Abstracts on INDOLOGY

[L.M.Fosse at internet.no]

>Dr Fosse speaks of a lovely, ideal world.  My suggestion does not, I think,
>contradict his, but is perhaps a bit more hopeful of realization.  Everything
>since 1850?  Even if we split up all the work between every member of this
>list, when would we finish?  (I seem to remember some Latin about ... vita
>brevis).  Why not start small and with some hope of actually accomplishing
>something?

I can't see that there is any contradiction. We would of course not have to
do everything at a once. We could start nice and easy with the most recent
stuff and work our way backwards. If the Austronesian guys can do something
like this, why shouldn't we be able to? I suggest that we discuss this in
Bangalore in January.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse



Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudveien 76, Leil. 114,
N-0674 OSLO Norway

Tel: +47 22 32 12 19
Fax: +47 22 32 12 19

E-mail: L.M.Fosse at internet.no




> From indology-l at pwyz.rhein.de 18 1996 Jun +0100 01:29:00
Date: 18 Jun 1996 01:29:00 +0100
From: indology-l at pwyz.rhein.de (Peter Wyzlic)
Subject: Re: Abstracts on INDOLOGY
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Reply-To: peter at pwyz.rhein.de

In your
message: <01I60D9MHZ8891VV6B at wmich.edu>
date: <17 Jun 96>

You wrote on "Re: Abstracts on INDOLOGY":

>Recently, having had reason to take
>a look at some old issues of the _Bibliographie Bouddhique_ I was reminded
>of the sad lack of any comperable review these days.

This is also true of other areas of indological interest, e.g. where is
the reference tool for Kavya?

>How about a Web
>site that would contain either new publication information and / or brief
>summaries of recent works, either by the author or others.  I do not think
>that we want to be too strict about the format.
>[...]
>to our notice.  Their posting to a searchable web site would make this into
>a sort of constantly renewable resource.  I have no computer expertise, but
>it does not *seem* to me such a technically difficult thing to set up.
>Also, the range of topics covered by Classical Indian studies would
>*probably* not generate a list too large to be managable.

Your suggestion is surely most welcome. This will fill a gap in scholarly
documentation.

But I may add some remarks:
1. As Dominik Wujastyk remarks you need a sort of editor/maintainer who
should try to unify the different notices from different sources. Some
people have their own sloppy ways of citing bibliographic data. It should
be clear if it is a reprint (changed or unchanged?), where it is published
and so on. One important thing is also to check the names of the authors:
a title from "Haraprasada Sastri" may be also found under "Shastri",
perhaps also "Sastry". Once I have found a "H. Akira" in a bookseller's
list who is no one else than "Akira Hirakawa".

2. If it is a database in a database format then this may increase search
speed.

3. And counterchecks at least of some of the bibliographical data coming
in will avoid ghost-works (I know some of them: existing only in some
bibliographies). This requires someone with access to a not too small
library.

4. A difficult task is to deal with all the languages of the publications.
Buddhist research is done in all of the major European and Asian
languages. A bibliography of Buddhist materials *must* -- of course --
contain Japanese publications. This means: copying the table of contents
of Indogaku Bukkyogaku Kenkyu isn't enough.

5. The original titles of the works should always be transparent. Nothing
is more annoying than to find a promising English title which is really in
Burmese and you do not read nor understand this language.


\bye
Peter Wyzlic