Register of electronic texts

[Birgit Kellner]

As this may be of general interest, a reply to the list -

as Dr. Gruenendahl indicated, GRETIL is still under construction, so I am
not taking obvious omissions from the classificational grid too seriously;
yet, the fact that "Buddhism"/"Bauddha" and "Jainism"/"Jaina" are omitted
as philosophical schools does strike me as rather odd. Surely, one would
not want to leave aside the enormous philosophical output of both these
traditions.
I am not aware of any online Jaina philosophical treatises, but as for
Buddhism, I would like to point to Ono Motoi's online texts of Dharmakirti:
http://www.logos.tsukuba.ac.jp/~nagasaki/dharmakirti/e-text.html

The page offers access to the entire PramANavArttikasvavRtti,
PramANavArttika, NyAyabindu, Hetubindu, SambandhaparIkSA and VAdanyAya - no
small undertaking! SantAnAntarasiddhi and PramANavinizcaya are "under
construction".

A question that always comes up in this context is whether the inclusion of
texts should be based on the language in which they are transmitted or on
the fact that they belong to an Indian cultural heritage irrespective of
being available to us only in non-Indic languages, like Chinese or Tibetan.
In the case of DharmakIrti, for instance, should one exclude a potential
online Tibetan version of the PramANavinizcaya because it is in Tibetan, or
should one include it because it is after all a work of an Indian
philosopher and was *originally* written in an Indian language, even though
this original version is now (largely) lost?

Whichever solution is adopted, I wish GRETIL much success in its future
efforts to keep track of all the diverse efforts to digitize e-texts; I had
once embarked on a similar enterprise (on a much smaller scale), but gave
up because it was too time-consuming too maintain.

Best regards,

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


>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> please note that
>>
>> GRETIL,
>> the Goettingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages,
>>
>> is now available on an experimental basis under:
>> www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/gretil.htm
>>
>> GRETIL is intended as a cumulative register of the numerous download
>> sites for electronic texts in Indian languages. It registers only
>> e-texts that are freely available for scholarly purposes and can be
>> employed for word search etc. in a standard word processing
>> programme.
>>
>> The register is still under construction, and some links may not be
>> functional at present.
>>
>> I sincerely hope that GRETIL is in accordance with the intentions of
>> all those who have made the registered e-texts available through
>> their unselfish efforts.
>>
>>
>> R. Gruenendahl
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ********************************************************************
>>
>> Dr. Reinhold Gruenendahl
>> Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek
>> Fachreferat sued- und suedostasiatische Philologien
>> (Dept. of Indology)
>> 37070 Goettingen
>> Germany
>> Tel (+49) (0)5 51 / 39 52 83
>> Fax (+49) (0)5 51 / 39 23 61
>> gruenen at mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de
>>
>>
>>
>> FACH-INFORMATIONEN INDOLOGIE, GOETTINGEN:
>> http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/fiindolo.htm
>>
>> In English:
>> http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/fiindole.htm
>>
>> *********************************************************************