Dear All,
Allow me to add a personal note.
I would like to express my gratitude to Jan Houben and John Nemec for their posthumous congratulations to Professor Edwin Gerow, my very learned colleague, who became a very close friend after he read and wrote a very complimentary review of my book
Poétique du théâtre indien. Since then, our academic and personal exchanges have been constant, particularly, in the last years, with regard to the immense project that was so dear to his heart: producing a French translation of a major text by Nāgeśa,
the Paramalaghumañjūṣā.
He had devoted years, if not a decade, to this task, constantly revising, amending and refining his text, as was his habit. And so I was asked to work on a version that he considered more or less final. I immediately understood both its inestimable value and
the difficulty of finding a commercial publisher for such a scholarly work, which, despite everything, needed to be revised. So, after a French publisher declined my offer, I thought of publishing the text in the
Bulletin d'études indiennes, the journal of the Assocaition française pour les études indiennes (AFEI), a forum conducive to the most demanding scholarship. The proposal was enthusiastically accepted by the AFEI's scientific committee and by my colleague,
Sylvain Brocquet, its president, who was to be coeditor of the volume.
I am certain that this prospect was one of Edwin Gerow's last great joys. From the hospital where he had been admitted as an emergency case, one of his last messages was addressed to me, thanks to his wife, Cheryl, who wrote the end of it when Edwin was too
exhausted to finish it. In it, he spoke to me about our friendship and academic discussions, but, above all, he entrusted me with the fate of his work, his
opus ultimum. Edwin would have been very touched and honoured by the reception his work has received. And I am deeply glad to have been able to contribute to it.
I reiterate my gratitude to my two colleagues for their kind appreciation of this major book, and for their posthumous tribute to a towering Indologist, a great humanist as well, in every sense of the word, both through his personal and political commitments
and through his passion for the works of classical antiquity (he would read Socrates or Cicero in the original text, in his doctors' waiting rooms!). He was also an great reader of Proust and French literature in general. A perfect "honnête homme"!
With kind regards,
Lyne
Lyne Bansat-Boudon
Directeur d'études pour les Religions de l'Inde
Ecole pratique des hautes études, section des sciences religieuses
Membre senior honoraire de l'Institut universitaire de France
De : Nemec, John William (jwn3y) <jwn3y@virginia.edu>
Envoyé : lundi 5 janvier 2026 23:40
À : Lyne Bansat-Boudon <Lyne.Bansat-Boudon@ephe.psl.eu>; Jan HOUBEN <jemhouben@gmail.com>
Cc : indology <indology@list.indology.info>
Objet : Re: [INDOLOGY] New publication
Dear All,
Jan Houben's message reminds me that I had meant to write before, to congratulate Lyne Bansat-Boudon and Sylvain Brocquet for bringing this very important scholarly work to print and, as Professor Houben did, posthumously to congratulate Edwin Gerow, as well.
Professor Gerow was such a fantastic scholar, and I am delighted to see his work come to fruition in this way. This is a beautiful book, and I look forward to studying Nāgeśa's text with the aid of Gerow's translation and the editors' notes.
The text, by my recollection, is fantastically interesting, sophisticated, and difficult. A number of us read it for a semester with George Cardona back in graduate school in the early 2000s, and from that experience I know that Professor Cardona also had
worked for some time on a full translation of the Paramalaghumañjūṣā, this time in English. I hope—and am sure—that this significant publication will draw more of our attention to this text. Again, my thanks and congratulations to the translator and
his editors.
Sincerely,
John
___________________________________________
John Nemec, Ph.D.
Professor of Indian Religions and South Asian Studies
Department of Religious Studies
323 Gibson Hall, 1540 Jefferson Park Avenue
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904
+1 (434) 924-6716
nemec@virginia.edu
Take a look at my new book:
From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> on behalf of Jan E.M. Houben via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>
Sent: Monday, January 5, 2026 4:38 PM
To: Lyne Bansat-Boudon <Lyne.Bansat-Boudon@ephe.psl.eu>
Cc: indology <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] New publication
Congratulations, posthumously, to Edwin Gerow on this richly annotated translation of the Nāgeśa's Paramalaghumañjūṣā (first translation into a Western language (French)), and congratulations to the editors for editing his work with meticulous attention to
all details. The work contains, in addition, a substantial 17-page Summary in English by E. Gerow, which places Nāgeśa's work in a broader context of Indian
and Western philosophy of language and universal grammar, the former represented mainly by Bhartrhari and the latter by Aristotle and "James Harris'
Hermes, or A philosophical inquiry concerning universal grammar, first published in 1771."
With regard to the word rathantara- in the section on compounds, Nāgeśa invokes the maxim
rūḍhir yogārtham apaharati, translated by Gerow (p. 250) as « Le sens traditionnel est prioritaire par rapport au sens dérivationnel ». K.K. Raja (Ind. theories of meaning, p. 61) observes in a similar context:
« The well-known rule accepted by all Indian writers is that the conventional meaning is more powerful than the etymological meaning, since the former occurs to the mind immediately whereas the latter has to be known through analysis », for which he cites
yogād rūḍhir balīyasī śīghravṛttitvāt.
Question to the list-members: what could be the source of this last citation?
Could it be a Mīmāṁsā-statement, especially the first part before śīghravṛttitvāt
?
Best regards,
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to announce the publication of Bulletin d'études indiennes (BEI) 37, under the auspices of the Association Française pour les études indiennes (AFEI):
Nāgeśa : Paramalaghumañjūṣā. La Très petite corbeille. Introduction, texte, traduction et notes par Edwin Mahaffey Gerow. Révision et avant-propos par Lyne Bansat-Boudon et Sylvain Brocquet.
Bulletin d’études indiennes 37. Paris : Association française pour les études indiennes
(see the cover in the attached file).
The work consists mainly of a monograph by Edwin Gerow which is a richly annotated French translation of the
Paramalaghumañjūṣā, the Very Small Basket, by Nāgeśa, accompanied by the Sanskrit text, a scholarly introduction, and a “Summary” in English, which is in fact a masterful synthesis of Nāgeśa’s
tātparya.
A Francophile and Francophone, Edwin Gerow was all the more keen to publish this work in French as he wished to pay tribute to Louis Renou, the great French Indologist, for whom, at the beginning of his career, he had come to Paris to attend his seminars and
benefit from his benevolent guidance in his research work.
Hence, the project of a publication of the Paramalaghumañjūṣā, an important text of grammar, never before translated into a Western language, in the BEI 37. Yet, Edwin Gerow 's sudden death on 24th July 2025 changed the situation dramatically.
The scientific editors of the Bulletin were placed in a very peculiar situation, preventing them from maintaining the editorial dialogue they would have liked with Edwin Gerow, and making them “executors of his will”, with the mission of publishing his
opus ultimum, so that this work, remarkable for its erudition and insight into the whole of the Indian grammatical tradition, as expounded by a 18th century grammarian, may be known to the Indianist community.
They have therefore made it their duty to resume the work of revising Edwin Gerow’s text, either by introducing the necessary amendments into the body of his annotated translation, or through editor's notes, while ensuring that they would remain as faithful
as possible to the author's original wording.
Now accessible, the Paramalaghumañjūṣā is a remarkable example of the virtuosity of Indian reasoning, which demonstrates a level of sophistication almost unmatched in Western thought, and which is part of a long tradition, because tradition prevails,
even if, or because, it is open to discussion.
Undoubtedly, this pioneering translation of the Paramalaghumañjūṣā will be the basis for studies and developments of the greatest interest.
The book can be ordered from either of the following addresses:
With kind regards and New Year greetings,
Lyne
Lyne Bansat-Boudon
Directeur d'études pour les Religions de l'Inde
Ecole pratique des hautes études, section des sciences religieuses
Membre senior honoraire de l'Institut universitaire de France
--
Jan E.M. Houben
Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology
Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite
École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et Lettres)
Sciences historiques et philologiques
Groupe de recherches en études indiennes
(EA 2120)
johannes.houben
[at] ephe.psl.eu
https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
https://www.classicalindia.info