[INDOLOGY] Draupadii and polyandry

[Joydeep]

Dear Andrew,



I agree that Oliver has done some careful and interesting work. But in
“Stratifying the Mahābhārata,” he makes no claims about the MBh’s dates.
Cf. the remark: “I would like to emphasize that these findings do not imply
any statement about the sequence of events that led to the composition of
the BhīP or of the Mbh. They can be reconciled [both] with theories that
postulate a relatively short duration of composition [and] with temporally
more extended models […], because the algorithm does not contain a temporal
component” (ibid., 134). Oliver explicitly emphasized this point in our
conversation in Vienna. See *Philology and Criticism*, 100, n. 81. I
haven’t examined the other articles yet, but now that you have drawn my
attention to them I will. A quick perusal reveals that “A Chronometric
Approach to Indian Alchemical Literature” doesn’t mention the MBh at all,
whereas “Etymological Trends in the Sanskrit Vocabulary” only places the
MBh as a whole within a broad period (500 BCE–300 CE) and doesn’t make any
claims about strata *within*the MBh. Oliver’s work is valuable precisely
because it avoids speculation as to “redactors,” their motives, assumed
sequence and rationale for interpolation, *Besitzwechsel*, etc.



All best,

Joydeep


Dr. Joydeep Bagchee
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Academia.edu Homepage <https://fu-berlin.academia.edu/JoydeepBagchee>

The Nay Science
<http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-nay-science-9780199931361;jsessionid=94DFF6B197750DBE7C7E64A4FB8B28D2?cc=de&lang=en&>
Argument and Design
<http://www.brill.com/products/book/argument-and-design-unity-mahabharata>
Reading the Fifth Veda <http://www.brill.com/reading-fifth-veda>
When the Goddess Was a Woman <http://www.brill.com/when-goddess-was-woman>
Transcultural Encounters between Germany and India
<http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415844697/>
German Indology on OBO Hinduism
<http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-9780195399318-0147.xml>
___________________
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Philosophy is the supremely precious.

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On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 6:20 PM Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Oliver Hellwig has written some very interesting articles on applying
> various statistical techniques to Sanskrit texts (including the
> Mahābhārata) in order to determine "authorial structures" and hence
> relative dating:
>
> https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqp034
> https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqn043
> https://doi.org/10.1163/15728536-06002001
>
> The last article presents a technique for distinguishing sections of a
> text based on several features (lexical, syntactic, metrical, etc.) while
> controlling for differences introduced by changing topics.
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 5:25 PM Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 12:18 PM Joydeep via INDOLOGY
>>
>>> How are you identifying the “earlier strata” of the epic?
>>>
>>
>> 1) I'd be interested if someone could  point out the scholarly articles
>> on  relative dating of different parts of the Mahabharata.?
>>
>> 2) Could the techniques Michael Witzel pointed out years ago in this
>> posting  to relatively date the books or the Ramayana  be used.  I.e
>> relative occurance of  vai or similar words in vedic position 2 versus
>> elsewhere. ?
>>
>> http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/2000-March/020863.html
>>
>> 3) Could a similar technique be used with other linguistic
>> characteristics.I.e. relative occurance of linguistic characteristics  that
>> are uncommon in vedic but common in classical sanskrit.  Whitney noted use
>> of passive constructions,  participles instead of verbs, substitution of
>> compounds for sentences as characteristic of the change from vedic to the
>> classical language.
>>
>> Harry Spier
>>
>>>
>>>
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