[INDOLOGY] Highlights from the Sanskrit corpora (Martin Gluckman)

[Wiese]

Dear list members,

how about these nominees?

a) For the clever insights into human agency: ArthazAstra, PaJcatantra
b) For inventing the zero: ??
c) For humanity's first (?) indication of a probability: Birth story of 
Brahma (= Story 29 in Justin Meiland, Garland of the Buddha's Past 
Lives, Vol. 2, p. 278-279, 29.35)
d) For the maNDala model, in particular the insight that an enemy's 
enemy is a friend, and the invention of chess that was probably meant to 
teach kings and princes the intricacies of the maNDala model: 
ArthazAstra, MAnasollAsa
e) For the sucessful judicial institution of ordeals which worked much 
better in India than in Europe due to the required consent of the 
plaintiff: vyavahAra texts in the dharma literature, for example NArada 
SmRti 20.7 in Lariviere's edition.
f) For the requirement that kings or their officials were to compensate 
the victims of theft if the thief could be apprehended (the latter being 
a government's duty): ArthazAstra, DharmazAstras

Yours
Harald Wiese, University of Leipzig