On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 4:50 PM, Jonathan Edelmann <je374@msstate.edu> wrote:

Dear All,

David Pingree in "Indian Astronomy" _Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society_ (Vol 122 No 6, 1978) says there is about 10,000 separate texts dealing with the exact sciences in Sanskrit, and approximately 100,000 manuscripts. The distinction between separate texts and manuscripts seems important, and should probably factor into the evaluation.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Edelmann

Jonathan B. Edelmann, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Religion

Mississippi State University Department of Philosophy and Religion

449 Hardy Road Etheredge Hall

Mississippi State 39762

Work Phone (662) 325-9363

University Website | Book | Email Address

On Jan 20, 2013, at 8:02 AM, James Hartzell wrote:

the late David Pingree told me something similar, so there may be something more specific in his writings. He did mention that due curatorial problems, many of the mss mentioned in the late 19th century-early 20th century ms catalogues are no more.

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 11:44 AM, Herman Tull <hermantull@gmail.com> wrote:

Richard Gombrich writes (in his Boden inaugural, "In Being Sanskritic"): "Surviving Sanskrit literature is many times as large as Latin and Greek literature together. There may be as many as two million manuscripts extant..."

Is this a "standard" figure; does anyone have any other sources that support this figure? (Or, larger or smaller figures.)

Along with this question, is there an estimate of the number of distinct texts (not just mss.) composed in Sanskrit?

Thanks,

Herman

--
Herman Tull
Princeton, NJ

--
James Hartzell, PhD
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC)
The University of Trento, Italy