I’d like to chime in with my own appreciation for what Herman has produced. I hope it will be published so that more people can access Lévi’s classic work, which in my opinion remains the best single work on religious thought in the Brāhmaṇas. Brian, your anecdote
about Roberto Calasso is wonderful but not surprising given that Calasso was such a discerning thinker and great interpreter of Vedic traditions; what a shame that he is no longer with us to follow through on this intention.
I want to express my gratitude to Herman for taking it upon himself to make such a seminal text available to the Anglophone audience and for doing such an excellent (unpaid) job. I have been anxiously
looking forward to someone doing a Levi translation for over a decade. In fact, I was having a conversation with Roberto Calasso about it in 2015 and he immediately volunteered to write an introduction to any translation I could produce of this text. I told
him that I could not produce any such translation, but I hoped someone else would. And now Herman has. Unfortunately, it has come at a time when the demands of living in a failed state and preparing for spring classes has not left me much time to read it.
But what I have read so far is excellent. And I look forward to finishing it soon. Thanks again, Herman.
Brian
Prof. Brian Collins
(He/Him/His)
Drs. Ram and Sushila Gawande Chair in Indian Religion and Philosophy
Department of Classics and Religious Studies
234 Ellis Hall
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio
740-597-2103 (office)
Sent from my iPhone
Use caution with links and attachments.
For those interested, I have recently uploaded an English translation of Sylvain Lévi's 1898 volume,
La Doctrine du Sacrifice dans les Brāhmaṇas.
The work can be read/downloaded in .pdf format at
archive.org:
It can also be downloaded in epub format which loads nicely into tablets and ereaders:
Please feel free to reach out to me with comments and corrections.
with regards,
Herman Tull
Herman Tull, PhD
Princeton, NJ