From axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE  Mon Dec  3 10:58:17 2001
From: axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (Axel Michaels)
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 01 11:58:17 +0100
Subject: Adress Jean Fezas et al.
Message-ID: <161227069988.23782.16271821476280313665.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

I am urgently looking for the adresses (including phone, if possible) of
the following persons: :

Jean F?zas
John D. Peterson
"Sri W?rfel"

Can anybody help me?
Best AM




From frederick-smith at UIOWA.EDU  Wed Dec  5 01:16:42 2001
From: frederick-smith at UIOWA.EDU (Fred Smith)
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 01 20:16:42 -0500
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
In-Reply-To: <3C0FB38C.7E91B508@rci.rutgers.edu>
Message-ID: <161227070004.23782.13905345050869048586.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

The Vallabha sampradaya has a major presence around the Gopal Mandir in
Varanasi, as Edwin points out. The way you can tell if it's Vallabha's
Subodhinii (or a subcommentary on that) is by the chapter numbering.
Vallabha does not regard as authoritative three of the early chapters of
the BhP. So, if the text is Vallabha's rasapancadhyayi section, the
chapters will begin their numbering with 10.26 rather than 10.29.

Fred Smith

>Toke Lindegaard Knudsen wrote:
>
>> On 6 Dec 2001, at 7:55, George Hart wrote:
>>
>> > You have not mentioned the script your manuscript is written in.  That
>> > might help identify it.
>>
>> You are right, thank you for pointing it out.  The script is
>> Devanagari; the MS is from the area around Varanasi and most
>> likely written in the first half of the 19th century.
>>
>
>Varanasi might be a useful clue: I would check Vallabh sources if Sridhara
>and the Gaudiya and sources you mention have proved fruitless.  They are a
>Vaishnava community that have maintained a distinct presence in Varanasi
>(unlike the Gaudiyas) and dominate a surprisingly large area of the city
>around the thriving Gopalji Mandir in the heart of the city (containing the
>Vallabhi's 2nd or maybe 3rd most important deity).
>
>Edwin Bryant.
>
>
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Toke Lindegaard Knudsen


Frederick M. Smith
Associate Professor of Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religion
School of Religion                    Dept. of Asian Languages
                              & Literature
314 Gilmore Hall                              681 Phillips Hall
University of Iowa                    University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA  52242  U.S.A.          Iowa City, IA  52242  U.S.A.
        + 319-335-2178 (O)      + 319-338-7193 (H)
               + 319-353-2207 (Fax)
                    frederick-smith at uiowa.edu




From ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU  Thu Dec  6 15:55:45 2001
From: ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (George Hart)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 07:55:45 -0800
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
In-Reply-To: <3C0F9125.26855.1AF8D1@localhost>
Message-ID: <161227069995.23782.12236475238887651113.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

You have not mentioned the script your manuscript is written in.  That might
help identify it.  George Hart

On 12/6/01 6:39 AM, "Toke Lindegaard Knudsen" <tlknudsen at GET2NET.DK> wrote
(excerpted from his message):

> Respected members of Indology,
>
> We are trying to identify a MS in a collection here in Denmark.
> Sincerely,
> Toke Lindegaard Knudsen
>




From edbryant at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU  Thu Dec  6 18:06:04 2001
From: edbryant at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Edwin F. Bryant)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 13:06:04 -0500
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
Message-ID: <161227070002.23782.2860577535279714340.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Toke Lindegaard Knudsen wrote:

> On 6 Dec 2001, at 7:55, George Hart wrote:
>
> > You have not mentioned the script your manuscript is written in.  That
> > might help identify it.
>
> You are right, thank you for pointing it out.  The script is
> Devanagari; the MS is from the area around Varanasi and most
> likely written in the first half of the 19th century.
>

Varanasi might be a useful clue: I would check Vallabh sources if Sridhara
and the Gaudiya and sources you mention have proved fruitless.  They are a
Vaishnava community that have maintained a distinct presence in Varanasi
(unlike the Gaudiyas) and dominate a surprisingly large area of the city
around the thriving Gopalji Mandir in the heart of the city (containing the
Vallabhi's 2nd or maybe 3rd most important deity).

Edwin Bryant.


>
> Sincerely,
> Toke Lindegaard Knudsen




From tlknudsen at GET2NET.DK  Thu Dec  6 14:39:17 2001
From: tlknudsen at GET2NET.DK (Toke Lindegaard Knudsen)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 15:39:17 +0100
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
Message-ID: <161227069993.23782.18310638983403789472.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Respected members of Indology,

We are trying to identify a MS in a collection here in Denmark.
The MS is incomplete, many of the folios are damaged and the
numbering of the folios is not altogether clear.  The abbreviated title
given is: "bhaa pa.m".  We have concluded that the text is a
commentary on (a part of?) the Bhaagavata-puraa.na.  However,
none of the commentaries on the BhP mentioned by Ludo Rocher
in his book about the Puraa.nas match the abbreviated title given
by the scribe.  The available folios all contain explanatory text and
glosses for stanzas in the following chapters of the BhP's tenth
book: 31, 32, and 33.  (The MS does not cite the stanzas, only
explain them and provide a gloss.)  These chapters all belong to
the Raasa-pa~ncaadhyaayii section of the BhP, and we are
suspecting that the text is a commentary on the Raasa-section
only and that the abbreviated title could mean something like
"bhaagavata pa~ncaadhyaayii".

We have compared the MS with the BhP commentaries of
Sridharasvamin, Sanaatana, Jiiva, Vi;svanaatha Cakravartin, and
Naaraaya.na Bha.t.ta, but have found no match.

I am hoping that someone will be able to help us identify the text.
Below I have included a small section taken from the MS, which
will hopefully be enough to identify it (if not I can provide more
excerpts).

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Toke Lindegaard Knudsen

---

The MS's commentary on BhP 10.32.1 begins:

(I am typing directly from the manuscript; I have put hard-to-read
characters in brackets.)

eva.m (sva)sya(sva)syagu.naruupamanosaarikiirtanaana.mtara.m
ki.m cakrur iti jij~naasu.m dar;sanaadaane
ki.mci(d)bhagavatikaa(.t)inyamaaropyamaa.na.mraajaata(.m)pratikv
aci(du.m)da.mtpra(cm)utamaci.mtayet ... (I am leaving out a small
section here) ... itiiti bho raajan / gopya.h
sukhara.m rurudu.h samyak ...

The commentary on 10.33.1 includes the following:

raasotsava iti / daasotsava.h taasaa.m madhye k.r.s.nena
saprav.rt(or: tt ?)a.h // ;sriiraadhaak.r.s.nayor utsava.h /

(So, Raadhaa is mentioned in the text and that may give a clue in
identifying it.)




From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK  Thu Dec  6 17:37:04 2001
From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 17:37:04 +0000
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
In-Reply-To: <3C0FB467.18719.4DA6B5@localhost>
Message-ID: <161227070000.23782.4891474206654436772.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

This is a complete stab in the dark, but bear in mind that Vopadeva got
himself involved with the BhP, writing a sort of index to it, as well as a
precis called Muktaaphala.  Sometimes MSS that look like the BhP turn out
to be his work.  He was a very popular author, and manuscripts of his
works crop up quite often.

Best,
Dominik




From tlknudsen at GET2NET.DK  Thu Dec  6 17:09:43 2001
From: tlknudsen at GET2NET.DK (Toke Lindegaard Knudsen)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 18:09:43 +0100
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
In-Reply-To: <B834D501.1862%ghart@socrates.berkeley.edu>
Message-ID: <161227069998.23782.8711114585686711089.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

On 6 Dec 2001, at 7:55, George Hart wrote:

> You have not mentioned the script your manuscript is written in.  That
> might help identify it.

You are right, thank you for pointing it out.  The script is
Devanagari; the MS is from the area around Varanasi and most
likely written in the first half of the 19th century.

Sincerely,
Toke Lindegaard Knudsen




From ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU  Fri Dec  7 03:34:25 2001
From: ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (George Hart)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 19:34:25 -0800
Subject: use of historical present in Sanskrit
In-Reply-To: <2654766046.1007677113@MMDESH>
Message-ID: <161227070009.23782.6311297733774466998.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

I doubt this is what this student is looking for, but it might interest
him/her.  A few years ago, Susan Herring, a linguistics student at Berkeley,
did a first-rate PhD dissertation on the use of the historical FUTURE in
Tamil.  Strangely, in modern Tamil, it is quite common to describe events
that one is narrating  using the future tense.  It even spills over into
Tamil English -- I often hear people saying (when they describe the action
in a movie), "And then he will come into the room, and then he will see
her...."  And on and on using the future.  It's an interesting quirk, and
Susan has written on it extensively.  I've never noticed anything like that
in Sanskrit.  And I don't know about other Dravidian (or Indo-Aryan)
languages.  I've always thought it had something to do with the development
of the verb system from old Tamil to modern Tamil, but unfortunately no one
(to my knowledge) has figured out just how it might have come about.  George
Hart, UC Berkeley

On 12/6/01 7:18 PM, "Madhav M. Deshpande" <mmdesh at UMICH.EDU> wrote:

> A student here at Michigan from the Classics Dept is working on the use of
> historical present in Greek dramas, and wanted to know if there was any
> similar study of the use of historical present in Sanskrit.  Evidently, he
> finds the use of historical present more typical in the usage of female
> characters, or of those males who were looked upon as being feminine, i.e.
> Persians.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.
>
>
> Madhav Deshpande
>
> ***************************************************************
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
> Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
> 3070 Frieze Building
> The University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1285, USA
> ***************************************************************
>




From jfstaal at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU  Fri Dec  7 06:04:36 2001
From: jfstaal at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (Frits Staal)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 22:04:36 -0800
Subject: use of historical present in Sanskrit
In-Reply-To: <2654766046.1007677113@MMDESH>
Message-ID: <161227070011.23782.1333894028607462055.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Hi Madhav!

I guess we may meet in March at Stanford and I look forward to it.

As regards the Classics student at Michigan - I am sure (s)he knows
Kurylowicz. I believe (without checking) that there may also be something
to be found in some of the earlier monographs of Jan Gonda.

I in turn am interested to learn where we find that Greeks looked upon
Persians as feminine.

best wishes,

Frits


At 10:18 PM 12/6/01 -0500, you wrote:
>A student here at Michigan from the Classics Dept is working on the use of
>historical present in Greek dramas, and wanted to know if there was any
>similar study of the use of historical present in Sanskrit.  Evidently, he
>finds the use of historical present more typical in the usage of female
>characters, or of those males who were looked upon as being feminine, i.e.
>Persians.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.
>
>
>Madhav Deshpande
>
>***************************************************************
>Madhav M. Deshpande
>Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
>Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
>3070 Frieze Building
>The University of Michigan
>Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1285, USA
>***************************************************************
>
Frits Staal

http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/staal




From rbm49 at STUDENT.CANTERBURY.AC.NZ  Thu Dec  6 09:12:51 2001
From: rbm49 at STUDENT.CANTERBURY.AC.NZ (Richard B Mahoney)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 22:12:51 +1300
Subject: Metre -- A package for critical editions
Message-ID: <161227069990.23782.3196013188839591743.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear all,

For those of you preparing transliterated critical editions this LaTeX
package may be of interest.

It was posted today to the comp.text.tex newsgroup.

I tracked it down at:

 http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/supported/metre/

The demo.pdf and metre.pdf files show its capability.


Also, I would like to thank all those who helped me the other day with
my query about self-demoting verses. I now have a good number of leads
to follow up.


************************************************************
On Wed, 5 Dec 2001, Gianfranco Boggio-Togna wrote:

> I have uploaded the file `metre10.zip' to ftp.dante.de/incoming.
>
> Name of contribution:  metre
> Author:  Gianfranco Boggio-Togna <gbt at acm.org>
> Suggested location:  /tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/supported/metre
> License:  LaTeX Project Public License
>
> Description:
>
> The package provides classicists with some of the tools that are
> needed for typesetting scholarly publications dealing with Greek and
> Latin texts, with special emphasis on Greek verse.
>
> As the name suggests, the core of the package is a comprehensive set
> of commands for generating metrical schemes and for placing prosodical
> marks on text set in the Latin or the Greek alphabet.
>
> The rest of the package provides a miscellany of commands for symbols
> (most of them not directly related to metre) that are often used in
> critical editions of classical texts.
> The package does not require any special font: all symbols are taken
> from the Computer Modern OT1 fonts (included in all distributions of
> TeX) or are generated by means of TeX primitives.
>

************************************************************


Many regards,

 Richard Mahoney


--
+----------------------- Richard Mahoney -----------------------+
| 78 Jeffreys Rd                                 +64-3-351-5831 |
| Christchurch                                      New Zealand |
+--------------[mailto:rbm49 at it.canterbury.ac.nz]---------------+




From mmdesh at UMICH.EDU  Fri Dec  7 03:18:33 2001
From: mmdesh at UMICH.EDU (Madhav M. Deshpande)
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 01 22:18:33 -0500
Subject: use of historical present in Sanskrit
Message-ID: <161227070006.23782.11375814269995931242.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

A student here at Michigan from the Classics Dept is working on the use of
historical present in Greek dramas, and wanted to know if there was any
similar study of the use of historical present in Sanskrit.  Evidently, he
finds the use of historical present more typical in the usage of female
characters, or of those males who were looked upon as being feminine, i.e.
Persians.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.


Madhav Deshpande

***************************************************************
Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
3070 Frieze Building
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1285, USA
***************************************************************




From ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU  Fri Dec  7 16:17:39 2001
From: ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (George Hart)
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 01 08:17:39 -0800
Subject: G.G.L.Swamy
In-Reply-To: <50EA3A4B8EE8D511AD5400508B78651523EE77@letsxc002.let.leidenuniv.nl>
Message-ID: <161227070017.23782.13094890980473199547.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Perhaps some would care to look at some comments on my website:

http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Research/Articles/TiekenRemarks.html

I am slowly going through Prof. Tieken's book (Kavya in South Indoa: Old
Tamil Cankam Poetry) and considering his arguments quite seriously.  So far,
I do not find any of them compelling.  To overthrow our current thinking
about the dating of early Tamil literature, the following must be considered
and dealt with:

1. Everything about the language of the Tolkappiyam and the anthologies
points to a date of the first centuries AD (and in the case of parts of the
Tolkappiyam, even earlier).  There are not one or two forms in Sangam
literature that are not found in the later inscriptions as Prof. Tieken
suggests; there are virtually hundreds.  Even more problematic, the verb
system of the Sangam anthologies seems quite different than that of the
later material.  There is ample evidence that this is not the result of some
linguistic wizard "archaizing" the language (as happens, for example, in the
Bhagavatam) -- the verb system of the Sangam works is quite coherent.  It is
at least as different from the inscriptions as the Rig Veda verb system is
from Kalidasa.

2. There is a great deal of historical evidence that needs to be taken into
account -- not just the voluminous material contained in Sangam literature
itself (which is, as many scholars have shown, remarkably coherent), but
also the internal evidence of the Bhakti poems and their correlation with
inscriptions and artistic evidence.  It is simply not possible, in my
opinion, to neglect this material or suggest it is not reliable.

3. The style and content of the Sangam poems is quite unlike anything in
Sanskrit.  Prof. Tieken suggests that the Sangam poems use a "kavya" style
-- but, as a Tamil scholar who has read most of the 5 Sanskrit kavyas as
well as parts of Bana and other authors, I am utterly mystified by this
claim.  Perhaps those Sanskrit scholars who are interested in this may like
to read some of the poems Hank Heifetz and I have translated in Poems of War
and Wisdom (a translation of the Purananuru).  I fail to see how anyone
could see these as imitating any works I know in Sanskrit.  I address this
subject in more detail in my review for JAOS.

4. The study of Tamil and its chronology is not a new field.  It is vast,
and is represented by hundreds of serious works in Tamil.  Many of these
authors (e.g. Arunachalam) are extremely erudite and know Tamil literature
and the inscriptional evidence quite well.  None of these serious scholars
have been able to conclude that the Sangam poems are other than the 1st-3rd
century AD.  The vast amounts of evidence these scholars have adduced is not
considered by Prof. Tieken.

5. Some of the best recent work on dating old Tamil has been done by Prof.
Takahashi -- see Takanobu Takahashi, Poetry and Poetics - Literary
Conventions of Tamil Love Poetry, Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Utrecht, 1989
[Published as Tamil love poetry and poetics Publisher: Leiden : E.J. Brill,
1995. xii, 255 p.]  This work has not been consulted by Prof. Tieken -- at
least not that I have discovered so far (it is in the bibliography).

6. There are many many other issues -- for example, that of the meter of the
Sangam poems, which does not remotely resemble that of any Sanskrit work
(though I have argued that it is distantly related to the matra meters such
as Arya).  Tamil material that is later (e.g. Civakacintamani) do take some
elements (the paada structure) from Sanskrit.

I should add that Prof. Tieken's book is without an index.  This makes it
quite difficult to discover what he has to say about each subject.  I am in
the process of going through the book chapter by chapter.

George Hart


On 12/7/01 2:17 AM, "Tieken, H.J.H." <H.J.H.Tieken at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
> In a message of some days ago mention was made of an article by B.G.L. Swamy
> about the date of the Tolkappiyam. The only other publication of that
> scholar with which I am familiar is an article on Tamil Shaiva Bhakti
> poetry. As I have tried to show in my book Kavya in South India. Old Tamil
> Cankam Poetry (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2001) his handling of the evidence
> concerning the -late- date of Tamil Bhakti poetry is exemplary. Francois
> Gros' characterization of Dr. B.G.L. Swamy as an iconoclast is undeserved.
> Can anyone provide me with more information about this unique scholar.
>
> Herman Tieken
> Instituut Kern
> University of Leiden
>




From H.J.H.Tieken at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL  Fri Dec  7 10:17:33 2001
From: H.J.H.Tieken at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Tieken, H.J.H.)
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 01 11:17:33 +0100
Subject: G.G.L.Swamy
Message-ID: <161227070013.23782.10551764358034733520.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear colleagues,
In a message of some days ago mention was made of an article by B.G.L. Swamy
about the date of the Tolkappiyam. The only other publication of that
scholar with which I am familiar is an article on Tamil Shaiva Bhakti
poetry. As I have tried to show in my book Kavya in South India. Old Tamil
Cankam Poetry (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2001) his handling of the evidence
concerning the -late- date of Tamil Bhakti poetry is exemplary. Francois
Gros' characterization of Dr. B.G.L. Swamy as an iconoclast is undeserved.
Can anyone provide me with more information about this unique scholar.

Herman Tieken
Instituut Kern
University of Leiden




From jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU  Fri Dec  7 16:40:45 2001
From: jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU (Jonathan Silk)
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 01 11:40:45 -0500
Subject: etymology of puja
Message-ID: <161227070019.23782.9805363613812575953.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Friends,

I have recently read Jarl Charpentier's 1927 paper in Indian
Antiquary on the meaning and etymology of puujaa.  I found it rather
strange. He connects it with 'smearing,' making a rather big deal of
the smearing of images etc with things like red powders etc. There
must be more convincing discussions of the history of this word, no?
--

For quicker response these days please copy your reply to kinu at aol.com


Jonathan Silk

jonathan.silk at yale.edu

Dept. of Religious Studies
Box 208287
Yale University
New Haven CT 06520-8287
USA

tel. 203-432-0828
fax. 203-432-7844




From reusch at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU  Fri Dec  7 20:48:09 2001
From: reusch at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU (B. Reusch)
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 01 12:48:09 -0800
Subject: etymology of puja
In-Reply-To: <p0510030eb836a121307f@[130.132.185.171]>
Message-ID: <161227070021.23782.379369997779555782.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

The word pUjA reminds me of potlatch. Of course this is no etymology;
it's just mental mapping.

Beatrice




From jlc at CCR.JUSSIEU.FR  Fri Dec  7 13:24:07 2001
From: jlc at CCR.JUSSIEU.FR (Jean-Luc Chevillard)
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 01 14:24:07 +0100
Subject: B.G.L.Swamy
In-Reply-To: <50EA3A4B8EE8D511AD5400508B78651523EE77@letsxc002.let.leide              nuniv.nl>
Message-ID: <161227070015.23782.3843237342610824187.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

At 11:17 07/12/01 +0100, Herman Tieken wrote:
>[...] Francois
>Gros' characterization of Dr. B.G.L. Swamy as an iconoclast is undeserved.

The exact wording of prof. GROS' argument
and its context (unless you are quoting from another
of his essays) is:

"[...] This points up the misappreciation of Tamil chronology,
"under which laboured the British authors
"of the 19th century, such as G.U. Pope, the Tamil specialist
"or Nelson, the editor of gazetteers, whoi placed the tEvAram
"in the 13th or even 14th century. But are we justified in thinking
"that, when P. Sudaram Pillai in 1895 in an article entitled
" `Some Milestones in the History of Tamil Literature
" or the Age of Tirugnana sambanda', which was widely
"distributed and printed, dared to place this poet in the 7th c.
"he was succumbing to the opposite type of excess?
"Eighty years had to pass before the question was again
"posed, in iconoclastic terms, in a series of articles
"and talks by B.G.L. Swamy which tended to show
"that the tEvAram could not have existed prior to the 10th c."

(p. xli, "Towards reading the Tevaram", in _Tevaram_, PIFI 68.1, 1984,
French Institute of Pondicherry)


Of course, only prof. Gros himself could say
what he means exactly when using these words
but I don't think he is on this list.

Regards

-- Jean-Luc Chevillard (Paris)




From Greg.Bailey at LATROBE.EDU.AU  Sat Dec  8 06:13:17 2001
From: Greg.Bailey at LATROBE.EDU.AU (Greg Bailey)
Date: Sat, 08 Dec 01 14:13:17 +0800
Subject: Your Book
In-Reply-To: <50EA3A4B8EE8D511AD5400508B78651523EE77@letsxc002.let.leidenuniv.nl>
Message-ID: <161227070023.23782.8488318015462172219.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear Herman,

I just saw your message re. B.G.L Swamy and thought I would send a message
telling you I have received your book.

It looks excellent and I will go through it in detail over Xmas.  George
Hart's response is predictable given the argument he advanced in 1975.

Have a good Xmas.

Cheers,

Greg




From somadeva at LYCOS.COM  Mon Dec 10 12:57:43 2001
From: somadeva at LYCOS.COM (somadeva vasudeva)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 04:57:43 -0800
Subject: MVUT etext
Message-ID: <161227070033.23782.11529093005592979677.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear colleagues,

Dominik Wujastyk has just kindly added my etext of the maaliniivijayottaratantra to his ftp archive (path: ftp.ucl.ac.uk/pub/users/ucgadkw/indology/texts).

adhikaaraa.h 1--4, 7, 11--17 I have critically edited myself,   adhikaaraa.h  5, 6, 8, 9--11, 18--23  are as presented in KSTS 21.

 Sincerely,

S.D.Vasudeva
Wolfson College
Oxford




From witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Mon Dec 10 12:40:21 2001
From: witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Michael Witzel)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 07:40:21 -0500
Subject: etymology of puja
In-Reply-To: <p0510030eb836a121307f@[130.132.185.171]>
Message-ID: <161227070029.23782.15538417629898537825.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

J. Silk asked:
>I have recently read Jarl Charpentier's 1927 paper in Indian
>Antiquary on the meaning and etymology of puujaa.  I found it rather
>strange. He connects it with 'smearing,' making a rather big deal of
>the smearing of images etc with things like red powders etc. There
>must be more convincing discussions of the history of this word, no?

No.  Not convincing ones, that is.

Charpentier's has entered the Skt. etym. dictionaries of Manfred Mayrhofer
(KEWA, EWA), and, of course, 'smearing' has been the practice for many
centuries,  if not for some 2000 years.

See:
KEWA: Mayrhofer, M. Kurzgefasstes etymologisches W?rterbuch des
Altindischen. Heidelberg 1956-1976.

EWA:  ---,  Etymologisches W?rterbuch des Altindoarischen. Heidelberg 1986-96



However, the word is much older than that, though this is unnoticed.

I found it, to my surprise, even in the Rgveda (8.18.12) where Indra (or
the poet's grandchild??) is called s'Aci-pUjana '(belonging to/derived
from) honoring of/by/the power'
(NB: s'acI/s'Aci-  is not = Indra's wife, s'acI, that's a later invention
based on such words:  Indra s'acI-pati  'lord of strength'  --> "husband of
*S'acI"; rather, she is called ... indraaNI, "the Indrian one" -- so much
for equality in the Vedas) .

After this single early  passage, pUj(ana)  is found a few more times in
Vedic texts, until it emerges as a verb in late Vedic, etc.,"to honor,
worship". (For details see my paper in WZKS  24, 1980, 37 sqq.) -



Nothing is said about the early manner of worship, though. As is well
known, there are no images/statues of gods in that period. No 'smearing'
then, at least in 'official', recorded worship. What may have happened on
the popular level, we do not know, --- that is until the Pali texts and
Patanjali's reference to Mauryan statues,  plus the earliest, more or less
contemporary, Yaksa stone figures (omni-present terra-cotta figures of
'mother goddesses' are another matter...)

It has to be noted, though, that the main, basic structure of Vedic ritual
is the same as in modern puja: inviting, honoring/feeding  and sending the
guest off -- until next time. Sometimes this structure is still known to
modern people (as in Akos Ostor's W. Bengal town).



Back to the etymology.

Apart from Charpentier's Drav. etymology (in fact Drav. has borrowed from
Indo-Aryan, see: Emeneau-Burrow, Dravidian Borrowings from IA, Berkely
1962, p. 51 !  And note that puc etc.  usually means "to perform  the act
of worship..."),

Thieme (ZDMG 93, 1939, 105 sqq= Kleine Schriften p.343, 792) has proposed
an IA etym. from prnc 'to mix' (the drink offered to a guest). However, --
gurunindA! -- the development from Ved. prnc to Middle Ind. pUj is
impossible (as such, once criticized by Katre, I think), and certainly too
early for the Rgveda.



The origin of the word thus remains in the balance; including that of  a
rather hypothetical IE *pug/pUg  -- rejected  Mayrhofer EWA II, 154,  who
lists some more proposals;  cf. also Turner, CDIAL 8316:  *pujja?  from
pUr- 'to give, nourish', also rejected in EWA on hist. grounds.

See: CDIAL:  R.L. Turner, A comparative dictionary of the Indo-Aryan
languages, London (Oxford University Press) 1966


We may have to reckon with a local Panjab word at c.1200 BCE or so.

For such words, see EJVS  5-1, Sept. 1999:
http://nautilus.shore.net/~india/ejvs/issues.html
also in pdf: http://nautilus.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0501/ejvs0501article.pdf
or compare a largely similar paper in Mother Tongue, in pdf:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/MT-Substrates.pdf








========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm




From witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Mon Dec 10 12:50:29 2001
From: witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Michael Witzel)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 07:50:29 -0500
Subject: Orissa
In-Reply-To: <B83A3D2B.2059%A.Griffiths@let.leidenuniv.nl>
Message-ID: <161227070031.23782.2478260052793952281.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Arlo, many thanks for the copy of Kashikar's paper: not a very successful
visit it seems:
"he was out of town"....

I will write on the villages today, I guess: Finished an urgent paper
yesterday.
(also thought a bit about my Leiden lecture. Looks interesting & NEW now...
You know: exiting, innovative, thought provoking...)

MW
========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm




From bimahony at DAVIDSON.EDU  Mon Dec 10 13:15:03 2001
From: bimahony at DAVIDSON.EDU (Mahony, Bill)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 08:15:03 -0500
Subject: Announcent of New Graduate Fellowships
Message-ID: <161227070037.23782.12281492090110914412.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear INDOLOGY Colleagues,

Reference was made recently on this list to new research fellowships for
graduate students to be given by the Muktabodha Indological Research
Institute. Here is a more formal announcement of these fellowships. Please
feel free to share this information with any graduate students you feel
would be qualified and interested in applying.

Thank you,

William K. Mahony
Professor of Religion, Davidson College
President, Muktabodha Indological Research Institute.


NAME OF FELLOWSHIP:

Muktabodha Indological Research Institute Graduate Student Research
Fellowships in Hindu Studies


AMOUNT OF AWARD

$10,000 per student, to be used between May 2002 and December 2003.


QUALIFICATIONS:

Applicants must have completed their doctoral coursework in a Religion,
South Asian Studies, or related program and are now undertaking their
dissertation research. Fellows will normally use their grants to support
them while undertaking research in India.


FIELDS OF STUDY:

Preference will be given to the study of textual sources of the Hindu
Tantric tradition. However, applications from other fields of Hindu studies
are also welcome.


APPLICATION DEADLINE:

February 1, 2002.


ANNOUNCEMENT OF AWARDS:

March 1, 2002.


FOR APPLICATION MATERIALS, PLEASE CONTACT:

Muktabodha Indological Research Institute
Graduate Student Fellowships
371 Brickman Road
Hurleyville, NY  12747-5313
info at muktabodha.org
www.muktabodha.org




From bimahony at DAVIDSON.EDU  Mon Dec 10 13:24:29 2001
From: bimahony at DAVIDSON.EDU (Mahony, Bill)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 08:24:29 -0500
Subject: Muktabodha Graduate Seminar Announcement
Message-ID: <161227070039.23782.13367033684187771394.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear INDOLOGY Colleagues,

This is to bring your notice to the third in an annual series of summer
seminars for graduate students sponsored by the Muktabodha Indological
Research Institute. Please feel free to share it with any students you feel
might be interested.

The seminar is entitled "The TantrasAra of Abhinavagupta: Reading,
Translating, and Interpreting the Tantric Ideology of the Shaivism of
Kashmir" and will be taught by Professors Paul Muller-Ortega and Douglas
Brooks of the University of Rochester. Attention this year will be directed
to Chapters 7 through 11 of the text and will focus on Tantric notions of
space, time, cosmology and grace.

It will be held from June 26 through July 6, 2002. All expenses except
travel costs will be paid by the Institute.

The seminar will focus on the primary text, reviewing the arguments
presented in the Sanskrit original and comparing the limited but varied
translations.

Applicants should be graduate students currently in good standing with a
focus on South Asian religions and languages and/or a serious scholarly
interest in Hindu philosophy. Participants are required to have had at least
two years of Sanskrit language study or to have gained Sanskrit proficiency
at the intermediate level.

Last year's seminar included 22 graduate students. We expect to enroll a
similar number this year. Previous participants as well as students who have
not participated are encouraged to apply.

The seminar will be held at the Shree Muktananda Ashram, a lovely spiritual
retreat center in upstate New York (USA). In addition to their study and
discussion of the TantrasAra, participants will have the opportunity to
participate in the daily life of the ashram.

Applicants should write a one-page letter describing their intellectual
interests, academic background, and graduate course of study. Included in
this letter should be the name, phone number, and email address of at least
one reference who is willing to support the application. Applications should
be sent to:

Muktabodha Indological Research Institute
371 Brickman Road
Hurleyville, NY  12747-5313

The deadline for completed applications is March 1, 2002.


Thank you,

William K. Mahony
Professor of Religion, Davidson College
President, Muktabodha Indological Research Institute




From A.Griffiths at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL  Mon Dec 10 08:21:31 2001
From: A.Griffiths at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Arlo Griffiths)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 10:21:31 +0200
Subject: etymology of puja
In-Reply-To: <p0510030eb836a121307f@[130.132.185.171]>
Message-ID: <161227070025.23782.7244617177227409660.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Please consult Mayrhofer, EWAia, vol. II p. 154, with ample references to
more recent work.

AG

> From: Jonathan Silk <jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU>
> Reply-To: Indology <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
> Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 11:40:45 -0500
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Subject: etymology of puja
>
> Friends,
>
> I have recently read Jarl Charpentier's 1927 paper in Indian
> Antiquary on the meaning and etymology of puujaa.  I found it rather
> strange. He connects it with 'smearing,' making a rather big deal of
> the smearing of images etc with things like red powders etc. There
> must be more convincing discussions of the history of this word, no?
> --
>
> For quicker response these days please copy your reply to kinu at aol.com
>
>
> Jonathan Silk
>
> jonathan.silk at yale.edu
>
> Dept. of Religious Studies
> Box 208287
> Yale University
> New Haven CT 06520-8287
> USA
>
> tel. 203-432-0828
> fax. 203-432-7844




From axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE  Mon Dec 10 09:30:27 2001
From: axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (Axel Michaels)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 10:30:27 +0100
Subject: etymology of puja
Message-ID: <161227070027.23782.7805259871425696752.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Try also P, Thieme, "Indische Woerter und Sitten, 1. pUjA", in: Zeitschrift
der Deutschen Morgenl?ndischen Gesellschaft 93 (1939), 105-137, and, of
course, G. Buehnemann?s study on puja.

Best
Axel Michaels

Arlo Griffiths wrote:

> Please consult Mayrhofer, EWAia, vol. II p. 154, with ample references to
> more recent work.
>
> AG
>
> > From: Jonathan Silk <jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU>
> > Reply-To: Indology <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
> > Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 11:40:45 -0500
> > To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> > Subject: etymology of puja
> >
> > Friends,
> >
> > I have recently read Jarl Charpentier's 1927 paper in Indian
> > Antiquary on the meaning and etymology of puujaa.  I found it rather
> > strange. He connects it with 'smearing,' making a rather big deal of
> > the smearing of images etc with things like red powders etc. There
> > must be more convincing discussions of the history of this word, no?
> > --
> >
> > For quicker response these days please copy your reply to kinu at aol.com
> >
> >
> > Jonathan Silk
> >
> > jonathan.silk at yale.edu
> >
> > Dept. of Religious Studies
> > Box 208287
> > Yale University
> > New Haven CT 06520-8287
> > USA
> >
> > tel. 203-432-0828
> > fax. 203-432-7844




From jkirk at MICRON.NET  Mon Dec 10 21:55:43 2001
From: jkirk at MICRON.NET (jkirk)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 14:55:43 -0700
Subject: Like question like answer
Message-ID: <161227070046.23782.16895792018083639883.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Neat story--thank you. Joanna K
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dominik Wujastyk" <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK>
To: <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 8:46 AM
Subject: Like question like answer


I've been tidying my office and I came across a little translation I
made in the mid-1970s, from a small book of Sanskrit prahasanas in the
British Library (then, British Museum Library).  I have no details of
the book, or anything else regarding this piece.  These "jokes" imbued
in me a lasting sense of the different mentalit? of the pre-modern
Sanskrit world.

Here is the translation:

Prahasana

"Like question like answer"

(A guru is seated on the teacher's chair with several pupils around.)

Guru:   Are all the pupils here?

First:  Yes, all here.

Guru:   In that case, start reciting ".ti.d .dhaa.na~n dvayasaj..."

        (The students contract their noses and brows) [grimace]

Second: Sir! We have headaches today from yelling the sutras.

Third:  It's true, sir. We cannot concentrate on repeating
        sutras any more.

Fourth: We would all like to hear a story now.

Another: Yes, yes; we want to hear a story.

Guru:   (smiling) You want to hear a story?

First:  Yes! We want to hear a story.

Guru:   Very well. In that case I will tell a story to delight your
        minds.  But which one of you will be the listener?

Second: Sir! We will all be listeners.

Guru:   That's true; however in this story the chief listener has
        to go "hum hum".

    (they all laugh)

Third:  Well, among us Murari Bhai is best at his lessons. He can
        be the chief listener.

    (everyone agrees)

Guru:   Right, Murari, come here in front of me. Now, I'll start the
        story. Listen carefully.

All:    We are!

Guru:   Once there was a certain village called Soloka in Marusthali (in
        the country of Maravada). And many lunatics (worshippers of
        ghosts and spirits) used to live there. But they were all quite
        illiterate. One day they all went to the house of a certain
        sacrificer in order to get the worship. And one person, even
        though he was wise, went with them. Are you following?

All:    Yes, we are following.

Guru:   In this way, as they were going to the sacrificer's house, the
        middle of the day came and they got very hungry. They looked
        everywhere for something to eat, but could find nothing. Neither
        food nor fruit. They were all falling about with hunger.

All:    (Laughing.)

Guru:   Then, by working together, their gaze fell on a cornfield. A
        forest fire had burned that cornfield, and for that reason some
        crows had been burnt in the field as well. So all those loonies
        broke the necks of those crows and started to eat them.

All:    (disgusted) What! They started to eat the crows? Ugh!

Fifth:  They were big demons!

Guru:   Seeing this, the wise one said, "Hey phooey, you villains, what
        are you doing? First of all one should not eat meat anyway, but
        especially not in the form of crows! How could you do this
        thing?"

Murari: Hum. Then what did they say?

Guru:   Listen. They answered the wise man,
        "Hey Mr. Wise man. Why are you criticizing us? After all, crows
        are edible when they are written."
        The wise man said, "written where?"
        They answered "in an alphabet".
        "What do you mean?"
"Well, when the alphabet is written it goes, `ka, kha, ga, gha,
"na'.  And the `ka' stands for `crows [kaaka]', the `kha' for
`are edible [khaadya]', `ga [gala]' stands for throat', and
`gha [ghana]' for `lots'. Lastly, `"na' is for having bent it
like the letter `"na'.

All:    They laugh again and again.

Sixth:  The meaning was very crafty.

Second: We never recited this meaning!

Guru:   Are you listening? The wise man then thought to himself,
        "These are fools". Just as they made up as reason for me, so I will
        make up a reason to give to them as well.
        When he had decided this, the wise man said "Hey, you loonies.
        Do you only know the letters ka kha ga gha in the alphabet or do
        you know the rest too?
        They answered, "we know the rest too!".
Then the wise man said, "listen: the next bit of the alphabet
is written , `ta, tha da, dha, na'. `Ta and tha' stand for
"however [tathaapi]", `da and dha [dagdha]' stand for "burnt
ones", and `na' here means `are not to be eaten' so after the
meaning `crows are edible', it goes on to say, `not, however,
when burnt'!"

     (they all laugh)

First:  Like question like answer.

Second: The wise man was very clever.

Guru:   Then, hearing what the wise man said, all the loonies stopped
        eating the crows, so the story ended, and they all went home.

One:    Sir! What is the moral of the story?

Guru:   The moral is; he who understands in one way can be understood in
        the very same way. If someone understands like that, then a wise
        man can understand him the same way.

        Now, get along. We shall have to recite the lesson some other time.

    (They all bow with peaceful minds and go.)

Tr. DW ca. 1974/5



--
Senior Research Fellow (from January 2002)
Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/




From A.Griffiths at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL  Mon Dec 10 13:01:22 2001
From: A.Griffiths at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Arlo Griffiths)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 15:01:22 +0200
Subject: Orissa
In-Reply-To: <v04011712b83a5f7361d2@[209.6.246.85]>
Message-ID: <161227070035.23782.14764958515134030154.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

yes, and SEXY too, I hope and expect!

looking forward to receiving your comments, which I will incorporate. Kunja
Bihari Up. has sent me the Oriya transcription of the village names by
airmail yesterday, which I will also wait for, and make use of insofar as I
estimate that he actually knows the correct pronunciation, and then we can
send our paper to Ghosh.

A

> From: Michael Witzel <witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU>
> Reply-To: Indology <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 07:50:29 -0500
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Orissa
>
> Arlo, many thanks for the copy of Kashikar's paper: not a very successful
> visit it seems:
> "he was out of town"....
>
> I will write on the villages today, I guess: Finished an urgent paper
> yesterday.
> (also thought a bit about my Leiden lecture. Looks interesting & NEW now...
> You know: exiting, innovative, thought provoking...)
>
> MW
> ========================================================
> Michael Witzel
> Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
> 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA
>
> ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
> home page:  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm




From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK  Mon Dec 10 15:46:47 2001
From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 15:46:47 +0000
Subject: Like question like answer
Message-ID: <161227070041.23782.12237558628379779476.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

I've been tidying my office and I came across a little translation I
made in the mid-1970s, from a small book of Sanskrit prahasanas in the
British Library (then, British Museum Library).  I have no details of
the book, or anything else regarding this piece.  These "jokes" imbued
in me a lasting sense of the different mentalit? of the pre-modern
Sanskrit world.

Here is the translation:

Prahasana

"Like question like answer"

(A guru is seated on the teacher's chair with several pupils around.)

Guru:   Are all the pupils here?

First:  Yes, all here.

Guru:   In that case, start reciting ".ti.d .dhaa.na~n dvayasaj..."

        (The students contract their noses and brows) [grimace]

Second: Sir! We have headaches today from yelling the sutras.

Third:  It's true, sir. We cannot concentrate on repeating
        sutras any more.

Fourth: We would all like to hear a story now.

Another: Yes, yes; we want to hear a story.

Guru:   (smiling) You want to hear a story?

First:  Yes! We want to hear a story.

Guru:   Very well. In that case I will tell a story to delight your
        minds.  But which one of you will be the listener?

Second: Sir! We will all be listeners.

Guru:   That's true; however in this story the chief listener has
        to go "hum hum".

    (they all laugh)

Third:  Well, among us Murari Bhai is best at his lessons. He can
        be the chief listener.

    (everyone agrees)

Guru:   Right, Murari, come here in front of me. Now, I'll start the
        story. Listen carefully.

All:    We are!

Guru:   Once there was a certain village called Soloka in Marusthali (in
        the country of Maravada). And many lunatics (worshippers of
        ghosts and spirits) used to live there. But they were all quite
        illiterate. One day they all went to the house of a certain
        sacrificer in order to get the worship. And one person, even
        though he was wise, went with them. Are you following?

All:    Yes, we are following.

Guru:   In this way, as they were going to the sacrificer's house, the
        middle of the day came and they got very hungry. They looked
        everywhere for something to eat, but could find nothing. Neither
        food nor fruit. They were all falling about with hunger.

All:    (Laughing.)

Guru:   Then, by working together, their gaze fell on a cornfield. A
        forest fire had burned that cornfield, and for that reason some
        crows had been burnt in the field as well. So all those loonies
        broke the necks of those crows and started to eat them.

All:    (disgusted) What! They started to eat the crows? Ugh!

Fifth:  They were big demons!

Guru:   Seeing this, the wise one said, "Hey phooey, you villains, what
        are you doing? First of all one should not eat meat anyway, but
        especially not in the form of crows! How could you do this
        thing?"

Murari: Hum. Then what did they say?

Guru:   Listen. They answered the wise man,
        "Hey Mr. Wise man. Why are you criticizing us? After all, crows
        are edible when they are written."
        The wise man said, "written where?"
        They answered "in an alphabet".
        "What do you mean?"
	"Well, when the alphabet is written it goes, `ka, kha, ga, gha,
	"na'.  And the `ka' stands for `crows [kaaka]', the `kha' for
	`are edible [khaadya]', `ga [gala]' stands for throat', and
	`gha [ghana]' for `lots'. Lastly, `"na' is for having bent it
	like the letter `"na'.

All:    They laugh again and again.

Sixth:  The meaning was very crafty.

Second: We never recited this meaning!

Guru:   Are you listening? The wise man then thought to himself,
        "These are fools". Just as they made up as reason for me, so I will
        make up a reason to give to them as well.
        When he had decided this, the wise man said "Hey, you loonies.
        Do you only know the letters ka kha ga gha in the alphabet or do
        you know the rest too?
        They answered, "we know the rest too!".
	Then the wise man said, "listen: the next bit of the alphabet
	is written , `ta, tha da, dha, na'. `Ta and tha' stand for
	"however [tathaapi]", `da and dha [dagdha]' stand for "burnt
	ones", and `na' here means `are not to be eaten' so after the
	meaning `crows are edible', it goes on to say, `not, however,
	when burnt'!"

     (they all laugh)

First:  Like question like answer.

Second: The wise man was very clever.

Guru:   Then, hearing what the wise man said, all the loonies stopped
        eating the crows, so the story ended, and they all went home.

One:    Sir! What is the moral of the story?

Guru:   The moral is; he who understands in one way can be understood in
        the very same way. If someone understands like that, then a wise
        man can understand him the same way.

        Now, get along. We shall have to recite the lesson some other time.

    (They all bow with peaceful minds and go.)

Tr. DW ca. 1974/5



--
Senior Research Fellow (from January 2002)
Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/




From vielle at ORI.UCL.AC.BE  Mon Dec 10 16:25:00 2001
From: vielle at ORI.UCL.AC.BE (Vielle Christophe)
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 01 17:25:00 +0100
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
In-Reply-To: <3C0F9125.26855.1AF8D1@localhost>
Message-ID: <161227070043.23782.12672945079529295665.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

In looking at the very interesting J. Brockington's A Descriptive Catalogue
of the Sanskrit and other Indian Manuscripts of the Chandra Shum Shere
Collection in the Bodleian Library, vol. 2: Epics and PurANas, Oxford,
1999, p. 147-9 (n? 370-81), a rich collection which is representative of
the content of a single library from a pandit in Benares at thye beginning
of the 20th century, it appears that there were there several manuscripts
with the BhAgavata-Pa?cAdhyAyI as an autonomous piece, with or without
commentaries. Among the commentaries, KAzInAtha's ToSaNIsArasaMgraha and
DhanapatisUri's GUDhArthadIpikA appear several times. The catalogues of
SSUL and Benares Hindu University should be also checked.
Regards

>Respected members of Indology,
>
>We are trying to identify a MS in a collection here in Denmark.
>The MS is incomplete, many of the folios are damaged and the
>numbering of the folios is not altogether clear.  The abbreviated title
>given is: "bhaa pa.m".  We have concluded that the text is a
>commentary on (a part of?) the Bhaagavata-puraa.na.  However,
>none of the commentaries on the BhP mentioned by Ludo Rocher
>in his book about the Puraa.nas match the abbreviated title given
>by the scribe.  The available folios all contain explanatory text and
>glosses for stanzas in the following chapters of the BhP's tenth
>book: 31, 32, and 33.  (The MS does not cite the stanzas, only
>explain them and provide a gloss.)  These chapters all belong to
>the Raasa-pa~ncaadhyaayii section of the BhP, and we are
>suspecting that the text is a commentary on the Raasa-section
>only and that the abbreviated title could mean something like
>"bhaagavata pa~ncaadhyaayii".
>
>We have compared the MS with the BhP commentaries of
>Sridharasvamin, Sanaatana, Jiiva, Vi;svanaatha Cakravartin, and
>Naaraaya.na Bha.t.ta, but have found no match.
>
>I am hoping that someone will be able to help us identify the text.
>Below I have included a small section taken from the MS, which
>will hopefully be enough to identify it (if not I can provide more
>excerpts).
>
>Thank you very much.
>
>Sincerely,
>Toke Lindegaard Knudsen
>
>---
>
>The MS's commentary on BhP 10.32.1 begins:
>
>(I am typing directly from the manuscript; I have put hard-to-read
>characters in brackets.)
>
>eva.m (sva)sya(sva)syagu.naruupamanosaarikiirtanaana.mtara.m
>ki.m cakrur iti jij~naasu.m dar;sanaadaane
>ki.mci(d)bhagavatikaa(.t)inyamaaropyamaa.na.mraajaata(.m)pratikv
>aci(du.m)da.mtpra(cm)utamaci.mtayet ... (I am leaving out a small
>section here) ... itiiti bho raajan / gopya.h
>sukhara.m rurudu.h samyak ...
>
>The commentary on 10.33.1 includes the following:
>
>raasotsava iti / daasotsava.h taasaa.m madhye k.r.s.nena
>saprav.rt(or: tt ?)a.h // ;sriiraadhaak.r.s.nayor utsava.h /
>
>(So, Raadhaa is mentioned in the text and that may give a clue in
>identifying it.)


Dr. Christophe Vielle
Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud
Institut orientaliste
Place Blaise Pascal 1
B - 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
BELGIUM
Tel. +32-(0)10-47 49 54 (office)/ -(0)2-640 62 66 (home)
E-mail: vielle at ori.ucl.ac.be




From pf at CIX.CO.UK  Tue Dec 11 13:33:00 2001
From: pf at CIX.CO.UK (Peter Flugel)
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 01 13:33:00 +0000
Subject: Tirtha Patas
In-Reply-To: <3DF73137.DBD7C601@urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
Message-ID: <161227071851.23782.18386467326484907184.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Marcus Banks has written on this. Since I do not have the reference
better contact him personally:

marcus.banks at anthro.ox.ac.uk


Peter Fluegel




From mmdesh at UMICH.EDU  Tue Dec 11 22:07:54 2001
From: mmdesh at UMICH.EDU (Madhav M. Deshpande)
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 01 17:07:54 -0500
Subject: Dr. R. N. Dandekar passed away (fwd)
Message-ID: <161227070048.23782.8033771430506744749.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2001, 8:48 PM +0530
From: BORI <bori1 at vsnl.net>
To: Madhava Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu>
Subject: Dr. R. N. Dandekar passed away



The eminent Indologist and presently the Vice-President of the BORI, Prof.
R. N. DANDEKAR passed away at 1745 Hrs. today due to old age. He was 93.

His funeral procession will start from the Nizam Guest-House of the
Institute, at 9.00 a.m. on Wednesday, December 12, 2001.

M G. Dhadphale

Hon. Secretary.

---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



***************************************************************
Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
3070 Frieze Building
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1285, USA
***************************************************************




From pf at CIX.CO.UK  Tue Dec 11 21:46:00 2001
From: pf at CIX.CO.UK (Peter Flugel)
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 01 21:46:00 +0000
Subject: Tirtha Patas
In-Reply-To: <3DF73137.DBD7C601@urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
Message-ID: <161227071862.23782.1295532404753489505.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Marcus Banks has written about Jain tirtha pathas.
I can't find the reference at the moment. But his e-mail address
is:

marcus.banks at anthro.ox.ac.uk

Peter Fluegel




From tlknudsen at GET2NET.DK  Sun Dec 16 11:12:52 2001
From: tlknudsen at GET2NET.DK (Toke Lindegaard Knudsen)
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 01 12:12:52 +0100
Subject: Bhaagavata-puraa.na commentary MS
In-Reply-To: <3C0F9125.26855.1AF8D1@localhost>
Message-ID: <161227070052.23782.2534253231509986114.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Many thanks to George Hart, Dominik Wujastyk, Edwin Bryant,
Fred Smith and Christophe Vielle for their kind help with trying to
identify our MS of a commentary on the BhP.  We have now, with
some help, checked the text of the MS against almost 20 BhP
commentaries (printed editions), but without finding a match.
Christophe Vielle's comment was valuable, and I will try to follow up
on it.

One brief colophon is preserved in the manuscript:
"ityekatri.m;sodhyaaya.h".  So the MS numbers of the chapters of
the tenth book of the BhP in the traditional way, without rejecting
three chapters as the Vallabhis do.

Sincerely and with many thanks,
Toke Lindegaard Knudsen




From lel at LEL.MSK.RU  Sun Dec 16 10:32:37 2001
From: lel at LEL.MSK.RU (Lielukhine D.N.)
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 01 13:32:37 +0300
Subject: Indian epigraphy
Message-ID: <161227070050.23782.13592515767554915924.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear colleagues !

Site http://indepigr.narod.ru/index1.htm  updated. Here I placed my earlier
publication of Licchavi's inscriptions from Nepal (from the www.Orient.ru.)
Be sure, download new version of ttf-font before. All your opinions (as
about this publication, as about usualness of this type publications),
remarks, advices and recommendations will be helpful and very interesting
for me.

Lielukhine D.N.
Oriental institute, Moscow, Dep. of History.
Member secretary of "Epigraphy of the Orient"
e-mail: lel at lel.msk.ru




From H.J.H.Tieken at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL  Tue Dec 18 13:02:54 2001
From: H.J.H.Tieken at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Tieken, H.J.H.)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 01 14:02:54 +0100
Subject: Kavya in South India
Message-ID: <161227070055.23782.18437032470812905374.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Up to now, Hart's remarks concerning my book Kavya in South India. Old Tamil
Cankam Poetry (Gonda Indological Studies X), Groningen 2001 have been
general. Actually, they had been written before he had seen, let alone read
my book. However, a few days ago Hart was more specific, addressing in some
detail my paragraph on the arrangement of the poems in the anthologies.
Before reacting on Hart's comments I would first like to provide some brief
context to the discussion.

   In the first part of my book I have argued that the villagers who are
made to speak in the so-called love poems (Akam) are not, as has been
assumed by Hart and others, the authors of the poems but characters in the
poems. The authors of the poems do not belong to the village but have to be
sought in a cosmopolitan milieu found in the city. I have done the same for
the historical poems (Puram). The poor, starving bards who in the poems are
wandering from one patron to the other, trying to make a living by their
poetry, are not the authors of the poems but, again, personae in the poems.

   In both the love poems and the historical poems we are dealing with
stock-characters represented in fictional situations. As far as the
historical poems are concerned, they had not been composed by the bards
featuring in them but by later authors who were trying to bring back to life
an earlier bardic poetry.

   In the introduction I have noted that I had been somewhat embarrassed at
having to prove the fictional nature of scenes of Cankam poetry, but the
idea that in, for instance, Puram we are dealing with actual,
"tape-recorded" conversations by historical persons is fairly wide-spread in
Tamil studies. Another idea current in Tamil studies is that the Cankam
poems are extempore, on the spot compositions. The poems do indeed contain
some characteristics which are otherwise typical of such poetry. However,
anyone familiar with Cankam poetry will agree that the poems cannot have
been composed on the spot. In this connection I have mentioned the length of
the sentences and the resultant complex style of the poems, which is a far
cry from the simple adding style of epic poetry. These facts had already
been noted by Hart in his 1975 book, but, as I have tried to show, his
conclusions are a half-hearted compromise between regarding the poems as
oral or written compositions.

   As far as I know, nobody has tried to make clear by whom, in what way,
and to what purpose the poems have been memorized and passed on to be put in
anthologies only centuries later. And this brings me to the compilation of
the anthologies.

   In the majority of the anthologies the poems seem to have been put
together more or less at random. Content does not seem to play any role at
all. However, instead we find that each poem echoes certain words from the
preceding poems. As an example I have quoted Kuruntokai 344 (the
presentation below may not be as clear as the one on p. 96 of my book as it
may well be the case that the tab positions are lost in the transmission):

336                                             pirinticinole
337                                                     mulai   nirai
338 annal eru           punkanmalai
339
340     katalar                                 peyar
341                                     katalar
342             tan     punkan
343 annal eru
344 annal eru   tan     punkanmalai     katalar peyarum mulai   nirai
                                                pirintu

The echoes are not restricted to lexemes. Occasionally, they involve
suffixes, as in aku-mati (Kur. 18) and inai-mati (19) and in un-iiyar (27),
tal-ii (29), mar-iiya (30) and kul-iiya and tal-iiya (31); particles, as in
kuruk-um (25) and katuvan-um (26); and similar phrases, as in varutalum
varuuam (88) and nuvaralum nuvalpa (89). Also some rare instances involving
synonyms have been noted, as in aruntu (26) and un (27).

   According to the current interpretation, the Tamil anthologies contain
merely a selection from a boundless reservoir of floating, orally
transmitted poems. However, the type of concatenation met with in, for
instance, the Kuruntokai introduces a complication. For, while it may be
relatively easy in the case of 344 to find in the vast corpus of existing
poems another one containing the words annal and eru, to find one which in
addition also contained the word punkan(malai) must have been much more
difficult. In addition to that, the poem should not have been shorter than 4
lines or longer than 8.

   My conclusion was, and is, that the idea that the compiler selected the
poems from a reservoir of existing poems has to be abandoned. Instead, I
suggested that the poems were composed for the first time at the moment of
their inclusion in the anthology, if only because it might after all have
been easier, starting from words in the preceding poems, to compose a new
poem that to search one's memory for one.

   This conclusion has been extended to include all eight Cankam
anthologies. I take this opportunity to point to the Kalittokai and in
particular to the inclusion of the kuravai poems in this collection. As I
have suggested, the Kalittokai poems are Tamil counterparts of the lasyas
and catuspadis of the Sanskrit Kavya tradition. The kuravai poems are
hallisaka scenes transplanted to Tamilnadu. How did these hallisakas, which
belong to the category of festival songs, find a place in a collection of
lasyas and catuspadis? As I have tried to show on p. 185 ff., this can be
explained with reference to a misunderstanding in the poetical tradition of
Sanskrit, which misunderstanding is attested for the first time only in the
ninth century, namely in Abhinavagupta's commmentary on the Natyasastra.
This same misunderstanding is also found in Bhoja's Srngaraprakasa (tenth or
eleventh century).

   Hart now argues that the chance of identical words occurring in the poems
is so great that it is actually impossible to find a poem which does not
have one or more words in common with any other poems. In this connection I
would like to note the following. If we turn to the scheme given above, the
word annal occurs only 6 times in the 400 poems of Kuruntokai, the word eru
altogether 9 times, punkan 7 times, and peyar (noun and verb) 25 times. And,
as I have noted in footnote 15 on p. 98, also in the Purananuru "common"
words appear typically in clusters of poems. Take the verb nikku/ninku:
150-153-154, 247-249-250, 392-393-397-398-400 or the verb pay:
23-24-25-30-31, etc.

   Whatever the value of the statistics put forward by Hart, the prediction
which he abstracted from it does not appear to come true.

All the points adduced by Hart in his earlier comment (the one written
before he had read my book) are of course directly or indirectly addressed
in my book. A point I have treated only briefly is the language of the
poems. According to Hart and others the Cankam texts abound in archaic
forms. I am, however, dealing with the language of Cankam poetry in an
article, which is soon to be offered for publication. What I would like to
mention here is that, while the Cankam texts are indeed full of curious
forms, what is unique is not necessarily old. Often the need to prove this
was not even felt by scholars as the occurrence of the forms in question in
Cankam poetry was believed to take care of that. To claim, as Hart does,
that the forms are "demonstrably much more archaic" (than the ninth or tenth
century) is premature.

Finally, I hope that this reaction of mine will not provoke a similar kind
of discussion as we have recently witnessed in connection with Axel
Michaels' book on the subject of the pandit. As far as I am concerned, this
is my last reaction before the publication of the complete version of Hart's
review of my book in JAOS.

Herman Tieken
Instituut Kern
Universiteit te Leiden




From jfstaal at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU  Tue Dec 18 22:20:25 2001
From: jfstaal at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (Frits Staal)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 01 14:20:25 -0800
Subject: Direction to buy Soma
In-Reply-To: <E16GNKQ-0000sb-00@listserv2.liv.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <161227070061.23782.8521787385334974306.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Hi Madhav,

I believe that the answer to your pre-final question is, Yes. As for the
final, I have thoughts ("thoughts" is just the word) on this and it is part
of the topic about which I hope to talk at the Leiden Vedic workshop in
May-June but if you send me an address where around Xmas/New Year things
might reach you with the least delay, I'll send you something.

best

Frits

At 04:42 PM 12/18/01 +0000, you wrote:
>The Aitareya-Braahma.na (3rd Adhyaaya, I think) begins with a statement:
praacyaam ha vai dizi
>devaa.h somam akrii.nan, tasmaat praacyaam dizi kriiyate.  The gods bought
Soma in the eastern
>direction, and hence Soma is to be bought in the eastern direction.  This
is understood in the
>commentaries as referring to the eastern side of the sacrificial
enclosure.  That is fine in the context of ritual
>performance.  However, does this statement have any relevance for the
history of IA migrations?  If
>Soma is originally to be found on the Muujavat mountain (somewhere in
Afghanistan? Hindukush?),
>does this AB statement indicate a location of the gods to the west of
Muujavat, so that this mountain
>would be to their east?  Any thoughts?
>
>                                                              Madhav
Deshpande
>
Frits Staal

http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/staal




From jfstaal at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU  Tue Dec 18 22:48:05 2001
From: jfstaal at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (Frits Staal)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 01 14:48:05 -0800
Subject: Query: Did classical Indian philosophers revise their works?
In-Reply-To: <3672027734.1008694374@projekt1>
Message-ID: <161227070063.23782.7466142861484587351.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear Birgit,

May I refer you to my mini-paper "Changing One's Mind" in the Journal Of
Indian Philosophy 23(1995)53-55 or do you know it already?

best

At 04:52 PM 12/18/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Are there cases where one can demonstrate that classical Indian
>philosophers significantly revised their own earlier works in the light of
>what they themselves wrote later in their career?
>
>By "significant revisions", I mean cases where actual formulations were
>demonstrably changed: e.g. when technical terms coined later would have
>made their way into revisions of earlier works, or when definitions of key
>concepts developed and sharpened only later would have been inserted into
>earlier works.
>
>Based on my own limited experience in reading Indian philosophical
>treatises, I cannot come up with any such cases, and would - for several
>reasons - actually doubt that they exist; but then again one can never be
>sure, and perhaps my reasons are based on false assumptions.
>
>In DharmakIrti's works, for instance, one finds statements like "... iti
>vakSyAmaH" that anticipate passages in later chapters of the same work,
>which might be later insertions (though this need not be the case) - but
>these I would not consider as "significant revisions"; in fact, if these
>are insertions, the fact that a philosopher inserted statements that
>certain problems will be addressed at a later point indicates a certain
>caution so as *not* to alter the textual form of what has already been
>written. Such insertions might therefore be seen as indicating a distinctly
>"preservationist" attitude towards one's own compositions on the part of
>philosophers.
>
>I would appreciate any information on this matter; in addition to - if
>extant - case-studies, I would particularly appreicate references to
>literature which might discuss such subjects in relation to attested (?)
>sociocultural practices of textual composition, handling of manuscripts,
>and manuscript transmission.
>
>Birgit Kellner
>Institute for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies
>Vienna University
>
Frits Staal

http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/staal




From witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Tue Dec 18 21:08:47 2001
From: witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Michael Witzel)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 01 16:08:47 -0500
Subject: Direction to buy Soma
In-Reply-To: <E16GNKQ-0000sb-00@listserv2.liv.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <161227070065.23782.10594653345744085734.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear Madhav,

I wanted to point to Frist's forthcoming paper, but he has already done so,
if  obliquely.

* F. Staal.  How a psychoactive substance becomes a ritual: the case of
Soma. (forthc.)

George Thompson and I have further elaborated on this topic, from different
points of view, at the Third Harvard Round Table (May 2001) and both of us
have papers forthcoming

* G. Thompson. The relationship between Vedic and Avestan: the provenance
of Soma, amshu, and its relation to the BMAC?  Paper at: Third Harvard
Round Table on the Ethnogenesis of South and Central Asia, May 12-14, 2001
( http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sanskrit/RoundTableSchedule.html)


* MW, Early Loan Words in Western Central Asia:  Indicators of Substrate
Populations, Migrations, and Trade Relations.  --  in a conf. vol. edited
by V. Mair


It is important to underline that (following Lubotsky, in press, &
Thompson), the locla substarte word  IIr *anc'u 'Soma plant' designates the
plant that is pressed out to prepare the sacred drink of the Indo-Iranian
peoples, and this points to the high mountains of Central Asia (incl. the
Hindukush, Pamir, and the Himalayas, see in detail Staal, forthc.), where
according to both the Avesta and the ?gveda the best Soma grows.

That would be, if we take AB literally, in many cases to the *east* of the
IIr *'wide pastures' (vouru.gauuoiti).   More on this and related questions
of IIr religion in my Leiden talk in late  May 2002  (3rd Intl Vedic
Workshop).

However, with respect to your original observation,

>The Aitareya-Braahma.na (3rd Adhyaaya, I think) begins with a statement:
>praacyaam ha vai dizi
>devaa.h somam akrii.nan, tasmaat praacyaam dizi kriiyate.

we must take a close look at the ritual context, and take into account that
the gods do their things in the East/Northeast/(North, esp. Iranian
daevas).

No time for this now.

Bets wishes, Michael
========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm




From mmdesh at UMICH.EDU  Tue Dec 18 16:42:54 2001
From: mmdesh at UMICH.EDU (Madhav Deshpande)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 01 16:42:54 +0000
Subject: Direction to buy Soma
Message-ID: <161227070059.23782.2089792210917520893.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

The Aitareya-Braahma.na (3rd Adhyaaya, I think) begins with a statement: praacyaam ha vai dizi
devaa.h somam akrii.nan, tasmaat praacyaam dizi kriiyate.  The gods bought Soma in the eastern
direction, and hence Soma is to be bought in the eastern direction.  This is understood in the
commentaries as referring to the eastern side of the sacrificial enclosure.  That is fine in the context of ritual
performance.  However, does this statement have any relevance for the history of IA migrations?  If
Soma is originally to be found on the Muujavat mountain (somewhere in Afghanistan? Hindukush?),
does this AB statement indicate a location of the gods to the west of Muujavat, so that this mountain
would be to their east?  Any thoughts?

                                                              Madhav Deshpande




From birgit.kellner at UNIVIE.AC.AT  Tue Dec 18 15:52:54 2001
From: birgit.kellner at UNIVIE.AC.AT (Birgit Kellner)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 01 16:52:54 +0100
Subject: Query: Did classical Indian philosophers revise their works?
Message-ID: <161227070057.23782.14229966243022636241.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Are there cases where one can demonstrate that classical Indian
philosophers significantly revised their own earlier works in the light of
what they themselves wrote later in their career?

By "significant revisions", I mean cases where actual formulations were
demonstrably changed: e.g. when technical terms coined later would have
made their way into revisions of earlier works, or when definitions of key
concepts developed and sharpened only later would have been inserted into
earlier works.

Based on my own limited experience in reading Indian philosophical
treatises, I cannot come up with any such cases, and would - for several
reasons - actually doubt that they exist; but then again one can never be
sure, and perhaps my reasons are based on false assumptions.

In DharmakIrti's works, for instance, one finds statements like "... iti
vakSyAmaH" that anticipate passages in later chapters of the same work,
which might be later insertions (though this need not be the case) - but
these I would not consider as "significant revisions"; in fact, if these
are insertions, the fact that a philosopher inserted statements that
certain problems will be addressed at a later point indicates a certain
caution so as *not* to alter the textual form of what has already been
written. Such insertions might therefore be seen as indicating a distinctly
"preservationist" attitude towards one's own compositions on the part of
philosophers.

I would appreciate any information on this matter; in addition to - if
extant - case-studies, I would particularly appreicate references to
literature which might discuss such subjects in relation to attested (?)
sociocultural practices of textual composition, handling of manuscripts,
and manuscript transmission.

Birgit Kellner
Institute for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies
Vienna University




From j_e_m_houben at YAHOO.COM  Wed Dec 19 08:46:24 2001
From: j_e_m_houben at YAHOO.COM (Jan E.M. Houben)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 00:46:24 -0800
Subject: Query: Did classical Indian philosophers revise their works?
In-Reply-To: <E16GVLP-0003ve-00@mx2.freenet.de>
Message-ID: <161227070070.23782.1880713294411310885.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

To really proof a revision we would need, as Kengo
observes, two subsequent autographs of a work. Does
anyone know of proven autographs (even just single
ones)? They cannot be expected except for relatively
late authors, or in case a manuscript has escaped the
Indian unfavorable climatic conditions for long
preservation (e.g. those which went into Tibetan
collections).
Though not a work on philosophy, it has been suggested
on the basis of the then available evidence that the
Dharma-Caurya-Rasaayana was an autograph (Aklujkar in
Palsule felicitation, 1996). As I argue in a
forthcoming review of A. Passi's new edition and
Italian translation of this work (Milano, 2001), the
manuscript evidence reported by Passi forces us to
give up the theory of scribe=author and
manuscript=autograph, although this is not the
conclusion drawn by Passi himself.
Jan Houben

--- Kengo Harimoto <kharimot at SAS.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
> [I hope this mail gets through since I am using a
> back-up system.]
>
> >May I refer you to my mini-paper "Changing One's
> Mind" in the Journal Of
> >Indian Philosophy 23(1995)53-55 or do you know it
> already?
>
> Speaking of the Vivra.na on the Yogabhaa.sya, there
> are some places where I
> suspect revisions.
>
> For example, the Vivara.na on YBh 1.24 introduces
...
> Ideally, discovery of two autographed manuscripts
> would be a rather strong
> evidence.  However, it does not seem to occur any
> time soon.
>
> --
> kengo


__________________________________________________
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From kharimot at SAS.UPENN.EDU  Wed Dec 19 01:21:39 2001
From: kharimot at SAS.UPENN.EDU (Kengo Harimoto)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 02:21:39 +0100
Subject: Query: Did classical Indian philosophers revise their works?
Message-ID: <161227070068.23782.17324214231950293152.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

[I hope this mail gets through since I am using a back-up system.]

>May I refer you to my mini-paper "Changing One's Mind" in the Journal Of
>Indian Philosophy 23(1995)53-55 or do you know it already?

Speaking of the Vivra.na on the Yogabhaa.sya, there are some places where I
suspect revisions.

For example, the Vivara.na on YBh 1.24 introduces two interpretation of the
word nimitta in the bhaa.sya.  The author continues the discussion as if
the second view is his own.  I have a suspicion that the first view (not
the second) was added later.  Interestingly, the first interpretation seems
to resemble what Sankara says in BSBh 1.1.2.

There are more places where I suspect revisions.  Interesting thing about
the Vivara.na is that (going back to Prof. Staal's article) it sometimes
seems to contain highly developed Sankara's thought, but other times
not-yet-well-cooked ideas.  This intensifies the impression that the
current form of the Vivara.na is result of revisions.  At least it is not
easy to say that it is an early work of Sankara as Hacker said.

The difficulty in determining the existence of revisions is that there is
no well-documented, widely accepted instance of the existence of revisions.
 (No d.r.s.taanta)  What should be the criteria for one to decisively say,
``Oh, this part must be added later''?  That's the question I keep asking
myself.

Ideally, discovery of two autographed manuscripts would be a rather strong
evidence.  However, it does not seem to occur any time soon.

--
kengo




From jkirk at MICRON.NET  Wed Dec 19 16:51:41 2001
From: jkirk at MICRON.NET (jkirk)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 09:51:41 -0700
Subject: Fw: Sanskrit Vimilakirti
Message-ID: <161227070074.23782.7509670294605747432.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

X-posted---------FYI----Joanna Kirkpatrick


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dante Rosati" <dante at INTERPORT.NET>
To: <BUDDHA-L at LISTSERV.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 9:38 PM
Subject: Sanskrit Vimilakirti


> It seems a sanskrit mss of this sutra has turned up:
>
> http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20011218c1.htm
>
>




From jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU  Wed Dec 19 17:03:50 2001
From: jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU (Jonathan Silk)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 12:03:50 -0500
Subject: Fw: Sanskrit Vimilakirti
In-Reply-To: <005901c188ad$6f1b1490$2930cece@JKIRK>
Message-ID: <161227070078.23782.513911920774914422.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

slightly--only slightly!!-- better photos of the VKN ms at:

http://www.asahi.com/culture/update/1214/003.html

According to the information circulated by Kazunobu MATSUDA, "The manuscript is
complete and consists of 79 palm leaves (6 x 30 cm). Its colophon says
that this was copied by Chandoka, Chamberlain of the King Gopala (750-770)
of the Pala dynasty."

However, concensus of scholars who have seen the photos in the web
site listed above (including Lore Sander), is that the ms dates to
the 11-12 c (paleographically), and the colophon (if read correctly)
was likely copied from its source.

This is truly an exciting discovery for Buddhist scholars-- a nice
belated Hanukha/early Christmas present.
--

For quicker response these days please copy your reply to kinu at aol.com


Jonathan Silk

jonathan.silk at yale.edu

Dept. of Religious Studies
Box 208287
Yale University
New Haven CT 06520-8287
USA

tel. 203-432-0828
fax. 203-432-7844




From Isaacson at UNI-HAMBURG.DE  Wed Dec 19 13:13:27 2001
From: Isaacson at UNI-HAMBURG.DE (Harunaga Isaacson)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 14:13:27 +0100
Subject: Query: Did classical Indian philosophers revise their works?
Message-ID: <161227070072.23782.10779037691120014631.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

A much bigger problem than determining whether something is an addition
(to mention only one form which revision can take) is determining
whether the addition is by the original author. In most cases that I
have seen the odds seemed to be very heavily against that.

Though Birgit's original question was about revisions of their own work
by 'classical Indian philosophers', perhaps it might be worth looking at
Michael Coulson's remarks in the introduction to his 'A Critical Edition
of the Maalatiimaadhava' (Delhi: OUP 1989). Coulson is of the opinion
that Bhavabhuuti revised his own play, and, as he points out, he is not
the first person to suggest that Bhavabhuuti did such a thing. I recall
finding his discussion interesting, though by no means fully persuasive.


As for autographs (single ones) of Sanskrit texts, I think there are
certainly a number that exist, though usually indeed of relatively late
authors. To mention only one, a manuscript that I have seen myself---the
Bodleian Library has what appears to be an autograph manuscript by
Ratnaka.n.tha (the famous Kashmirian scholar and scribe, active in the
second half of the 17th century) of a commentary that he composed, or at
least started to compose, on Ratnaakara's Haravijaya. The manuscript
contains, if I remember rightly, commentary on sarga 1 only,
unfortunately. I suppose it is quite likely that Ratnaka.n.tha never
finished the huge task that he had embarked on.

Harunaga Isaacson




From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK  Wed Dec 19 17:05:30 2001
From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 17:05:30 +0000
Subject: Fw: Sanskrit Vimilakirti
In-Reply-To: <005901c188ad$6f1b1490$2930cece@JKIRK>
Message-ID: <161227070076.23782.1374278628498618365.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

That's wonderful.  And not only found, but (if the photo is of the same
MS) in superb and easily legible condition.

Dominik




From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK  Wed Dec 19 17:17:11 2001
From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 17:17:11 +0000
Subject: Fw: Sanskrit Vimilakirti
In-Reply-To: <p0510031db846781b0fd4@[130.132.185.171]>
Message-ID: <161227070080.23782.12513516588434199367.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Well the images are certainly of a paper, not palm leaf MS.  And I would
say 11-12c is the very earliest possible dating for a MS in that
condition, with that script.  But I wouldn't argue with Lore Sander.  :-)

Since it really isn't easy to confuse paper with palm leaf, perhaps the MS
we are seeing on the web is just "something similar" used to illustrate
the article?

Has the Lhasa MS been photographed completely?

Dominik

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Jonathan Silk wrote:

> slightly--only slightly!!-- better photos of the VKN ms at:
>
> http://www.asahi.com/culture/update/1214/003.html
>
> According to the information circulated by Kazunobu MATSUDA, "The
> manuscript is complete and consists of 79 palm leaves (6 x 30 cm). Its
> colophon says that this was copied by Chandoka, Chamberlain of the
> King Gopala (750-770) of the Pala dynasty."
>
> However, concensus of scholars who have seen the photos in the web
> site listed above (including Lore Sander), is that the ms dates to
> the 11-12 c (paleographically), and the colophon (if read correctly)
> was likely copied from its source.
>
> This is truly an exciting discovery for Buddhist scholars-- a nice
> belated Hanukha/early Christmas present.
> --
>
> For quicker response these days please copy your reply to kinu at aol.com
>
>
> Jonathan Silk
>
> jonathan.silk at yale.edu
>
> Dept. of Religious Studies
> Box 208287
> Yale University
> New Haven CT 06520-8287
> USA
>
> tel. 203-432-0828
> fax. 203-432-7844
>

--
Wellcome Senior Research Fellow (from January 2002)
Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/




From witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU  Thu Dec 20 04:25:21 2001
From: witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Michael Witzel)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 01 23:25:21 -0500
Subject: Fw: Sanskrit Vimilakirti
Message-ID: <161227070083.23782.16966117573427322561.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

I wondered about this a few days ago, when M.Fushimi, one of our Japanese
Grad. students, showed me another newspaper  clip with some unclear photos,
apparently  those of a *paper* ms. with a script that vaguely looked like
Newari script. -- Anyhow, paper at 750 CE just doesn't fit.

Now, I have received  a slightly better photo from another Jpn newspaper,
attached here as jpeg, if Liverpool will take it.

Otherwise you can view it at:

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/vimala.jpg

(turn 90* for Jpn. text!)

As scholars have said (below), this clearly is early *eastern* Nagari
(look at the -t -),
however not that of, say  c. 1000 CE, but later, say 1150/1200  CE,
(look at C+ya!  or note the r + C on top of line, or  C+ i ),  among others.

The photos seem to show a (heavy, country style or card board style) paper
ms., not a palm leaf as the news reports have it; also, the size is a bit
unusual for palm leaves (6 X 30 cm.):  6cm is just a little too high ...

For the rest, I guess L. Sanders has it right: a copy of a an earlier one
with a Gopala (Pala dyn.) time colophon that was copied into the new 1200
CE copy.

Paper at 1200 CE remains a problem, but we have a few early paper mss
(c.1100 if I remember correctly) from Jaina bhandars in Gujarat/Rajasthan.


<slightly-- better photos of the VKN ms at:
>
>http://www.asahi.com/culture/update/1214/003.html
>
 concensus of scholars who have seen the photos in the web
>site listed above (including Lore Sander), is that the ms dates to
>the 11-12 c (paleographically), and the colophon (if read correctly)
>was likely copied from its source.
--============_-1203300270==_============
Content-Id: <v04011700b8470fb1df8d@[209.6.246.85].0.0>
Content-Type: application/mac-binhex40; name="vimala.jpg"
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vimala.jpg"
 ; modification-date="Wed, 19 Dec 2001 22:07:40 -0500"

--============_-1203300270==_============
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

--============_-1203300270==_============--




From Slaje at T-ONLINE.DE  Thu Dec 20 08:52:50 2001
From: Slaje at T-ONLINE.DE (Walter Slaje)
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 01 09:52:50 +0100
Subject: Query: Did classical Indian philosophers revise their works?
Message-ID: <161227070085.23782.584484096086478600.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Although not belonging to the category of philosophical works, there is another
and apparently clear instance of an author having revised his own work, namely
Kalhana. By a considerable change of a passage in the 8th Taranga of his
Rajatarangini the transmission of mss of this new version, differing from
an/the earlier one(s), seems to have been caused.

See on this B. K?lver, Textkritische und philologische Untersuchungen zur
Rajatarangini des Kalhana. Wiesbaden 1971: pp. 61; 79ff.

WS

-----------------------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
Hermann-Loens-Str. 1, D-99425 Weimar (Germany)
Tel/Fax: (+49)03643-501391 (office: (+49)0345-55-23650)
e-mail: slaje at t-online.de (office: slaje at indologie.uni-halle.de)




From s.hodge at PADMACHOLING.FREESERVE.CO.UK  Thu Dec 20 13:20:11 2001
From: s.hodge at PADMACHOLING.FREESERVE.CO.UK (Stephen Hodge)
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 01 13:20:11 +0000
Subject: Fw: Sanskrit Vimilakirti
Message-ID: <161227070087.23782.8802350803359815675.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Michael Witzelwrote:

> For the rest, I guess L. Sanders has it right: a copy of a an earlier one
> with a Gopala (Pala dyn.) time colophon that was copied into the new 1200
> CE copy.

If the photos are actually the VKS, then this makes sense from other
aspects.  Most of the Skt mss found in Tibet would have be taken there
during the 11/12th centuries as one can see from Sankrityayana's finds -- I
would be surprised many, if any, earlier mss from the snga-dar period would
have survived, quite apart from the paper problem.

It is also interesting to note that the Japanese report states that the
Taisho University group had the text (in photographic form) back in 1999 but
had not identified the VKS since it was included in another Skt ms with a
different title.  Ah, the speed of modern scholarship.

Bets wishes,
Stephen Hodge




From frederick-smith at UIOWA.EDU  Fri Dec 21 04:35:22 2001
From: frederick-smith at UIOWA.EDU (Fred Smith)
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 01 23:35:22 -0500
Subject: Query: Did classical Indian philosophers revise their works?
In-Reply-To: <16Gywc-0sgo4mC@fwd02.sul.t-online.com>
Message-ID: <161227070089.23782.18134434773588045829.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

I don't have time to do this now, with a stack of student papers still to
read, but
one way to test this is to look at authors who wrote two commentaries on the
same work. Two such cases come readily to mind. The first is Abhinavagupta,
who wrote two comms on Utpaladeva's I"svarapratyabhij?AkArikA, the
Vimar"sinI on the text itself and the Viv.rtivimar"sinI on Utpaladeva's lost
autocommentary. The second is Appayya DIkSitA, an exciting figure who deseves
much more attention than he has received from scholars. He wrote two comms on
the BrahmasUtras, one an advaita subcommentary called Kalpataruparimala, and
the other, called "SivArkamaNidIpikA, on the BrahmasUtrabhASyam of "SrIkaNTha,
a "Saiva oriented commentary. Of course, you would have to determine which was
written first, whether a shift in viewpoint, if any, was little more than an
academic exercise, etc. But, hey, there might be a dissertation there!

Fred Smith

Frederick M. Smith
Associate Professor of Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religion
School of Religion                    Dept. of Asian Languages
                              & Literature
314 Gilmore Hall                              681 Phillips Hall
University of Iowa                    University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA  52242  U.S.A.          Iowa City, IA  52242  U.S.A.
        + 319-335-2178 (O)      + 319-338-7193 (H)
               + 319-353-2207 (Fax)
                    frederick-smith at uiowa.edu

"Insanity is doing the same old thing, the same old way, while expecting
different results." Albert Einstein




From jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU  Thu Dec 27 20:09:39 2001
From: jonathan.silk at YALE.EDU (Jonathan Silk)
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 01 15:09:39 -0500
Subject: Vimalakirti update and clarification
Message-ID: <161227070091.23782.15842902852050052205.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear Colleagues,

Some clarifications and updates on the Vimalakirti materials:

All of these are courtesy of Matsuda Kazunobu.

1.  there is no question that the ms in question is on palm leaf.

2.  the first person to suggest the 11-12th c. date for the ms was
not Lore Sander but Matsuda himself. Also, the colophon was quoted by
Matsuda from a news report; he did not see and read it himself.

3. Taisho University has loaded the press release documents and snapshots
on their home page.

Snapshots:
http://www.tais.ac.jp/project/

Title and transliteration of Vimalakirti's colophon:
http://www.tais.ac.jp/project/shiryo6.html

Title and transliteration of Jnana-aloka-alamkara's:
http://www.tais.ac.jp/project/shiryo8.html

These are Japanese pages, but it may be possible to view the relevant
portion (I--Silk--do not know because my browser automatically reads
the Japanese). The Jnana-aaloka
-alamkaara isTibetan tr is Peking ed., No. 768, Chinese trs are
Taisho, Nos. 357, 358
and 359 in the vol.12.

4. Oskar v Hinuber wrote the following to Matsuda:
>  Concerning the colophon of the Vimalakirtinirdesa and the king Gopala, I
>  wonder, whether anybody has cared to check Pala history (e.g.:Jhunu Bagchi,
>  The History and Culture of the Palas of Bengal and Bihar. Delhi 1993, p.49
>  or:  G. Bhattacharya, Festschrift Bruhn). Without seeing the colophon, one
>  would suspect Gopala III 12th century! Thus there is no conflict at all
>  between colophon and script, unless there are strong arguments in favour
>  of Gopala I. On the other hand, there seem to be copied colophons. If you
>  have some good examples, I would be most grateful, because I just remember
>  the fact without having any hard evidence at hand.

I apologize for any possible confusion by my earlier emails.
--

For quicker response these days please copy your reply to kinu at aol.com


Jonathan Silk

jonathan.silk at yale.edu

Dept. of Religious Studies
Box 208287
Yale University
New Haven CT 06520-8287
USA

tel. 203-432-0828
fax. 203-432-7844




From ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU  Sun Dec 30 21:40:18 2001
From: ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU (George Hart)
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 01 13:40:18 -0800
Subject: Kavya in South India
In-Reply-To: <50EA3A4B8EE8D511AD5400508B78651523EE8B@letsxc002.let.leidenuniv.nl>
Message-ID: <161227070093.23782.6339332352540635209.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Prof. Tieken's book is based on several premises that I simply cannot
understand.  With regard to some of his points, no one could quibble.  For
example, Indian scholars such as Swaminathaier have long accepted that poems
in the Purananuru were not always by the people who seem to speak the poem
(as the poems by Pari's daughters, or the poem where Auvaiyar pretends to be
a dancing woman).  What does this have to do with Tieken's claim that the
poems were a later forgery?  Nor can I understand how the repetition of
words has anything to do with this.  Tieken claims that contiguous poems
have more repetition than non-contiguous poems, a claim that is demonstrably
false.  But even if it were true, how would it prove that the poems were
forgeries?  Certainly an anthologist would tend to group similar poems
together -- and that is exactly what has been done in the Purananuru and, to
an extent, I believe, in the Kuruntokai.  The repetition of niikku/niinku at
the end of the Purananuru, for example, is because each of the poems in
which it occurs has the same subject matter (a dalit drummer comes to the
king's palace in the morning, stands outside, and sings of the king in order
to receive a gift from him).  Niikku, which means to "take off," to "make go
away", is used in all the poems in the same phrase: then he (the king) took
off my (low-caste drummer's) (dirty) garment.  With regards to the
repetition of grammatical elements, I have shown (and will post on my
website when I get a chance) that there is an identical repetition in
non-contiguous poems.  With regards to style, it is quite clear that the
poems are imitations by literate people of oral poems.  This is not a
"half-hearted compromise" -- it is the substance of a considerable part of
human literature.  The poems of the Sangam texts arise from a South Indian
folk tradition that also produced the Sattasai and that was taken up (in
parts) by Sanskrit.  Of course there are similarities.  What is so strange
about that?  I remain utterly mystified by Professor Tieken's claims that
Sangam literature is Kavya -- the two are utterly and completely different.

I should be very interested to see how Prof. Tieken accounts for the myriad
morphological and other forms in Sangam literature that do not appear later,
and for the later forms that do not occur in Sangam literature. I would only
ask him to consider that in order to demonstrate his thesis, he will have to
become familiar enough with Dravidian comparative linguistics to reconstruct
the proto-Dravidian (and proto-South-Dravidian) verb system, along with its
other other morphological and syntactic features. The two most eminent
living scholars of Dravidian linguistics -- Murray Emeneau and B. H.
Krishnamurthy -- have not ventured to do this, though I once did hear a
paper on the proto-Dravidian verb by the latter, which he labeled as
extremely tentative and dubious.  Frankly, I do not believe Professor Tieken
has the background or ability to carry out this task, which will require the
labor of many scholars, many volumes and many decades of intensive work.

What concerns me most is that Prof. Tieken's thesis will be accepted by
Sanskritists, who have no easy way of judging its validity.  If you are a
Sanskritist, please look at the following poem and consider whether it has
anything in common with Sanskrit kavya.  In doing so, note that it does not
have any Sanskrit words, uses a native Tamil meter, and that, unlike any
kavya, it is a report of personal experience.  Note also that (unlike in
later times) the names are pure Dravidian and that the categorization
(tiNai, tuRai) given the poems is entirely foreign to Sanskrit.  (You might
also question whether a literature of thousands of poems of such quality and
variety could be easily forged by one person).  Later Tamil, beginning with
Tiruttakkattevar in about the 8th century and continuing with Kampan in the
12th, is obviously influenced by Sanskrit kavya -- but surely this is not
true of Sangam literature.

Purananuru 245

Though it is so immense, does my grief none the less have
its limits, since it is not fierce enough to finish with my life?
On the salty earth all overgrown with sedge, on the burning ground,
my wife has gone her way to the other world, her bed
the shining fire of the pyre whose wood yields its glow
of blazing fuel! And I am
still alive! What kind of a place is this world?

The song of Ceeramaan KooTTampalatttut Tunciya Maakkootai when his [wife]
PerunkooppeNTu had died. TiNai: potuviyal.  TuRai: kaiyaRunilai.

George Hart

On 12/18/01 8:02 AM, "Tieken, H.J.H." <H.J.H.Tieken at LET.LEIDENUNIV.NL>
wrote:

> Up to now, Hart's remarks concerning my book Kavya in South India. Old Tamil
> Cankam Poetry (Gonda Indological Studies X), Groningen 2001 have been
> general. Actually, they had been written before he had seen, let alone read
> my book. However, a few days ago Hart was more specific, addressing in some
> detail my paragraph on the arrangement of the poems in the anthologies.
> Before reacting on Hart's comments I would first like to provide some brief
> context to the discussion.
>
>  In the first part of my book I have argued that the villagers who are
> made to speak in the so-called love poems (Akam) are not, as has been
> assumed by Hart and others, the authors of the poems but characters in the
> poems. The authors of the poems do not belong to the village but have to be
> sought in a cosmopolitan milieu found in the city. I have done the same for
> the historical poems (Puram). The poor, starving bards who in the poems are
> wandering from one patron to the other, trying to make a living by their
> poetry, are not the authors of the poems but, again, personae in the poems.
>
>  In both the love poems and the historical poems we are dealing with
> stock-characters represented in fictional situations. As far as the
> historical poems are concerned, they had not been composed by the bards
> featuring in them but by later authors who were trying to bring back to life
> an earlier bardic poetry.
>
>  In the introduction I have noted that I had been somewhat embarrassed at
> having to prove the fictional nature of scenes of Cankam poetry, but the
> idea that in, for instance, Puram we are dealing with actual,
> "tape-recorded" conversations by historical persons is fairly wide-spread in
> Tamil studies. Another idea current in Tamil studies is that the Cankam
> poems are extempore, on the spot compositions. The poems do indeed contain
> some characteristics which are otherwise typical of such poetry. However,
> anyone familiar with Cankam poetry will agree that the poems cannot have
> been composed on the spot. In this connection I have mentioned the length of
> the sentences and the resultant complex style of the poems, which is a far
> cry from the simple adding style of epic poetry. These facts had already
> been noted by Hart in his 1975 book, but, as I have tried to show, his
> conclusions are a half-hearted compromise between regarding the poems as
> oral or written compositions.
>
>  As far as I know, nobody has tried to make clear by whom, in what way,
> and to what purpose the poems have been memorized and passed on to be put in
> anthologies only centuries later. And this brings me to the compilation of
> the anthologies.
>
>  In the majority of the anthologies the poems seem to have been put
> together more or less at random. Content does not seem to play any role at
> all. However, instead we find that each poem echoes certain words from the
> preceding poems. As an example I have quoted Kuruntokai 344 (the
> presentation below may not be as clear as the one on p. 96 of my book as it
> may well be the case that the tab positions are lost in the transmission):
>
> 336                                             pirinticinole
> 337                                                     mulai   nirai
> 338 annal eru           punkanmalai
> 339
> 340     katalar                                 peyar
> 341                                     katalar
> 342             tan     punkan
> 343 annal eru
> 344 annal eru   tan     punkanmalai     katalar peyarum mulai   nirai
>                                               pirintu
>
> The echoes are not restricted to lexemes. Occasionally, they involve
> suffixes, as in aku-mati (Kur. 18) and inai-mati (19) and in un-iiyar (27),
> tal-ii (29), mar-iiya (30) and kul-iiya and tal-iiya (31); particles, as in
> kuruk-um (25) and katuvan-um (26); and similar phrases, as in varutalum
> varuuam (88) and nuvaralum nuvalpa (89). Also some rare instances involving
> synonyms have been noted, as in aruntu (26) and un (27).
>
>  According to the current interpretation, the Tamil anthologies contain
> merely a selection from a boundless reservoir of floating, orally
> transmitted poems. However, the type of concatenation met with in, for
> instance, the Kuruntokai introduces a complication. For, while it may be
> relatively easy in the case of 344 to find in the vast corpus of existing
> poems another one containing the words annal and eru, to find one which in
> addition also contained the word punkan(malai) must have been much more
> difficult. In addition to that, the poem should not have been shorter than 4
> lines or longer than 8.
>
>  My conclusion was, and is, that the idea that the compiler selected the
> poems from a reservoir of existing poems has to be abandoned. Instead, I
> suggested that the poems were composed for the first time at the moment of
> their inclusion in the anthology, if only because it might after all have
> been easier, starting from words in the preceding poems, to compose a new
> poem that to search one's memory for one.
>
>  This conclusion has been extended to include all eight Cankam
> anthologies. I take this opportunity to point to the Kalittokai and in
> particular to the inclusion of the kuravai poems in this collection. As I
> have suggested, the Kalittokai poems are Tamil counterparts of the lasyas
> and catuspadis of the Sanskrit Kavya tradition. The kuravai poems are
> hallisaka scenes transplanted to Tamilnadu. How did these hallisakas, which
> belong to the category of festival songs, find a place in a collection of
> lasyas and catuspadis? As I have tried to show on p. 185 ff., this can be
> explained with reference to a misunderstanding in the poetical tradition of
> Sanskrit, which misunderstanding is attested for the first time only in the
> ninth century, namely in Abhinavagupta's commmentary on the Natyasastra.
> This same misunderstanding is also found in Bhoja's Srngaraprakasa (tenth or
> eleventh century).
>
>  Hart now argues that the chance of identical words occurring in the poems
> is so great that it is actually impossible to find a poem which does not
> have one or more words in common with any other poems. In this connection I
> would like to note the following. If we turn to the scheme given above, the
> word annal occurs only 6 times in the 400 poems of Kuruntokai, the word eru
> altogether 9 times, punkan 7 times, and peyar (noun and verb) 25 times. And,
> as I have noted in footnote 15 on p. 98, also in the Purananuru "common"
> words appear typically in clusters of poems. Take the verb nikku/ninku:
> 150-153-154, 247-249-250, 392-393-397-398-400 or the verb pay:
> 23-24-25-30-31, etc.
>
>  Whatever the value of the statistics put forward by Hart, the prediction
> which he abstracted from it does not appear to come true.
>
> All the points adduced by Hart in his earlier comment (the one written
> before he had read my book) are of course directly or indirectly addressed
> in my book. A point I have treated only briefly is the language of the
> poems. According to Hart and others the Cankam texts abound in archaic
> forms. I am, however, dealing with the language of Cankam poetry in an
> article, which is soon to be offered for publication. What I would like to
> mention here is that, while the Cankam texts are indeed full of curious
> forms, what is unique is not necessarily old. Often the need to prove this
> was not even felt by scholars as the occurrence of the forms in question in
> Cankam poetry was believed to take care of that. To claim, as Hart does,
> that the forms are "demonstrably much more archaic" (than the ninth or tenth
> century) is premature.
>
> Finally, I hope that this reaction of mine will not provoke a similar kind
> of discussion as we have recently witnessed in connection with Axel
> Michaels' book on the subject of the pandit. As far as I am concerned, this
> is my last reaction before the publication of the complete version of Hart's
> review of my book in JAOS.
>
> Herman Tieken
> Instituut Kern
> Universiteit te Leiden
>




From zysk at HUM.KU.DK  Mon Dec 31 15:22:27 2001
From: zysk at HUM.KU.DK (Kenneth Zysk)
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 01 16:22:27 +0100
Subject: Writing on Animal Skin
Message-ID: <161227070095.23782.6403374892492087133.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io>

Dear Colleagues:

I would appreciate any information and references to the history of
writing on animal skins, especially in the Middle East, Central Asia,
China, and South Asia.

Happy New Year to All!

Ken
--
Kenneth Zysk
Department of Asian Studies
University of Copenhagen                        Ph:  +45 3532 8832
Leifsgade 33,5                                  Fax: +45 3532 8835
DK-2300 Copenhagen S    Denmark                 Email: zysk at hum.ku.dk

If mail address fails use: zysk at spam.hum.ku.dk