I am writing to you on the recommendation of Professor McComas Taylor. I would like to request you and other members of the forum for help to obtain some literature I want and to ask you if you could refer me to some articles or books which are of relevance to a paper I want to revise. However, before moving forward, I think I should introduce myself. 

I am a master's student of English at the University of Belgrade who is currently writing a master's thesis on Leonard Bloomfield’s linguistic views and contributions to linguistics. I plan to pursue a PhD in linguistics after obtaining my Master's degree and I hope I will be able to do so at some respectable foreign university because that would help me greatly to realise my dream of becoming a linguist. The prospects for becoming a linguist are not that good here in Serbia and the conditions for doing linguistic work are not entirely satisfactory, except perhaps if the Serbian language is your area of expertise. 

As regards my interests, I am particularly interested in synchronic and diachronic syntax and semantics, not only of English, but also of other languages, especially Sanskrit and Serbian at the moment. In addition, I plan to learn German, at least some Ancient Greek and Latin and probably Czech and Hindi as well. So, unlike most of today's budding linguists, I am interested both in synchronic and in diachronic linguistics (including Indo-European studies). I also like to learn about the history of linguistics and the Indian linguistic tradition. However, apart from these fields which are related to my professional ambitions, I am also interested in ancient Indian religion, philosophy and culture, partly because of my connection with the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. Until now, this has been more of a hobby, but who knows, maybe I will also publish some articles concerning these aspects of ancient Indian heritage, though it is more likely that I will stick to its linguistic elements. In any case, it is good to be familiar with the literature that can be used for obtaining data for linguistic analyses.

To conclude this introduction, I should add that I attended an Intensive Summer Course in Vedic and Classical Sanakrit at the University of Ljubljana this summer and that I have written two papers dealing with certain noteworthy features of Sanskrit: the first one is about the syntax and semantics of Sanskrit relative-correlatives and the second one is about semantic motivation of various Sanskrit compounds and derivatives denoting common concepts. However, both papers have to be revised and the second paper is the one for which I need your advice. Now, let me proceed to the main part of this email.

Firstly, I would be very grateful to you if you could help me obtain scans of M.H. Klaiman's 1984 book Singing the Glory of Lord Krishna: The Srikrsnakirtana and the following articles from the Purana Bulletin, which are to be found in some of the issues that are unfortunately not available on the IGNCA website (https://ignca.gov.in/purana/):

Chatterji, Ashoke (1960). The Antiquity of the Patala-Khanda of the Padma-Purana (part 2). Purana II, pp. 52-61.

Chatterji, Ashoke (1961). The Characteristic Features of the Uttara-khanda of the Padma-Purana. Purana III, pp. 47-60.

Chatterji, Ashoke (1963). Some observations on the date of Bengal recension of Uttara-khanda of the Padma-Purana. Purana V, pp. 122-126.

Gyani, S. D. (1960). The Date of the Puranas, part 2. Purana II, pp. 68-75.

As for the book, it would perhaps be easiest if I could obtain a scan from the author herself, but I am not sure if she is still alive and even if she is, I cannot find on the Internet any means of contacting her. However, I found out that the University of Michigan had scanned the book, so some Indologist who works there could probably easily access it and send it to me, provided that he is willing to do so (which is not guaranteed by any means). The reason why I would like to have a look at it is that I heard that its attitude to the topic in question is quite different from that of the Gita Govinda and similar works by Gaudiya Vaishnava acharyas such as Rupa Gosvami. 

As far as the articles are concerned, you can probably tell that I would like to read them because the Patala- and Uttara-khandas contain some important Vaishnava materials, so it is interesting to see what their history was like. I have already read relevant portions of Chatterji's Padma Purana—A Study and Ludo Rocher's book The Puranas, but I would like to learn more. 

This brings me to the last two questions in this part of the email and both of them are related to the Padma Purana. When I read those parts of the aforementioned two books, I was very surprised to learn that no one had taken the trouble to publish the Bengal recension of the Padma Purana given that it differs from the published editions in some significant respects, e.g. its Uttara-khanda is considerably shorter and its Patala-khanda does not include a series of chapters pertaining to Krishna but it does contain the initial part of the story of Rama that is missing in the published texts. Therefore, I would like to know if it is possible to find scans of the Bengali manuscripts somewhere on the Internet or to obtain them through someone who has access to them. The first possibility seems unlikely since I was unable to find any such scans on the Internet Archive, in the University of Cambridge and the University of Pennsylvania online manuscript repositories or on the SAMHiTA (South Asian Manuscript Histories and Textual Archive) website. 

The second question is this: Do you know if there are any researchers who plan to compile a critical edition of the Padma Purana in the future? I am sure that doing so is no easy task considering the fact that the Padma Purana is the second most voluminous Purana after the Skanda Purana (whose critical edition is currently being compiled), but it would no doubt be worth the effort.

Secondly, I have written an article in which I analyse the semantic motivation of vivid Sanskrit compounds and derivatives signifying common concepts, e.g. jala-da ("water giver", i.e. a cloud), pāda-pa ("foot drinker", i.e. a tree), pakṣin ("wing-possessing", i.e. a bird), netra ("the instrument of leading", i.e. an eye) and the like. Regardless of the fact that compounds such as jalada and pādapa are unlikely to have been used outside of the literary context, it is still remarkable that Sanskrit had such an abundance of synonyms denoting common concepts because even though one could have coined similar words and extended the meaning of existing words in other ancient languages such as Greek and Latin, that did not happen as far as I can see. While I do not know what the situation is like in non-Indo-European languages and their ancestors, I think that there is no doubt that Sanskrit really stands out among Indo-European languages in this respect. Therefore, I want to know if there are any previous studies which address this striking difference or the fact that Sanskrit boasts an abundance of synonyms. It is always better (and easier) to build on previous research, provided that it exists, of course.

Looking forward to your reply, 

Goran Perić