[INDOLOGY] Misunderstood origins

[Jonathan Silk]

Well, Dominik, yes, it *is* more stable, though perhaps no more 'real' than
--not 'the author's recension' --the paper posted to a non-stable URL
without DOI that could as easily disappear tomorrow. As long as we still
have printed books (which thank heaven I guess will stay around at least
during my lifetime, however much of that is left), the presumption is that
a reader interested in tracking the reference should be able to see exactly
what the citer saw. With ephemeral web materials that is simply not true --
as you of course know very very well, so I presume that you might have been
'trolling' a bit to start a discussion? ;)
jonathan

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 5:56 AM, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com>
wrote:

> This raises an interesting point about the nature of citation.  In the
> case of this paper, the preprint or typescript or whatever it is, the
> author's recension (like a "director's cut"), is much more easily available
> than the printed book version.  It's right there on the internet at
> unil.ch and also amongst Bronkhorst's papers at academia.edu
> <https://www.academia.edu/19790273/Misunderstood_origins_how_Buddhism_fooled_modern_scholarship_-_and_itself>,
> just the click of a mouse away.  So I think there is a good argument for
> citing these recensions of the paper rather than the book.  And this is
> especially the case if the author's recension is what you've actually been
> reading.  One should of course cite this like a web page, with URL and date
> of consultation.
>
> The quest for a page number in an inaccessible printed book is based on an
> idea that the book is more real, in some sense, more valid or stable than
> the author's recension.  But I think that belief can probably be challenged
> quite strongly.
>
> Best,
> Dominik Wujastyk
> ​
>
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-- 
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands

copies of my publications may be found at
http://www.buddhismandsocialjustice.com/silk_publications.html


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