[INDOLOGY] What is "prose"?

[Aleix Ruiz Falqués]

Dear Professor Deshpande,

Thank you very much for the reference. Indeed, Oldenberg's essay is very
insightful and I am reading it at the moment. If anyone needs the pdf, I
can send it privately.

With many thanks and best wishes,
Aleix

On Tue, 17 Jan 2023, 07:14 Madhav Deshpande, <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:

> Hello Aleix,
>
> I remember many years ago looking up this old article by Hermann Oldenberg
> "Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa." It is included in Hermann
> Oldenberg: Kleine Schriften, pt. 3, edited by Hanns-Peter Schmidt. I don't
> have a pdf, but hopefully you may be able to locate it. If my memory serves
> me correctly, there is some interesting discussion of the different kinds
> of Gadya in Vāmana's Kāvyālaṃkārasūtras. The traditional distinction
> between Vedic R̥c and Yajus is also based on metrical versus prose
> compositions. Will see if I can locate the textual reference for this
> discussion. That is something to consider in the history of Sanskrit prose.
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
> Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India
>
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2023 at 10:00 PM Aleix Ruiz Falqués via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Many thanks to Prof. Tieken and those kind souls who have replied
>> privately! And thanks to the admin of this list for the wonderful resource!
>>
>> I would like to share a recent article by Sivan Goren-Arzony, directly
>> related to my question, and from which I benefited a great deal (please see
>> attachment).
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Aleix
>>
>> On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 at 22:07, Tieken, H.J.H. (Herman) <
>> H.J.H.Tieken at hum.leidenuniv.nl> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Aleix,
>>> You raise a very interesting topic. I checked two publications (Walter
>>> J. Ong, Orality and Literacy, and Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in
>>> Ancient Greece). Both authors do not discuss prose (not found in the
>>> respective indexes). They deal with the opposition between orality/oral
>>> *poetry* and literacy, almost as if literacy subsumes *prose* (including
>>> inventory lists, shopping lists, etc.)
>>> With kind regards, Herman
>>>
>>>
>>> Herman Tieken
>>> Stationsweg 58
>>> 2515 BP Den Haag
>>> The Netherlands
>>> 00 31 (0)70 2208127
>>> website: hermantieken.com
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *Van:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> namens Aleix Ruiz
>>> Falqués via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
>>> *Verzonden:* vrijdag 13 januari 2023 14:41
>>> *Aan:* Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>
>>> *Onderwerp:* [INDOLOGY] What is "prose"?
>>>
>>> Dear List,
>>>
>>> I am looking for publications on the concept of "prose" in Sanskrit.
>>> Whereas definitions of "verse" are more or less common, if only by looking
>>> at examples of specific types of stanzas or verses, it seems that the
>>> concept of prose is more vague, generally meaning "whatever is not
>>> organised in pādas". Of course, in poetic treatises the concept *gadya *
>>> or* cūrṇa* is used, and genres like the *campū* presuppose the
>>> dichotomy verse-prose. But I would like to know if this is critically
>>> discussed elsewhere.
>>>
>>> Apart from references to primary sources in Indian texts, I am also
>>> interested in definitions of Sanskrit (or Prakrit, or Tamil, etc.) prose in
>>> modern scholarly literature. My understanding is that a concept like
>>> "Sanskrit prose" is taken for granted and we all are supposed to know what
>>> it means, so it is difficult to find definitions or sub-classifications of
>>> it. This seems to happen with Pali, and the moment we try to classify types
>>> of prose we are already discussing literary genres or types of texts (the 9
>>> aṅgas), not types of prose per se, with the exception, perhaps, with the
>>> so-called metrical prose of the veḍha (varṇaka) portions.
>>>
>>> I am also interested in the origins or verse and prose in general, in
>>> world literature.
>>>
>>> Any help will be most appreciated.
>>>
>>> With best wishes,
>>> Aleix
>>>
>>> --
>>> Aleix Ruiz-Falqués
>>> Pali Lecturer & Head of the Department of Pali and Languages
>>> Shan State Buddhist University
>>> Phaya Phyu, Taunggyi, Myanmar 140101
>>> (+95) 09428757648
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Aleix Ruiz-Falqués
>> Khyentse Postdoctoral Fellow, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
>> Pali Lecturer & Head of the Department of Pali and Languages
>> Shan State Buddhist University
>> Phaya Phyu, Taunggyi, Myanmar 140101
>> (+95) 09428757648
>>
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