Dictionary" of Sanskrit. However, when I was at the Deccan College Library in December last year I did see the series he mentions. I came away with a publication listing the following: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles: Part I of Volume I, Pp. 1 to 216, 1976 - Rs.150 Part II of Volume I, Pp. 217 to 504, 1977 - Rs.150 Part III of Volume I, Pp. 505 to 719, 1978 - Rs. 125 Volume I Rexine bound, 1978, Pp. 1 to 719 - Rs.425 Part I of Volume II, Pp. 720 to 976, 1979 - Rs.125 Part II of Volume II, Pp. 977 to 1224, 1980 - Rs. 125 Part III of Volume II, Pp. 1225 to 1477, 1981 - Rs. 125 Volume II Rexine bound, 1981, Pp. 720 to 1477 - Rs. 375 Part I of Volume III, Pp. 1479 to 1638, 1983 - Rs. 112 Part II of Volume III, Pp. 1639 to 1798, 1988 - Rs. 160 and was told by the chief librarian that they were up to volume V. Cost of shipping is extra. I must presume that this is indeed the project mentioned by Coulson, since this Dictionary had barely got beyond the "aa's" of the venerable Sanskrit tongue. Progress is extremely slow, partly due to lack of funding (a perenial problem, especially in India). The same problem afflicts two other mammoth projects I investigated while in India, namely the "Cultural Index of the Mahabharata" (Bhandarkar Institute in Pune) and the "Catalogus Catalogorum" of the University of Madras (they were down to one staff member who had just started on the "m's"). If Dr. Warnemyr wishes to have more info he may write to: The Secretary Sanskrit Dictionary Project Deccan College, Pune 411 006 From lehmann at alcor.concordia.ca Sun Aug 25 14:50:38 1996 From: lehmann at alcor.concordia.ca (Jutta K. Lehmann) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 09:50:38 -0500 Subject: Q: Wikner's Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025782.23782.16932974165495876960.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I wish I could help Dr. Hueckstedt with his problem of compiling exe. files for Dr. Wikner's devanagari fonts. I just want to assure him that he is not alone. I am finding that not only am I facing the daunting task of learning TeX/LaTeX (I am experimenting with OzTeX on a Mac LC475) but of learning enough of C programming to compile both the Wikner and the Velthuis "preprocessor" programs on the Mac (not fully understanding what these programs will actually accomplish for me since I have already produced the PK fonts). So - I would repeat Dr. Hueckstedt's anguished cry. Does anyone have experience compiling these programs on a Mac? Any help you can give would be appreciated. From jnye at midway.uchicago.edu Sun Aug 25 15:14:29 1996 From: jnye at midway.uchicago.edu (James Nye) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 10:14:29 -0500 Subject: South Asia Reference Tools Program Message-ID: <161227025784.23782.13446953233849314574.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The South Asia Program of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), including a group of research universities in the middle of the US, has started the South Asia Reference Tools Program to address the problem of scarce and brittle reference publications. The first phase of the program involves reproduction on acid-free paper with library binding of the nineteenth-century catalogs from the British Museum covering the languages of India. If this first effort to replace and improve access to reference publications is successful, CIC's South Asia Program will extend this cooperative program to encompass other brittle items for reference use. A form for ordering volumes is available at the URL: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/LibInfo/SourcesBySubject/SouthAsia/bm-cats.html Questions should be directed to the BookLab, a preservation service in Austin that will prepare the reproductions. They may be reached at: BookLab, Inc., 1606 Headway Circle, Suite 100, Austin, Texas 78754. Phone: (800) 224-1794; Fax: (512) 837-9797; E-mail: sabina at booklab.com Books may be ordered individually or as a set. Prepayment in US dollars is required from all clients outside the United States; shipping and handling will be billed later. US clients will be billed for the entire amount after shipping. Orders should be sent (via mail, fax, or electronically) prior to October 31, 1996. James Nye Bibliographer for Southern Asia University of Chicago Library >?From letsch at nld.toolnet.org 25 96 Aug +0100 21:05:04 Date: 25 Aug 96 21:05:04 +0100 From: letsch at nld.toolnet.org (MIRJAM LETSCH) Subject: video Dear List-Members, I would very much like to see a videofilm that has - as far as I know - come out under two different titles: 1. Salvation. A film on the widows of Vrindavan. 2. Moksha. According to the limited information I have, the video was published in 1992 in Great Britain, by 'Vital Films'. Production for Channel Four television. Director: Pankaj Butana. Does anyone know where I could get the video? Kind regards, Mirjam From jpeterson at indo.uni-kiel.de Sun Aug 25 10:23:12 1996 From: jpeterson at indo.uni-kiel.de (John Peterson) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 11:23:12 +0100 Subject: question? Message-ID: <161227025775.23782.14111928117412584210.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Prof. von Hin?ber's fax nr. is: +49-761-203-3142, at least according to D. Schlingloff's 'German Indology'. John At 12:03 23.08.1996 BST, you wrote: >OvH does not use e-mail. >There shoul be a FAX No., but I don't have it. >H. Falk > > > > John Peterson Institute for Oriental Studies Department of South Asian Studies (Indologie) Christian-Albrechts-Universit?t zu Kiel Olshausenstra?e 40 D-24118 Kiel Germany Fax: +49-431-880-1598 From l.m.fosse at internet.no Sun Aug 25 20:34:38 1996 From: l.m.fosse at internet.no (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Sun, 25 Aug 96 22:34:38 +0200 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025786.23782.16346729589209812346.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Birgit Kellner wrote: >Lars Martin Fosse wrote: >> May I, by the way, >> suggest that all typing of Sanskrit texts should be done with compound >> analysis the way it is done in the TZ-format? Proper compound analysis makes >> the texts fare more valuable for electronic analysis than entering the texts >> in the way they appear in a Sanskrit book or manuscript. It is definitely >> "value added" text entry! > >I strongly disagree, or, at least, I would like to express some reservations >as to compound-analysis or Sandhi-separation (but maybe Lars did not refer >to the latter, anyway). Yes, I did, although not explicitly. Most of the time, I type texts which I do not yet >fully understand, or I type texts, because I'm paid for it, and I do not >aspire to fully understand them. There are critical cases of compound >analysis, i.e. ambiguous cases (sometimes it's difficult to even tell >whether a certain cluster is a compound or not), and analysis carried out by >somebody who actually did not work closely with the text is more detrimental >than no analysis at all. This is not a good argument against compound analysis as such. I have worked with people who typed text for me, some of them analysing compounds very competently, others not. When I got non-analysed text, I sent it to another person who was able to analyse the compounds. Using the TZ-format, I never have any problem recreating a sandhi-text by means of macros, thus getting the best of two worlds. The compound-analysed text is essential for a number of analytical tasks performed by computer, e.g. language statistics, word collocation studies etc. >On a more mundane level - I am using texts where compounds are analyzed >(i.e. compound-elements are separated with dashes), and quite frequently, I >paste quotations from those texts into foot-notes of other files. It's quite >a hassle to get rid of all the dashes, and I would much more prefer a file >which didn't have analyzed compounds. Read the analysed text into a text editor with a good macro program and change the text so that it looks the way you want it before you start copying quotations. >I know, everybody else seems to be perfectly happy with compound-analysis, >so either I am suffering from a chronical misunderstanding, or my knowledge >of Sanskrit is even worse than I thought ... I suspect that our knowledge of Sanskrit is probably always worse than we think. It is not an easy language. My impression is that for fresh Sanskrit learners, working with a compound analysed text is quite a relief. I have utilized some of my analysed texts in class, producing a double set of texts, one without compound analysis (but romanized), another with compound analysis (romanized) and of course the same text in devanagari. This saved time at a stage of study where the students in my opinion should not spend a lot of time trying to reinvent the wheel. The students were happy and did quite well at their examinations, where they had to face the texts as they really are. Best regards, Lars Martin >?From 101621.104 at CompuServe.COM 26 96 Aug EDT 02:54:04 Date: 26 Aug 96 02:54:04 EDT From: Anthony P Stone <101621.104 at CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: typing Sanskrit On 24 Aug 1996, Jakub Cejka wrote: > a, aa This has, IMHO, a great drawback: Using sequence aa for long vowel makes it impossible to type also Prakrit in the same way. So it's for example unusable for inputting "Sanskrit" dramas. But with aa as the long vowel, two short vowels could be typed a.a in BO. Tony Stone From kellner at ipc.hiroshima-u.ac.jp Sun Aug 25 17:38:32 1996 From: kellner at ipc.hiroshima-u.ac.jp (Birgit Kellner) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 02:38:32 +0900 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025771.23782.15433855447169168354.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > May I, by the way, > suggest that all typing of Sanskrit texts should be done with compound > analysis the way it is done in the TZ-format? Proper compound analysis makes > the texts fare more valuable for electronic analysis than entering the texts > in the way they appear in a Sanskrit book or manuscript. It is definitely > "value added" text entry! I strongly disagree, or, at least, I would like to express some reservations as to compound-analysis or Sandhi-separation (but maybe Lars did not refer to the latter, anyway). Most of the time, I type texts which I do not yet fully understand, or I type texts, because I'm paid for it, and I do not aspire to fully understand them. There are critical cases of compound analysis, i.e. ambiguous cases (sometimes it's difficult to even tell whether a certain cluster is a compound or not), and analysis carried out by somebody who actually did not work closely with the text is more detrimental than no analysis at all. Anybody who wants to work with a text has to work out the correct analysis for himself anyway. And those who don't want to really work with the text, and simply use it for locating quotations etc., might find it easier to use unseparated/unanalyzed texts in search functions, for there is uniformness in compounded ambiguity, whereas there is divergence and indecisiveness in analyzed disambiguity. On a more mundane level - I am using texts where compounds are analyzed (i.e. compound-elements are separated with dashes), and quite frequently, I paste quotations from those texts into foot-notes of other files. It's quite a hassle to get rid of all the dashes, and I would much more prefer a file which didn't have analyzed compounds. I know, everybody else seems to be perfectly happy with compound-analysis, so either I am suffering from a chronical misunderstanding, or my knowledge of Sanskrit is even worse than I thought ... Birgit Kellner Department for Indian Philosophy University of Hiroshima From pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu Mon Aug 26 15:03:04 1996 From: pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu (Peter J. Claus) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 08:03:04 -0700 Subject: Typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025796.23782.10696899780107450288.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Although I, too, am not a Sanskritist and I try to avoid the task of writing ANY SA language in Romanized script (for the languages I work in, if the reader knows the language, they know the script), it seems to me that a strong advantage of a transcription method for computers that uses as few 'search and replace' variables is preferable over one which requires many. Someone else mentioned using macros. A macros devised to search and replace, say, '@' throughout the text could rely on a simple 'case statement' to change a@, i@, u@ ... d@ t@ (retroflexes) ... etc. The addition of only one or two others could be used to handle languages with three or four variants of an ascii character (eg. s, s@ [sh], s# [sya]). Furthermore, making a number of variant transcription styles using the same simple macro, changing only a couple of line, also would be facilitated. Eg., in editing contributions to an encyclopedia, I have found it necessary to send the press one form of transcription (Ka is how they want Kr at s@n at a) and to send the contributors their edited copy in hardcopy with the diacritics in place, above or below the line. The two different versions of an entire manuscript with 100 transliterated terms can be done in a matter of two or three seconds. Finally, with the same set of @s, #s, and maybe ~s, one can do all SA and Middle Eastern scripts (given, say, LC equivalency charts). The system is not particularly pretty, but can be done on a typewriter, too. It is not, however, MY system, but one some body has already suggested to the LIST. From jage at loc.gov Mon Aug 26 14:06:49 1996 From: jage at loc.gov (James E. Agenbroad) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 10:06:49 -0400 Subject: Typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025794.23782.17042847154209724052.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Monday, Augues 26, 1996 I am far from beeing a sanskritist. It seem to me that if being able to recreate the Devanagari original form typed roman one must not only distinguish as Tony Stone suggests between two occurences of the first vowel "a.a" vs one occurence of the second vowel "aa" but one must also distinguish between the dipthings "ai" and "au" on one hand and, on the other, "a" followed by either "i" or "u". Does the BO scheme use "a.i" and "a.u" for the latter? Does this interfere with other uses of the period/full stop "."? Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage at LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any gevermnent or any agency of any. From girish at mushika.wanet.com Mon Aug 26 20:24:28 1996 From: girish at mushika.wanet.com (girish at mushika.wanet.com) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 13:24:28 -0700 Subject: Skanda Purana and Graha Names Message-ID: <161227025798.23782.9526185206802248495.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I currently have limited access to a Sanskrit edition of the Skanda Purana, around five or six volumes. I am trying to find the part that has the 108 names of each of the planets but am not having any success. There is a shloka index but it hasn't helped because previously I have only had the naamaavali format in other books. If anyone can make any suggestions about how to find this part of the purana it would be greatly appreciated. ----------------------------------------------------------- Girish Sharma San Diego, CA girish at mushika.wanet.com From jakub at unipune.ernet.in Mon Aug 26 18:28:54 1996 From: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (Jakub Cejka) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 13:28:54 -0500 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025788.23782.4782504435014043316.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars, I forgot to say one more think, that although I find it very important for any sort of further work with a computerized text to be analysed, I always wondered how could you rely on the typers, as to which alternative should be selected if a compound or a sandhi can be dissolved in two ways (such as whether it is alfa privative or a prefix -a that merged with a preceding a/-a; or when a feminine noun ending in -a before voiced consonant is N.sg. or N/Ak.pl with dropped visarga etc.) And also, how will you deal with text which is meant to be read in TWO different ways (changing meaning and sometimes gramm. structure), will you then type it twice, analysed as per one reading and the other respectively ? This is not by any means to say that in such cases analysis should be avoided, rather to ask for the solution you propose - there should be some way, by which you'll indicate to your machine (when further processing the text) that there are two possibilities how to analyse a certain passage and a) it is not surely decided whether a right one was selected b) both should be taken in account ______________________________________________________________________________ Mr. Jakub Cejka Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) From falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de Mon Aug 26 12:07:21 1996 From: falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de (falk at zedat.fu-berlin.de) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 14:07:21 +0200 Subject: review article Message-ID: <161227025789.23782.7314709202258329981.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> For scientists believing is methodologically unsound, but nonetheless attractive. Particularly in those cases when it comes to decide how to interpret "absence of evidence", which may be understood as "evidence of absence" or not. We need other arguments, of a different nature, to decide the case. > > While it may be possible that the Brahmi script was completely invented > in Asoka's time, shouldn't one expect some record of such invention > somewhere? Whoever did so? Darius had his monumental cuneiform developed without telling us about that feat in any of his texts. Do you know of any ruler indicating his use of Runic letters? Where is the local king who first used Kharosthi? Such thoughts are necessary, but when we realize that we expect others to have done what we would have done in their case such thoughts must be given up as too dangerous for reconstructing historical events. > Similarly, does not Asoka's silence on the issue qualify as evidence > that the Brahmi script was not invented by him? No. Silence it itself means nothing; it can only be used as corroborative evidence. > all that can be legitimately said is that the earliest evidence of the Brahmi > script is in Asoka's inscriptions, which is nothing more than a statement of > fact. No, we can say much more, but not by departing from what we have not but from positive evidence. I mean the development of style, orthography, text arrangement etc. evident when comparing his earliest with his latest texts. See my article "The art of writing at the time of the Pillar Edicts of Asoka" in Berliner Indologische Studien 7,1993, 79-102. In a nutshell: within 16 years Ashoka learned eminently. His texts go from chaos to perfection. If there would have been the ominous "long tradition of writing" he, or better his scribes, would not have had to depart from chaos. Another contributer mentioned I. Mahadevan. He is the leading authority for Tamil Brahmi. But we should not forget R. Nagaswamy, with whom I fully agree, as well as S.R. Goyal. Harry Falk From martinez at em.uni-frankfurt.de Mon Aug 26 12:54:38 1996 From: martinez at em.uni-frankfurt.de (Fco. Javier Mart177nez Garc177a) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 14:54:38 +0200 Subject: TITUS: Indo-European Course Register Message-ID: <161227025792.23782.8018233861257980586.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Indo-European Course Register is offered by the Indogermanische Gesellschaft and TITUS. The Indo-European Course Register provides the names of the I-E relating courses offered at the German speaking Universities. See following URL: http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/curric/idg-ws96.html From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Mon Aug 26 23:02:05 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 16:02:05 -0700 Subject: review article Message-ID: <161227025800.23782.4086420773375638198.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 26 Aug 1996, Harry Falk wrote: > For scientists believing is methodologically unsound, but nonetheless > attractive. Particularly in those cases when it comes to decide > how to interpret "absence of evidence", which may be understood as > "evidence of absence" or not. We need other arguments, of a different > nature, to decide the case. That is exactly my point. However, the other arguments had better be of a conclusive nature if the case is to be decided. We come across such situations in the physical sciences and engineering almost everyday. > > > all that can be legitimately said is that the earliest evidence of the Brahmi > > script is in Asoka's inscriptions, which is nothing more than a statement of > > fact. > No, we can say much more, but not by departing from what we have not but > from positive evidence. I mean the development of style, orthography, > text arrangement etc. evident when comparing his earliest with his > latest texts. See my article "The art of writing at the time of the > Pillar Edicts of Asoka" in Berliner Indologische Studien 7,1993, 79-102. > In a nutshell: within 16 years Ashoka learned eminently. His texts go > from chaos to perfection. If there would have been the ominous "long > tradition of writing" he, or better his scribes, would not have had to > depart from chaos. I am not saying that there was a "long tradition of writing" prior to Asoka. As I said in the earlier mail, the evidence for such a position is very weak, to say the least. I trust that the doubts over which are Asoka's earliest and which are his latest inscriptions have been resolved completely unambiguously. I seem to remember reading somewhere that what has been taken to represent the age of an inscription is actually no more than an indication of geographical variation. If the case for time dependence (as opposed to regional variation) is iron-clad, that strengthens the argument that Asoka's scribes invented Brahmi. Not otherwise. Regards, S. Vidyasankar From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Tue Aug 27 04:48:58 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 21:48:58 -0700 Subject: review article Indian script Message-ID: <161227025802.23782.11191892224766214032.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 23 Aug 1996, Harry Falk wrote: > both of them and they firmly believe in their C14 dates. But if you > check the latest article in Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6,1 (1996), > 73-97, you have to realise that their material is rather scanty: 8 sherds > with 2 to 4 characters each. Their ideas about which character looks > old and which does not displays a not too deep acquaintance with that > script at all. They make a whole set of conclusions depend on > their dating and their interpretation of the sequence of their sherds. > There is something I cannot evaluate. On page 79 they state that > "no Southern Hemisphere correction was used as the validity of such > a correction in the latitude of Sri Lanka has yet to be > established". What does that mean? Would such a correction change > the dates to something earlier or later? What does that > correction mean in those areas where it has been established? > To make it short: I have severe doubts about the conclusions reached Radiocarbon dating comes from measuring the residual radioactivity of C14 in samples. Carbon occurs naturally as three isotopes, C12, (the most widely found), C13 and C14. C14 is a radio-isotope, which means that it undergoes radioactive decay, with a characteristic rate. The half-life of a radio-isotope is the time required for the amount of the radio-isotope to decrease to half its initial value. According to the laws governing radioactive decay, the half-life has a characteristic value for each isotope, and is independent of the actual amounts of radio-isotopes present. Radiocarbon dating is useful for measuring the ages of fossils and other organic matter, which have a high carbon content. The technique is based on the fact that material buried in deeper layers is not in equilibrium with the relative levels of different carbon isotopes in the earth's atmosphere. As a result, the level of C14 in a sample from an archeological excavation would be depleted. This gives a measure of the age of the sample. Ideally, the geographical location of a find should not affect its radiocarbon date. In reality, that is rarely the case. There could be wide variations in the relative levels of carbon isotopes depending both on the actual age of a sample and its geographical origin. It turns out that the southern hemisphere correction for radiocarbon dating is a result of the fact that the southern hemisphere has a much larger proportion of its surface covered by oceans. Due to a difference in the rates of absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide and equilibration with dissolved bicarbonate in the ocean, material found in the southern hemisphere is usually dated with some corrections to dates obtained in the northern hemisphere. Generally, the offset is of the order of 40 years, so that after the correction is made, radiocarbon dates from the southern hemisphere will typically be some 40 years older. This correction applies to terrestrial samples. Marine samples would have a larger correction offset. One can imagine that a similar correction might be significant if we are dealing with archeological samples from a small northern hemisphere island where such oceanic exchange processes could be important. Note that the size of this correction would depend upon the size and the geological history of the island. I checked up on this with Dr. Tom Higham from a radiocarbon dating laboratory in New Zealand. His email to me is forwarded below. The website mentioned in Dr. Higham's signature file has a very good collection of resources for radiocarbon dating, including an informative page on standard corrections to radiocarbon dating. So it turns out that not applying the southern hemisphere correction to the radiocarbon dating of Sri Lankan samples errs on the side of caution, if at all. S. Vidyasankar ps. As an aside, it seems to be standard practice to date organic residues found associated with inorganic finds from an archeological excavation. This has some bearing on one of my earlier posts to this list, where I discussed a review of the problem of "Vasishtha's head" that was published in a Feb '96 issue of Frontline, an Indian newsmagazine. --------------Begin Forwarded Mail-------------- Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 14:14:16 +1200 From: Tom Higham To: Vidyasankar Sundaresan Subject: Re: Southern Hemisphere Corrections to Radiocarbon dates Dear Sundaresan, There is a 40 year offset in radiocarbon ages for terrestrial samples between N and S hemisphere such that SH radiocarbon dates of trees, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ charcoal, bone etc will be 40 years older on average. The reason, it is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ thought is due as you say to the larger oceanic exchange process in the SH. The 40 year offset is really only a consideration for calibrating C14 dates (or converting c14 dates to calendar dates). If you are calibrating c14 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ dates you must use the calibration curves developed in the northern hemisphere and prior to calibration you must take off 40 years from the conventional radiocarbon age. In terms of pottery, it depends on what it is you are dating. If you are dating small organic residues of carbon within the pot then it will be a necessary to account for the 40 yr offset when calibrating if the pot comes from the SH. >Also, I presume that such a reservoir >correction would be significant for samples from small islands or near >the coastlines of big islands. How significant would it be for the >the interiors of large islands? The problem at the moment is that the 40 yr offset is an average generated from measurements of trees which grew in the 1800s in South Africa and Holland. The exact size of the offset may in fact vary. Recent research has shown that there is location dependent variability within the northern hemisphere as well, so it may well be more complex than it seems, with the possibility that you will need to develop local or regional calibration curves to correct c14 dates to calendar dates. >Additionally, is there a need to take into account such a correction for >Sri Lanka, which is not technically in the southern hemisphere? No, I wouldn't have thought so. >In >connection with the samples excavated in Sri Lanka, there was >some mention that the necessity of the southern hemisphere correction has >not been demonstrated for the latitudes in which Sri Lanka is situated. I would agree with this. I doubt if Sri Lanka would have to have an offset for calibration but the only way to be certain would be to measure the radiocarbon activity of tree rings of known age from there and compare them with trees of the same age from other places. Hope this helps, ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Thomas Higham, * Email: Thigham at waikato.ac.nz Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, * Phone: +(64) 07 838 4278 University of Waikato, * Fax: +(64) 7 838 4192 Hamilton, * WWW: Radiocarbon WEB-info: NEW ZEALAND. http://www2.waikato.ac.nz/c14/webinfo/index.html From Jhr at elidor.demon.co.uk Tue Aug 27 08:14:40 1996 From: Jhr at elidor.demon.co.uk (John Richards) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 08:14:40 +0000 Subject: South East Asian Scripts Message-ID: <161227025804.23782.11265494115966154910.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I have seen it suggested that the Indic alphabets used in South East Asia (Khmer, etc.) are derived from the Grantha or southern Indian script, not the Devanagari or northern Indian script. If that is so, I'm wondering who used the Grantha script, e.g. were they Indo-Aryan or Dravidian types? Did they use it to write Sanskrit and Pali? The SE Asian countries have borrowed a lot of Sanskrit as well as Pali vocabulary, so one must wonder in what script it came to them. -- John Richards Stackpole Elidor (UK) jhr at elidor.demon.co.uk Home Page http://www.elidor.demon.co.uk/ From jgardner at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu Tue Aug 27 19:20:00 1996 From: jgardner at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (JR Gardner) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 14:20:00 -0500 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025810.23782.8098419114439648657.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I'm just curious, considering the RV padapaatha is, in effect, a "commentary"--is this what the rendering of texts should be? Or whould the analyzing per akSara not be left to the citation of specific passages in analytical studies. Viz. e-texts, preparing them is mammoth enough considering limitations, still, of non-roman-script computing. OCR work would still require line-by-line analysis and search engines now--for a careful scholar--can pick out units of words sought without akSara analysis. John Robert Gardner University of Iowa From vidya at cco.caltech.edu Tue Aug 27 21:34:45 1996 From: vidya at cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 14:34:45 -0700 Subject: South East Asian Scripts Message-ID: <161227025816.23782.11923110138901199401.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Tue, 27 Aug 1996, John Richards wrote: > I have seen it suggested that the Indic alphabets used in South > East Asia (Khmer, etc.) are derived from the Grantha or southern Indian > script, not the Devanagari or northern Indian script. > > If that is so, I'm wondering who used the Grantha script, e.g. were they > Indo-Aryan or Dravidian types? Did they use it to write Sanskrit and > Pali? A script called Grantha is used in the Tamil regions for writing Sanskrit. The Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam speaking regions don't use Grantha, because their own scripts can transcribe Sanskrit and Pali quite well. I have seen puja manuals and books containing various Slokas or stories from Puranas printed in the Grantha script. The symbol for "SrI" that is used in Tamil comes from Grantha. Nowadays, a complicated system employing numerals as subscripts to the Tamil letters is used, to indicate consonant values in Sanskrit. I'm not sure when the Grantha script was developed, but its use was probably confined to the south. It is likely that Grantha derived from the vaTTazhettu that was used earlier all over the south. > > The SE Asian countries have borrowed a lot of Sanskrit as well as Pali > vocabulary, so one must wonder in what script it came to them. > Depends on who brought Sanskrit or Pali to them and when, no? If the Indic influence was mainly from southern India, as with Thailand or Malaysia, there is a high probablity that it did not come in the nAgari script. S. Vidyasankar From mmdesh at umich.edu Tue Aug 27 20:43:48 1996 From: mmdesh at umich.edu (Madhav Deshpande) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 16:43:48 -0400 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025812.23782.2308114704863571537.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Since John Gardner has brought up the question of Vedic Padapathas in connection with compound analysis in e-texts, it may be well worth to keep in mind some issues relating to the Padapathas. As the evidence in Yaska's Nirukta and Patanjali's Mahabhasya shows, the Pada divisions proposed by specific Padakaaras were not universally accepted by others. The Padapathas for different Samhitaas occasionally differ from each other. Often the Padapathas leave expressions unanalyzed and the Praatishaakhyas explain this by saying that the division was not shown because of sandeha 'confusion', anyaayasamaasa 'irregular compounding' etc. That means even the authors of the Padapatha did not pretend to be able to a 100 % job of analysing. E-texts with compound analysis are indeed some kind of Padapathas for those texts. Up to a certain extent they are useful, but one must never confuse them with original texts, which do not have even word breaks in the manuscripts or recitations. Using the e-texts with compound analysis or any other kind of analysis is indeed a mixed blessing. I found this while using the Sri Lankan Pali canonical texts in e-text form. There are numerous errors of analysis and typing. The same happened even with the epic texts of Tokunaga. Using these e-texts for searching expressions etc., therefore, gives us perhaps a majority of the occurrences, but one can never be sure that we have them all. Hence, it would be useful to have a given text available in two forms, the Samhitaa form and the Pada form, even in the age of e-texts. Madhav Deshpande On Tue, 27 Aug 1996, JR Gardner wrote: > I'm just curious, considering the RV padapaatha is, in effect, a > "commentary"--is this what the rendering of texts should be? Or whould > the analyzing per akSara not be left to the citation of specific passages > in analytical studies. > > Viz. e-texts, preparing them is mammoth enough considering limitations, > still, of non-roman-script computing. OCR work would still require > line-by-line analysis and search engines now--for a careful scholar--can > pick out units of words sought without akSara analysis. > > John Robert Gardner > University of Iowa > > > From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Tue Aug 27 18:27:48 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 20:27:48 +0200 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025808.23782.14339250983849185150.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Classical: either this or that. I think it is better to separate two tasks: 1) (first) typing without analysis 2) (then) analysing. Also, two (or three for that matter) versions are better to work with. If I had to choose only one version, I would prefer to have an analized text. My first thought, however, was against analysis. I don't want to rely on what somebody considers correct. But finally, it is not very hard to guess where a mistake could occur. I mean we ARE reading the text. If somebody is kind enough to type a text let us allow her/him to choose her/his way. (It is not hard to make a version without division marks out of an analised text. I mean one language text.) I also don't think there are principal difficulties with "double analysis" texts. One can use brackets etc. to separate different alternatives from one another. There might be some technical difficulties [like counting occurrences] which I don't think are final. However, final word should be left to others (the initiatior of the subject?) Regards, Leslaw Borowski From mikal.radford at sheridanc.on.ca Wed Aug 28 02:08:41 1996 From: mikal.radford at sheridanc.on.ca (mikal radford) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 22:08:41 -0400 Subject: South East Asian Scripts Message-ID: <161227025818.23782.3720650649043452910.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> They're descendents of the Brahmi scripts. On Tue, 27 Aug 1996, John Richards wrote: > I have seen it suggested that the Indic alphabets used in South > East Asia (Khmer, etc.) are derived from the Grantha or southern Indian > script, not the Devanagari or northern Indian script. > > If that is so, I'm wondering who used the Grantha script, e.g. were they > Indo-Aryan or Dravidian types? Did they use it to write Sanskrit and > Pali? > > The SE Asian countries have borrowed a lot of Sanskrit as well as Pali > vocabulary, so one must wonder in what script it came to them. > > -- > John Richards > Stackpole Elidor (UK) > jhr at elidor.demon.co.uk > Home Page http://www.elidor.demon.co.uk/ > > > > From tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl Tue Aug 27 20:50:52 1996 From: tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl (tantrapl at hektor.umcs.lublin.pl) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 22:50:52 +0200 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025814.23782.11290177636575412436.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I would like to thank and answer J. Cejka, S.Kalyanaraman, J.E. Agenbroad, A.P. Stone and P.J. Claus (sorry about wrong sequence). Before I do it a few remarks. There were a few voices about how people dislike to cope with romanized script in SA languages and that we should not give roman letters versions to students etc. IMHO we should take into account the question of spreading data via computer. It is true reading an Indian book leaves you with different taste then reading a computer screen (maybe - not so much for philosophers, I am not sure). But we can expect reading screens will be more and more our preoccupation and devanagari (as well as other Indian ways of writing) is not so easy to decipher on the screen. If you make devanagari fonts bigger you will have much less text on your screen. Also, I think many people who are not strictly South Asian scholars could take interest in questions which would be unreadable for them if we decided to use devanagari on day to day basis. Let us give India the chance to speak in a less exotic form. So, I understand the tears of joy in people who work on Indian script texts and see Indian script texts go out of their printers but I rather doubt using Indian scripts would be the future way of communication. What we are left with is either to find a coherent way of transcribing Indian scripts (to use the transcription on the computer screen) or leave the matter in chaos. If we decide the former let me make one point I think is important. We should not think so much about "convenience" for computers. They are machines and they are getting cheapper. There are people who can write programmes. Also, and this I would like to stress, there is a difference between PRESENTATION on an Indian language text in romanized form and PREPARATION of an Indian language text. It would be nice to have a comprehensive scheme of the said presentation for many Indian languages (vide S. Kalyanaraman). P.J. Claus is probably right there are some possibilities of preparation of texts which are quite convenient. However, marks like @, # are convenient while working with computer for this very reason they are strange and rare. BO is more convenient for presentation for it is closer to traditional as well as scientific way of writing Indian transcripts. And tradition is not to be ignored. You may ask: then why aa? Well, it is convenient and it is becoming new tradition to type long vowels that way. Also in some languages people do it already and generally it is easy comprehensible for outsiders to catch the meaning of doubling vowels. S. Kalyanaraman asks question to which I have a question: would you like to help? For additional Hindi "letters" I would suggest q, x, z and f. In fact my idea is typing should be close to the way international transcriptions go. I do not know how Tamil and Munda words are being transcribed. It's time for a specialist. Let's work together. I think both proposals by A.P Stone and J.E. Agenbroad are more or less acceptable and if they did not write them I would suggest something similar say a-a or a_a. Personally, I think a_a is better (no problems with hyphenation). I don't think a.a would make computers crazy but I think we should keep number of additional marks minimal (have some reminiscences). Besides, I think _ and - are even more convenient to type than . (but this may be only my impression). I think I did not say avagraha is ' , udaatta is ' and svarita is `. Avagraha is written just before a consonant, accents just after a vowel. I was thinking of rendering avagraha as ? but I prefere to keep the tradition. In print you can distinguish between ' an accent and ' an "upper comma" I would like to know further proposals and opinions. Regards, Leslaw Borowski Could it be as below? > >Pullat Devadas Das have asked for the actual rendering of the whole sequence > >of marks in BO. Here you are: > > > >a, aa, i, ii, u, uu, r_, r_r_, l_, l_l_, e, ai, o, au, > >k, kh, g, gh, n-, > >c, ch, j, jh, n~, > >t, th, d, dh, n, > >t_, t_h, d_, d_h, n_, > >p, ph, b, bh, m, > >y, r, l, v, > >s-, s_, s, > >h, h_ (visarga), > >m- (anusvara), [if necessary: m= (anunaasika), l-] . > ' (avagraha), ' (udatta), ` (svarita), % (for a part which is omitted) Hindi: q, x, z, f hiatus: _ From kellner at ipc.hiroshima-u.ac.jp Tue Aug 27 16:58:13 1996 From: kellner at ipc.hiroshima-u.ac.jp (Birgit Kellner) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 01:58:13 +0900 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025806.23782.4115772616692581515.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > This is not a good argument against compound analysis as such. I have worked > with people who typed text for me, some of them analysing compounds very > competently, others not. When I got non-analysed text, I sent it to another > person who was able to analyse the compounds. Using the TZ-format, I never > have any problem recreating a sandhi-text by means of macros, thus getting > the best of two worlds. The compound-analysed text is essential for a number > of analytical tasks performed by computer, e.g. language statistics, word > collocation studies etc. That's all very well, as long as you have competent people to analyze the compounds, and as long as the time spent on producing e-texts is not a major concern. One problem, which Jakub Cejka mentioned before, are ambiguous compounds which are read in different ways by the tradition itself, and I would like to second his question whether you have a policy on such cases. Add to which, my current experience with preparing an e-text version of the complete works of J~naana'sriimitra (short: JNA) tells me that "competence" is a very, very relative concept. I have typed in quite a lot of his texts by now, and I am virtually "living" with two of his treatises, but his style is so intricately difficult that, more often than not, I have to give up on compound analysis. Another problem is my lack of competence outside the very narrow field of pramaan.a-studies. An author like J~naana'srii, who frequently uses vocabulary/illustrations taken from poetics or at least not conforming to the "standards" of the poor man's pramaan.a-terminology in general, requires constant lexicographical investigation, and a lot of reading experience in other subject areas. I don't have this experience, and if I had to gain it simply to TYPE in the text, it would take at least ten more years for me to come up with the preliminary electronic version of JNA, which is not really in anybody's interest. Hence, I have formed the opinion that (a) we can never be sure about the competence required for the analysis, and (b) if I personally have to choose between probably flawed compound-analysis and no compound-analysis at all, I would prefer the latter, as far as texts published for the general audience are concerned. This, of course, does not prevent one from preparing compound-analyzed texts for the tasks you mentioned (indexing, collocations etc.). Maybe one should differentiate different target-audiences for different types of e-texts in the first place. Another question I would like to ask is what principles people apply when carrying out compound-analysis. Motoi Ono, Jun'ichi Oda and Jun Takashima, for example, separated compounds with hyphens in their recently published KWIC-Index to Dharmakiirti's works. They adopted the policy not to separate (1) words with the prefixes a-, dur- and nih.-; (2) possessive adjectives with -vat/-mat are separated, while adverbs with -vat meaning "such as" are not; (3) a numeral with -dha/-vidha/-prakaara remains unseparated; (4) compounds with -taa/-tva or with the elements -bhaava/-bhuuta are not separated; (5) compounds starting with evam-, tat-, tathaa-, para-, yathaa-, su-, sva- are not separated; (6) some compounds which are considered as technical terms are not separated, e.g. padaartha, agnihotra, ayogavyavaccheda, prasajyapratis.edha, svabhaavapratibandha. I would be very interested in getting opinions on this policy. As to Lars' argument that compound-analyzed texts facilitate students' efforts - this leads on to another discussion, that whether facilitating reading Sanskrit for students should be made into a general policy for e-texts, and whether it is such a good thing to facilitate too many things for students in the first place. I personally don't like romanization at all, and I think romanized textual editions should die out as soon as possible. This opinion is not based on a somewhat sadistic dislike of students as such, but on the assumption that Sanskrit is a foreign language with its own distinct writing style, and that it should be taught as such. But, as I said, this leads on to another discussion, which is why I shall stop here. Birgit Kellner Department for Indian Philosophy University of Hiroshima From mgansten at sbbs.se Wed Aug 28 05:57:47 1996 From: mgansten at sbbs.se (mgansten at sbbs.se) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 07:57:47 +0200 Subject: South East Asian Scripts Message-ID: <161227025820.23782.17017067138409009481.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> As Grantha script has been mentioned, I would like to side-track for a moment and ask if anyone knows a good source book for learning this script (preferably one available outside of India). All suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance, Martin Gansten From nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov Wed Aug 28 14:06:40 1996 From: nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov (nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 09:06:40 -0500 Subject: Southeast Asian Scripts Message-ID: <161227025824.23782.8139455959376988532.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> South India and South East Asia ********************************* There are hundreds of articles and quite a few books on the ancient relations between South India and South East Asia. In addition to Southeast Asian scripts, I believe Kannada and Telugu scripts developed out of Pallava grantha script. A Burmese person or a Cambodian can recognize most of Telugu or Kannada characters. Sculptures of Karaikkal Ammaiyar, a Tamil Saiva Saint, are found in Khmer temples. Manimekalalai (6th century?) is a Buddhist epic in Tamil. Munimekala dance is still alive in Cambodia. Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai songs from 9th century are sung during the coronation of Thai kings. South Indian folk Ramayana versions are found in Indonesia and mainland nations. Works of Jean Filliozat, K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, H. B. Sarkar, K. R. Hall, G. W. Spencer, P. Wheatley etc., are notewothy in this connection. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, South India and South East Asia: Studies in their history and culture. Mysore, 1978 K. A. N. Sastri, South Indian influenze in the Far East, Bombay, 1949 J. Filliozat, Research in South-east Asia and in the Far East, Proceedings of the First International Conference-Seminar of Tamil Studies. Kulalalumpur, 1966, p. 7-12 P. Shanmugam, Two Tamil coins of Tamil origin from Thailand, Studies in South Indian coins, vol. 4, 1994, p. 95-100 Paul Wheatley, The Mount of the Gods, A note on the Tamil cultural influenze in fifth century Indochina Oriens Extremus, v. 21, no. 1, 1974, p. 97-109 Chulongkorn, Phraratchaphithi triyamphawai-tripawai, Bangkok, 1934, 51 p. K. R. Hall, Maritime trade and state development in Southeast Asia. Hawaii, 1985 T. N. Subramaniyam, Pallavas of Kanchi in Southeast Asia, 1968, Madras. and many more .. N. Ganesan From Hrid at aol.com Wed Aug 28 14:16:17 1996 From: Hrid at aol.com (Hrid at aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 10:16:17 -0400 Subject: South East Asian Scripts Message-ID: <161227025826.23782.6758518545485855725.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Regarding Grantha script, there is a very good booklet called: "A Primer in Grantha Characters" by K. Venugopalam, which is published precisely for scholars who need to know the script. The publisher is listed as: James H. Nye 319 West Swift Street St. Peter, Minnesotta 56028 There are similar booklets for Telugu etc. Howard Resnick From HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl Wed Aug 28 10:11:35 1996 From: HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl (HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 11:11:35 +0100 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025823.23782.14778886415518753345.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "This has, IMHO, a great drawback: Using sequence aa for long vowel makes it impossible to type also Prakrit in the same way." {\dn namaste ji,} If we use TeX or LaTex with the Velthuis Devnag font no such problems occur. If you want to type Prakrit vowel sequences which should not be interpreted as diphtongs, you simply use curled brackets: {}. F.ex.: ai is interpreted as a diphtong, while {a}i or alternatively a{i} is not. An immense adventage of using TeX and Dviscreen as screen editor is that you simply type roman letters with . " ~ as the only diacritics (before the letter, a fact which is natural at least for me), and the capitals to indicate the aspirated consonants and the long vowels. Long vowels can also be typed as gemelli (aa, ii, etc.). And on the screen, yes, the lovely devanAgarI script!!!!!!!!!! The same applies to the printed version. Sandra Van der Geer CNWS - Centre for Non Western Studies University of Leyden The Netherlands From cardona at unagi.cis.upenn.edu Wed Aug 28 15:49:56 1996 From: cardona at unagi.cis.upenn.edu (cardona at unagi.cis.upenn.edu) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 11:49:56 -0400 Subject: South East Asian Scripts Message-ID: <161227025828.23782.789969210312409419.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >As Grantha script has been mentioned, I would like to side-track for a >moment and ask if anyone knows a good source book for learning this script >(preferably one available outside of India). All suggestions are welcome. > >Thanks in advance, >Martin Gansten There is a short work that you might find useful: A Primer in Grantha Characters by K. Venugopalam of Deccan College, published by James H. Nye, 319 West Swift Street, St. Peter, Minnesota 56082 USA (1983). The publisher's address may well have changed since the date of publication, but you might be able to get a copy from a bookseller in India. George Cardona >?From 101621.104 at CompuServe.COM 28 96 Aug EDT 12:25:45 Date: 28 Aug 96 12:25:45 EDT From: Anthony P Stone <101621.104 at CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: typing Sanskrit On 8 August 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote : > For additional Hindi "letters" I would suggest q, x, z and f. If I am right in thinking that x represents the modified kh in words like xudaa, xaakii, then it seems we need another letter for the modified g (say g_ for the sake of discussion) in words like kaag_az. (Or is there perhaps a tendency to omit this modification?) > I think both proposals by A.P Stone and J.E. Agenbroad are more or less >acceptable and if they did not write them I would suggest something similar say >a-a or a_a. Personally, I think a_a is better (no problems with >hyphenation). I don't >think a.a would make computers crazy but I think we should keep number of >additional marks minimal (have some reminiscences). Besides, I think _ and - are >even more convenient to type than . (but this may be only my impression). Fine! - whatever is best to separate the letters. On 25 August 1996, S . Kalyanaraman wrote: >This is fine for classical Sanskrit. But, wouldn't the problem get compounded when >there is a demand to include vedic accents and the typical (1) Mundarica, (2) Tamil >or (3) Persian sounds such (absorbed into later-day repertoire of the languages) >as the following required for comparative linguistic or Praakrt studies: (1) ng; (2) n >and n- (vallina na-karam); Z (ZZHA); L; R; (3) f? It would be very valuable to have a consolidated scheme of typing for all Indian languages. As well as the problem of consonants, there is also the question of how to type the short vowels e, o of Dravidian languages where the long vowels are the ones in Sanskrit (also Malayalam half short-u). What about using e", o", (and u") for these short vowels (or will some computers have problems)? Regards, Tony Stone From fsmith at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu Wed Aug 28 18:36:57 1996 From: fsmith at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu (F. Smith) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 13:36:57 -0500 Subject: MBh for sale Message-ID: <161227025832.23782.12016292399959103151.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Acting on behalf of a scholar not on this listserv, I wonder if anyone is interested in purchasing a complete Poona Crit. ed. of Mahabharata, in mint condition (I'm told) for $300 plus shipping charges. Similarly, complete Hist. of Dharmasastra for $125 + shipping (postage or probably UPS). This scholar has moved back to India and doesn't see any point in re-exporting his MBh or HDhS. Please contact me and I will convey the info to the owner, who is in America for about a month. The BORI price for a crit. ed. is now about Rs. 8200, and Motilal is selling it for Rs. 11,000. I don't know the current price for HDhS. Fred Smith Univ. of Iowa From reimann at uclink.berkeley.edu Wed Aug 28 22:13:17 1996 From: reimann at uclink.berkeley.edu (Luis Arnold Gonzalez-Reimann) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 15:13:17 -0700 Subject: Typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025834.23782.11952164006573009572.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > > Hmm. Perhaps irrelevant, but in Maltese (Semitic arabic-like language > written in Roman script) the letter "x" is pronounced "sh" as in English > "sheep". Thus, the town Xemxija is pronounced "Shemshiiya". I go to > Malta a lot, and am thoroughly accustomed to this value for the letter. > Would it do for us? > > Best wishes, > Dominik No doubt irrelevant, but just for the sake of it: in old Spanish the "X" also stood for "Sh". Don Quixote is, therefore, Don Quishote. That is why Mexico is spelled with an "x", because it was the land of the Meshicas. When the Academia de la Lengua Espanola decided (in the 18th century?) that it was necessary to update the spelling because the "x" no longer represented the "sh" value, they changed the name of the country to Mejico, which is how it is pronounced (the "j" in Spanish being a strong guttural, like Hebrew heth). The Mexican Government, however, decided to stick to the old spelling, although the pronunciation had changed, so the official name of the country is Mexico (and Don Quixote is Don Quijote). Luis Gonzalez-Reimann UC, Berkeley From williams at uhdux2.dt.uh.edu Wed Aug 28 22:35:43 1996 From: williams at uhdux2.dt.uh.edu (Pat Williams) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 17:35:43 -0500 Subject: Looking for Datta's The Six Ways of Knowing Message-ID: <161227025836.23782.156833303452459278.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I'm having some trouble finding a copy of D. M. Datta's book entitled The Six Ways of Knowing: A Critical Study of the Advaita Theory of Knowledge. It was originally published in 1932 but the most recent edition was 1972, published by Univ. of Calcutta. Can someone help me find a copy for purchase? Thanks! ______________________________ Patrick S. Williams, Ph.D. Department of Social Sciences University of Houston-Downtown Houston, TX 77002 From ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk Wed Aug 28 16:51:21 1996 From: ucgadkw at ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 17:51:21 +0100 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025830.23782.9529389160238231818.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Anthony P Stone wrote: > On 8 August 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote : > > For additional Hindi "letters" I would suggest q, x, z and f. > > If I am right in thinking that x represents the modified kh in words like > xudaa, xaakii, then it seems we need another letter for the modified g (say g_ > for the sake of discussion) in words like kaag_az. (Or is there perhaps a > tendency to omit this modification?) Hmm. Perhaps irrelevant, but in Maltese (Semitic arabic-like language written in Roman script) the letter "x" is pronounced "sh" as in English "sheep". Thus, the town Xemxija is pronounced "Shemshiiya". I go to Malta a lot, and am thoroughly accustomed to this value for the letter. Would it do for us? Best wishes, Dominik -- Dominik Wujastyk Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine email: d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, England FAX: 44 171 611 8545 From apandey at u.washington.edu Thu Aug 29 04:01:04 1996 From: apandey at u.washington.edu (Anshuman Pandey) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 21:01:04 -0700 Subject: Transliteration of jivhamuliya. Message-ID: <161227025839.23782.14868415759447879547.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I am wondering as to the proper method of transliterating the jivhamuliya. Charles Wikner, in his Sanskrit for LaTeX package, offers an umlaut under a 'h' for this, but states that this convention is his personal preference. Thanks. Anshuman Pandey --- Anshuman Pandey | apandey at u.washington.edu | University of Washington From thompson at jlc.net Thu Aug 29 03:10:47 1996 From: thompson at jlc.net (thompson at jlc.net) Date: Wed, 28 Aug 96 23:10:47 -0400 Subject: MBh for sale Message-ID: <161227025837.23782.12565835982646609332.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Fred, Could you inform your colleague that I would be interested in the Hist. of Dharmasastra, at US 125. plus postage? What should I do to obtain it? Thanks , George From apandey at u.washington.edu Thu Aug 29 10:41:00 1996 From: apandey at u.washington.edu (Anshuman Pandey) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 03:41:00 -0700 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025844.23782.8736911074563898565.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 29 Aug 1996 HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl wrote: > The value `sh' for `x' in Maltese is also found in Catalan and > in Sardinian, both Roman languages. For me reason enough not to > use the `x' to represent the modified `kh'. > > Sandra Van der Geer This point may have already been expressed, but hasn't 'x' generally been used as an alternative for the consonant cluster 'ksh' rather than the modified 'kh' in the romanization of SA scripts, especially Devanagari? Anshuman Pandey --- Anshuman Pandey | apandey at u.washington.edu | University of Washington From fp7 at columbia.edu Thu Aug 29 13:38:31 1996 From: fp7 at columbia.edu (Frances Pritchett) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 09:38:31 -0400 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025850.23782.7077476073327062151.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Anshuman Pandey wrote: > > On Thu, 29 Aug 1996 HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl wrote: > > > The value `sh' for `x' in Maltese is also found in Catalan and > > in Sardinian, both Roman languages. For me reason enough not to > > use the `x' to represent the modified `kh'. > > > > Sandra Van der Geer > > This point may have already been expressed, but hasn't 'x' generally been > used as an alternative for the consonant cluster 'ksh' rather than the > modified 'kh' in the romanization of SA scripts, especially Devanagari? > > Anshuman Pandey > > --- > Anshuman Pandey | apandey at u.washington.edu | University of Washington > > Surely people don't write "xetra"? I have never seen this, anyway. I have of course seen "Laxmi" but mostly in casual and un-rationalized usages, not scholarly systems. In transliterating Urdu, "x" is used in some systems for the letter "khe," the one in "kaarxaanah" (workshop, factory). For us Hindi-Urdu vaale, one big problem is overlap: the LC transliteration system uses, for example, an "s" with a dot under it to be retroflex sh in Hindi, and the letter "svaad" in Urdu. If people want a complete representation system for Urdu SOUNDS, they certainly need a special character for the modified "gh" of the letter "ghain" (ghazal, Ghalib). A complete transliteration of Urdu LETTERS is of course a much more complex proposition (remember the four letters that all sound like "z", and the wild-card vowel `ain...) and is perhaps outside the range of the present thread. From HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl Thu Aug 29 09:36:58 1996 From: HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl (HEIJSTEE at rullet.LeidenUniv.nl) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 10:36:58 +0100 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025843.23782.660416668416443284.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The value `sh' for `x' in Maltese is also found in Catalan and in Sardinian, both Roman languages. For me reason enough not to use the `x' to represent the modified `kh'. Sandra Van der Geer CNWS Leiden The Netherlands From MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN Thu Aug 29 11:15:26 1996 From: MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN (MDSAAA48 at GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 11:15:26 +0000 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025841.23782.13751536211716037980.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Leslaw Borowski wrote: > S. Kalyanaraman asks question to which I have a question: would you >like to help? For additional Hindi "letters" I would suggest q, x, z and f. > Leslaw Borowski Sure, I would like to help in any way desired in the aspects of application of IT on South Asian language scripts. Leslaw makes very goods points on the issues which have cropped up oft and on this mailing list. It is apparent that the roman transcription is in a process of evolution and the jury is still out on a unicode. We may recall the invention of the new typewriter keyboard for English: dvorak as opposed the QWERTY which is the popular standard to which were added additional keys for the computer key-board. Since ANSI is the base for internet (and popular windows platform)communication, would it be ok to use some of the extended characters, such as e (accent), u (umlaut) though they may be cumbersome to enter on the keyboard (requiring Alt+ some numbers on the numeric keypad)? Regards, Kalyanaraman. From jakub at unipune.ernet.in Thu Aug 29 20:43:55 1996 From: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (Jakub Cejka) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 15:43:55 -0500 Subject: x Message-ID: <161227025846.23782.18238187211131763475.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Luis Arnold Gonzalez-Reimann wrote: > No doubt irrelevant, but just for the sake of it: in old Spanish the "X" > also stood for "Sh". BTW, if I am not mistaken, the grapheme x represents [sh] also in Gallego (the language of Galicia in Spain) But when discussing scholarly transcription (rather than devicing convenient spelling system for a language) it is quite usefull to try to be at least a bit compatible. In that sense, that it is better to try to stick to the commonest meaning of a letter in already established transcription and transliteration methods. I do not know any such system using x for "sh" for example, while many use x for the guttural voiceless fricative. Therefore it's not wise to use x for "sh" while it is quite o.k. for the latter as it is intelligible to many others than just the concerned person. I use for example one modified ascii code for typing (and processing) transcription of Middle East lggs, Indian lggs, Caucasian lggs and it is annoying to use two different diacritics over g just because what is used for voiced guttural fricative in Turkish alfabet can be easily confused with g+"hacek" which is often used (instead of j) for the arabic voiced affricate while the sound analogical to the mentioned Turkish one is marked differently. So it is much better if one transliteration sign means the same in as many systems as possible. So I use x invariably for the guttural/velar and it becomes confusing if I decide to use it for something different where it is not necessary. This is meant just as a request, people, when creating/discussing transliteration and/or transcription systems try to check what is already established for some other lggs. You never know when you'll wish to refer to many lggs at one text .... Apologies for getting out of topic a bit. ______________________________________________________________________________ Mr. Jakub Cejka Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) From jakub at unipune.ernet.in Thu Aug 29 20:55:31 1996 From: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (Jakub Cejka) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 15:55:31 -0500 Subject: typing Indic Message-ID: <161227025848.23782.843068981191268966.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > It would be very valuable to have a consolidated scheme of typing for all Indian > languages. As well as the problem of consonants, there is also the question of > how to type the short vowels e, o of Dravidian languages where the long vowels > are the ones in Sanskrit (also Malayalam half short-u). What about using e", > o", (and u") for these short vowels (or will some computers have problems)? > > Regards, Tony Stone > Yes, I would be very happy to have such scheme, particularly if it is accepted by most of the list members. That would make this never ending discussion much more fruitful. In that context I'd like to ask Lars Martin Fosse and other users of the Tubingen Zurich formate (TZ) for Sanskrit (which I really prefer to the other ones proposed here): Has there been any attempt to type Dravidian languages by extending the repertory of TZ format for the above mentioned peculiar phonemes (while preserving the already-defined-for-Sanskrit way of marking phonemes identical with Skt) ? If so, share it with us ... This should count in the fights which scheme is "better"; it will obviously be the one allowing one smoothly combine lggs of all the Indian language groups. ______________________________________________________________________________ Mr. Jakub Cejka Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) From magier at columbia.edu Thu Aug 29 20:52:34 1996 From: magier at columbia.edu (David Magier) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 16:52:34 -0400 Subject: Conference Announcement Message-ID: <161227025852.23782.13542002759940654644.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The following event announcement is forwarded to your listserv or mailing list from the EVENTS CALENDAR section of the South Asia Gopher. Please contact event organizers *directly* as listed below for any further information. David Magier - S. A. Gopher ====================================================================== Barnard College is hosting an international conference called "Encountering Kali: Cultural Understanding at the Extremes" All day on Friday and Saturday, September 20-21, 1996 and part of Sunday, September 22, 1996. It is being coordinated by Jeffrey Kripal, of Westminster College, and Rachel McDermott, of Barnard College. Invited paper-givers include: Sarah Caldwell, Vidya Dehejia, Patricia Dold, Sanjukta Gupta, Cynthia Humes, David Kinsley, Stanley Kurtz, Patricia Lawrence, Malcolm McLean, Usha Menon, Carl Olson, Narasingha Sil, Hugh Urban, and Cornelia Vogelsanger. Original art work on the goddess Kali is provided by Steven Livick. Would any of you like to join us as participant observers? Because all of the participants are paying their own ways, we have no funds or grants to offer, but there is no registration fee, and the meals are a bargain! For further information, please contact: Rachel McDermott Dept. of Asian Studies 321 Milbank Hall Barnard College 3009 Broadway New York, NY 10027 (212) 854-5416. rmcdermott at smtplink.barnard.columbia.edu Thank you! From ARB at maestro.com Thu Aug 29 22:42:54 1996 From: ARB at maestro.com (ARB) Date: Thu, 29 Aug 96 18:42:54 -0400 Subject: South Asia/India booklist(old)available Message-ID: <161227025560.23782.3860749302380135042.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Booklist with out-of-print South Asia/India titles just issued by Asian Rare Books(New York City) will be posted to you through regular mail if you send us your mailing address at ARB at maestro.com website http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccs/cuwl/clients/arb/ Please visit us by appointment if you get to New york as we have a large and mostly unlisted South Asia stock of books From conlon at u.washington.edu Fri Aug 30 14:32:31 1996 From: conlon at u.washington.edu (Frank Conlon) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 96 07:32:31 -0700 Subject: Looking for e-mail addresses Message-ID: <161227025856.23782.476424516667794747.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Colleagues: Can anyone supply e-mail addresses for Arvind Sharma of McGill Uni and/or Willard J. Johnson, the author of the recent book on the Gita? Any assistance is appreciated. Frank Frank F. Conlon Professor of History University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 Co-editor of H-ASIA From levinesa at HUGSE1.HARVARD.EDU Fri Aug 30 14:08:14 1996 From: levinesa at HUGSE1.HARVARD.EDU (levinesa at HUGSE1.HARVARD.EDU) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 96 10:08:14 -0400 Subject: address of William Douglas Message-ID: <161227025854.23782.11543001882768946139.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone know the current whereabouts of William Douglas who at last report was at Oxford, working on a critical edition and translation of the Karandavyuha? Sarah LeVine Harvard University From jakub at unipune.ernet.in Fri Aug 30 19:58:07 1996 From: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (Jakub Cejka) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 96 14:58:07 -0500 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025860.23782.16029214509459245245.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Compound (AND sandhi)-analysed texts are useful, there is no doubt (at least for some purposes). It's certainly good to make them. Problem is that they cannot be considered fully reliable. As Brigit Kellner rightly stresses, this needs competence. And even when it is done by a competent specialist, it is in many cases a matter of individual interpretation. It is indeed necessary to have side by side with an analysed text an unanalysed one as Madhav Deshpande noted. Let me just remind what I think is clear that an analysed text (at least in such formats like the TZ which is a great merit of this scheme) can be automaticaly reconverted into a "samhitapatha". One important point mentioned by prof Deshpande is the fact that in manuscripts there is usually no word boundary observed even where there is no sandhi. Therefore already breaking this is an individual interpretation. Typical example that comes into my mind is Kiratarjuniya 1.1 (or 1.2?) where if the edition reads a sequence prajaasu vrttim the possibility of interpreting it as a compound prajaa-suvrttim may be overlooked by anone who is not familiar with the way of writing in manuscripts. And will necessarily be overlooked by any software analysing the text. Similarly with avagraha which is also already interpretation. So once we use such interpretative editions calling them un-analysed (which is not fully true) we can use even more analysed ones, but they should come together with a NOT A BIT analysed text (that is without spaces between words, avagraha's etc). As in epigraphy an edition of an inscription is not fully useful if it is not accompanied by photos of the whole inscription, so it is with our sanskrit texts unfortunately. I look forward the time texts will be published not in a little analysed form but in fully analysed and fully unanalysed form side by side. Once discussing analysis' principles it would be really good if those who have developed or are extensively using a transliteration-cum-analysis coding system could elaborate on their rules adopted for cases like those mentioned by B.Kellner (prefixes and "prepositions", compound-members which do not have independent existence (-da, -ja etc)) as to what they separate and what not. It would be of use to attempt at least a partial unification. Ad Brigit Kellner opposition to romanized texts: Yes, Sanskrit is a foreign language (even foreign to everyone), I do not, however see the reason why romanized texts do any harm to it. We should not forget that devanagari is not THE Sanskrit script. The original Sanskrit texts (in mss) are written in devanagari, grantha, telugu, bangla, sarada -aadi Scripts. Even today, students in India read Sanskrit not only in devanagari which has otherwise been selected recently as the script (perhaps because of Hindi being widely learnt). In West Bengal I saw M.A. students always preferred to read their student editions of Sanskrit texts in Bangla lipi, similarly elsewhere. If Hindi was not promoted in India together with devanagari becoming scholarly script for Sanskrit, the case would be similar to Pali. Why should Pali be studied in say Sinhala script rather than any other one or than romanized transliteration according to needs? ______________________________________________________________________________ Mr. Jakub Cejka Dept. of Sanskrit, University of Pune Ganeshkhind, Pune, India 411 007 e-mail: jakub at unipune.ernet.in (till July 97 the latest) From Gerard.Huet at inria.fr Fri Aug 30 15:30:09 1996 From: Gerard.Huet at inria.fr (Gerard Huet) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 96 17:30:09 +0200 Subject: typing Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227025858.23782.5983223856036178470.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> This discussion on transliteration seems endless, and I apologize to contribute to a very boring topic. However, I feel that some clarification is needed, since different people are mixing different arguments. First of all, let us not confuse 3 completely different views of computerized sanskrit: 1. What actual keys you type on your keybord when inputing 2. What ASCII characters get entered in the computer text file 3. What printing characters you get when you process this file with a text processing system, either on paper or on your computer screen. What happens at 1 is basically your own problem: no two keyboards are the same, different operating systems interpret keys differently, you may customize your favorite text editor with macro-characters, etc etc No need of standardisation here, everyone manages his own input convention. 2 is important, because it is computer files which are shipped around and processed by computer tools on which we must agree. But, as Dominik said many times, it does not really matter what is the convention as long as it is unambiguous, since these conventions are parseable with easy grammars amenable to tools such as oak/sed/lex/yacc/perl etc to translate into each other. Let me illustrate the 3 levels. Here I am in Emacs, a standard UNIX text editor. I may define a sanskrit mode such that whenever I shall type in the letter "x" the sequence "k.s" will be entered in the file. I may define another mode in which the sequence "k{\d s}" will be entered. The first mode permits fast typing of the DEVNAG convention, so that the devanagari ligature for this letter will be output at level 3. The second mode permits the TeX processing convention for diacritics, so that my romanized transliteration at level 3 will be with standard REAL diacritics (i.e. not prefix or infix, but two-dimensional with a nice dot below the "s"). Since the two conventions are inter-translatable, I may use one uniform convention for the file representation, but see various possible outputs according to my processing of the file. Thus we have to decide what are the characters in a file. The choice is between: - ASCII ANSI 7 bits - ISO, its extension to 8 bits - UNICODE, an extended alphabet on 16 bits ISO is compatible with ASCII, but does not solve any of our problems, since the extra characters are a few accented letters in latin or nordic alphabets, but will not allow general diacritics such as .s UNICODE may be the way of the future but I would not recommend its use too soon, since many tools are not yet adapted. I do not know however to what extent we shall be able to use it to represent directly devanagari, i.e. what ligatures have been standardised. Someone competent should say. If we decide on ASCII or ISO, some bracketing convention is needed when one mixes an original text and its commentary. The discussion on compounds is also confusing. What matters is whether we input the original sandhi text, or we try to analyse it into separate words. Both have advantages, as the discussion showed; we want to input fast original sandhi text, without risking mistakes of interpretation. We also want to share the knowledge of competent pandits, with analysed texts. For unanalysed texts we may decide to preserve the exact sequence of ligatures, or adopt a certain standard, breaking complicated ligatures, or standardizing eg the use of (non-original) anusvara. Using a transliteration scheme such as devnag there is no explicit notation for ligatures at input, although in output we may disallow certain combinations. But the choice remains to standardize $"sA.mtanu$ and $"sAntanu$. For analysed texts additional conventions are needed for the break between words and for texts with multiple interpretations, as was remarked. One may try to go one step beyond, by further grammatical analysis (declensions, etc) and then more conventions will be needed, but more information will be available for word statistics etc. This is entering t he more specialised domain of computer representation of indian languages. I hope I did not add to the confusion... G. Huet From bmisra at husc.harvard.edu Sat Aug 31 20:36:51 1996 From: bmisra at husc.harvard.edu (Bijoy Misra) Date: Sat, 31 Aug 96 16:36:51 -0400 Subject: compound analysis in e-texts Message-ID: <161227025861.23782.9131881704015912638.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Jakub Cejka wrote: > Ad Brigit Kellner opposition to romanized texts: > > Yes, Sanskrit is a foreign language (even foreign to everyone), I do not, > however see the reason why romanized texts do any harm to it. We should > not forget that devanagari is not THE Sanskrit script. The original > Sanskrit texts (in mss) are written in devanagari, grantha, telugu, > bangla, sarada -aadi Scripts. Even today, students in India read Sanskrit > not only in devanagari which has otherwise been selected recently as the > script (perhaps because of Hindi being widely learnt). In West Bengal I > saw M.A. students always preferred to read their student editions of > Sanskrit texts in Bangla lipi, similarly elsewhere. If Hindi was not > promoted in India together with devanagari becoming scholarly script for > Sanskrit, the case would be similar to Pali. Why should Pali be studied > in say Sinhala script rather than any other one or than romanized > transliteration according to needs? I am not a scholar in indology, but delve into sanskrit texts when I find time (do translations, enjoy reading text). I have observed and interacted with sanskrit scholars both in India (through family) and in the US (in the university). My difficulties on the above are the following: 1. Sanskrit is a phonetic language. Unless the sounds are pronounced properly, the word appears half-digested to me. So my feeling is that any sanskrit reading should empower the reader with its phonetics. 2. If people agree in 1, the tools in Roman script are lacking to properly transliterate sanskrit. I know various methods for transliteration have been used or are under consideration. However they all represent a way to "comprehend" rather than help "enjoy" to read. The goal here should not simply be to "know" the language but to "understand" its literature, IMHO. 3. Devanagari is already an abbreviated set. We know now that some of the Devanagari letters are not so popular. But the number of letters to connect to various sounds in Sanskrit is probably around 50 in order that one can respect the important verb roots. What I find difficult is that in the western universities, the sounds in Sanskrit are very little emphasized. There is little or no demand to write or speak in Sanskrit. Possibly such may be the trend in India and elsewhere. This seems unfortunate to me given the number of scholars engaged in learning Sanskrit. I wish to concur with Mr. Kellner that attempts should be made to print material in a script such that the sounds are preserved. Devanagari seems to be an easy alternative. The scholars may think of researching and inventing the tools such that the reader enjoys reading this literature and is empowered to create new compositions. Regards, _ Bijoy Misra. Cambridge, Ma.