Dear colleagues,

As the year is coming to an end, please allow me to draw your attention to two books that have been published in the Gonda Indological Studies this year (GIS 19 and GIS 20):

Henk W. Bodewitz, Vedic Cosmology and Ethics. Selected Studies. Edited by Dory H. Heilijgers, Jan E.M. Houben and Karel van Kooij.

How did ‘Vedic man’ think about the destiny of man after death and related ethical issues? That heaven was the abode of the gods was undisputed, but was it also accessible to man in his pursuit of immortality? Was there a realm of the deceased or a hell? What terms were used to indicate these ‘yonder worlds’? What is their location in the cosmos and which cosmographic classifications are at the root of these concepts? The articles by Henk Bodewitz collected in this volume, published over a period of 45 years, between 1969 and 2013, deal with these issues on the basis of a systematic philological study of early Vedic texts, from the Ṛgveda to various Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads.

Hans T. Bakker, Holy Ground: Where Art and Text Meet. Studies in the Cultural History of India.

https://brill.com/view/title/54804

The 31 selected and revised articles in the volume Holy Ground: Where Art and Text Meet, written by Hans Bakker between 1986 and 2016, vary from theoretical subjects to historical essays on the classical culture of India. They combine two mainstreams: the Sanskrit textual tradition, including epigraphy, and the material culture as expressed in works of religious art and iconography. The study of text and art in close combination in the actual field where they meet provides a great potential for understanding. The history of holy places is therefore one of the leitmotivs that binds these studies together.

One article, "The Ramtek Inscriptions II", was co-authored by Harunaga Isaacson, two articles, on "Moksadharma 187 and 239–241" and "The Quest for the Pasupata Weapon," by Peter C. Bisschop.

Both volumes are available in the traditional printed form and as an E-book. Thanks to the generous support of the J. Gonda Foundation, the PDF of both books is available in Open Access on Brill’s website. The links will get you there.

With best regards,

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Peter C. Bisschop

Professor of Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia

Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS)

P.O. Box 9515 / 2300 RA Leiden / The Netherlands

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/peter-bisschop#tab-1

https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/PeterBisschop