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Beginning with Rūpa Gosvāmin (late fifteenth century-1564), at least four poets composed poems in the Sanskrit virudāvalī genre that included akṣamayī kalikās, rhythmic compositions wherein each successive segment begins with the letters of the Sanskrit varṇakrama, from a to kṣa, in sequence. The fact that a number of the letters of the varṇakrama rarely or never occur in word-initial position, including the nasals ṅa, ña, and ṇa, the retroflex consonants, the aspirated consonants jha and tha, the anusvāra and visarga, and the vowels ṝ, ḷ, and especially ḹ, creates potential obstacles in the composition of such poems. This paper examines the four known works with these "alphabet poems," and identifies six strategies that the poets employed in coining epithets beginning with such challenging letters: 1) the use of ekākṣarakoṣas, dictionaries of single-letter words, 2) reference to the shapes of the written letter, 3) onomatopoeia, 4) grammatical derivations, 5) fictitious sandhi-based back-derivations, and 6) metalinguistic puns. The paper thus argues that the difficulty these letters present was, for these poets, a desirable feature of this structure, allowing them to display their learning, whether in service of a royal patron or in a context of Vaiṣṇava devotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the notion of drama as a genre category in European and ancient Indian theatrical theory. The analysis of ancient texts, foremost the treatise of the Nāṭyaśāstra, which can be considered the most authoritative primary source for the study of classical Indian poetics, forms the basis of the research. This paper identifies Sanskrit analogues of such fundamental concepts of Western literary theory as “drama,” “genre,” “performance,” “scenicism,” “literariness,” etc. The closest analogical to European definitions of drama and genre Sanskrit notions are investigated in depth. They are primarely nāṭya and prayoga — two terms used to define various performative aspects of the play. Another notion studied in the paper is rūpa, which originally stood for “scenario” and, later on, for textual and literary format of the staged play. Due to its universality, the same term functioned as the general definition of ten “exemplary” spectacular forms. Finally, the category of vṛtti is discussed, employed in the Nāṭyaśāstra for the characterization of stylistic features of early mysterial performances and, later on, of classical Sanskrit plays. The scope of the paper does not limit itself to bringing to light and discussing these various notions. The ultimate goal is to highlight the differences between Eastern and Western poetological systems and to point out fundamental issues arising from the non-critical use of European terminology when interpreting and investigating ancient Indian aesthetics.

In this article I intended to further explore Jürgen Frembgen's supposition about the late presence of the spotted hyena in South Asia with the help of available textual sources. My aim was to determine what kind of animal is meant by the word tarakṣu, which is the common Sanskrit name for the hyena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the scope of global religious history, a Foucauldian genealogical critique makes "history" itself the central focus of inquiry. Genealogy is usually perceived as a methodology for historicizing general concepts within religious studies, which seemingly favours post-nineteenth-century history – something that causes discomfort among pre-colonial researchers. However, this article presents genealogy as a general starting point for any critical historiography across all historical periods, emphasizing its key characteristic as a counter-history originating from the present. Through a case study, it demonstrates this approach's practicality by offering a fresh perspective on the notion of an unchanging Sanskrit tradition championed by Hindu nationalists. Genealogical analysis exposes how contemporary research unwittingly reinforces this notion, while the article proposes a counter-narrative using sixteenth to eighteenth-century sources, revealing a dynamic interplay between Sanskrit and Persian scholars under Mughal rule in India. This case underscores the efficacy and adaptability of genealogical critique across all historical periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines four discreet issues influencing the macro-context of mediated translations into Armenian from Late Antiquity to the modern period. The first treats religious scripture, reviewing the very different contexts for the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (5th century) and the Qur'ān (17th century). The second analyzes the Silk Route as a vehicle for exchange between peripheral cultures facilitating the Armenian reception of two works of Sanskrit literature. The third pursues evolving literary traditions and their textual diffusion via a case study of the Alexander Romance. Meanwhile, the fourth examines the nature of colonial experiments in the 18th-19th centuries in creating regionality within the wider process of globalization that impinged on the translation processes of communities in different parts of the Armenian oikoumene of the time with special attention to Mesrop Taliadian's novel Vēp Vardgisi of 1846. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eleventh-century Indian Buddhist master Ratnākaraśānti presents a unique Yogācāra interpretation of tantric maṇḍala visualisation in the *Guhyasamājamaṇḍalavidhiṭīkā. In this text, he employs the neither-one-nor-many argument to assert that the qualities of the mind represented by the deities in the maṇḍala are neither the same nor different from the mind itself. He also provides five scenarios of meditation to explain the necessity of practising both the perfection method (pāramitānaya) and the mantra method (mantranaya) together in Mahāyāna. Ratnākaraśānti's explanation exerts a significant influence on the works of later Buddhist masters in India and Tibet, with parts of it being reused in the *Śrīherukopadeśanāmasvādhiṣṭhānakrama by Śūnyasamādhivajra (c. the eleventh century), the eighteenth chapter of the Āmnāyamañjarī by Abhayākaragupta (from the late eleventh to the twelfth century) and the tantric compendium sNgags rim chen mo by the Tibetan master Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419). This paper explores how Ratnākaraśānti's explanation has been reused and modified in these subsequent works. While Śūnyasamādhivajra faithfully reproduced Ratnākaraśānti's Yogācāra explanation, Abhayākaragupta modified it to align with his Madhyamaka view. Abhayākaragupta in turn influenced Tsong kha pa, who accepted Abhayākaragupta's Madhyamaka modification in his works. This paper also engages with current scholarly discussions on textual reuse and the underlying reasons behind it. While Śūnyasamādhivajra and Abhayākaragupta assimilated Ratnākaraśānti's explanation without acknowledgement, Tsong kha pa quoted the text by name and acknowledged Abhayākaragupta's reuse of Ratnākaraśānti's explanation. This paper concludes by discussing the factors that determine whether the reused text is acknowledged or not, and the possible reasons behind textual reuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the presence of zero has been traced to many ancient civilizations including India, the question of its origin is still a moot point among historians and mathematicians. As such, in the present chapter a humble attempt will be made to gather data from the Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit literature to understand the origin of zero; the philosophy behind its origin; various denominations of zero used in various phases of Indian civilization; and the philosophy and epistemology behind the symbolic representation of zero (0) in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the longstanding tradition concerning the dual authorship of the Light on Literature (Kāvyaprakāśa), the dominant treatise on Sanskrit poetics in the second millennium ce. The discussion focuses on one case study, a brief comment dismissing the ornament “cause” (hetu), found in the latter part of chapter 10 in the portion traditionally attributed to Mammaṭa’s successor Allaṭa (aka Alaka). This passage is analyzed in the broader context of the Light’s discussion of semantic capacities (chapter 2), suggestion (chapter 4), and other ornaments (chapter 10). The essay also looks at the way generations of commentators have dealt with this topic and the potential inconsistencies in its treatment in the Light. The paper thus throws light on the question of the work’s overall integration, seamless or not so seamless, both in its genetic and receptive histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yoga has accommodated its female public while holding on to its ancient Indic roots to authenticate its modifications. This paper argues that the motivations to authenticate innovative yoga practices through Sanskrit texts and terminology has changed gradually and interculturally. This research is based on textual analysis of Iyengar Yoga works of literature and interviews with 37 Iyengar Yoga teachers worldwide. While during the first half of the 1900s, teaching yoga to women was a relatively new practice that needed a justification, today, as women are the majority of yoga practitioners and teachers, such justification is not needed. However, claims of authentication through Sanskritization persist. This time, Sanskrit texts and terminology are used by yoga teachers to cultivate meaning, a sense of belonging, and confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is a treasure house of culture, developed over thousands of years and manifested in the form of arts, works of literature, customs, traditions, linguistic expressions, artifacts, heritage sites and more. Ever since human beings have invented scripts, writing has reflected the culture, lifestyle, society and the polity of contemporary society. In the process, each culture evolved its own language and created a huge literary base. This literary base of a civilization tells us about the evolution of each of its languages and culture through the span of centuries. Indian literature, which has its origin to the most ancient times, has been exemplary for the rest of the world. The term, 'Indian literature' refers to the literary work that had been produced in various Indian languages since ages. In ancient times, the literary work used to be imparted orally. The first ever ancient Indian literature was Sanskrit literature comprising of the Rig Veda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which were written in the first millennium BCE. Kannada and Telugu Literature were developed during the medieval era. They were followed by Marathi, Bengali and Urdu literature. Later, the Indian literature got new dimensions in various other Indian languages like Assamese, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Konkani, Malayali, Manipuri, Marathi, Mizo, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani and Tamil. The literary tradition in India dominates a large part of Indian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most widespread and natural ways of conceiving of the human mind in European culture is the image of the mind as a container for thoughts, images, memories, reasonings, etc. In this article, we explore the evidence of this metaphor in the Ancient Greek epic poems, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as well as Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days , and, for comparative purposes, the evidence of the analogous metaphor in the Ancient Indian epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. We examine how the metaphor is used, what its functions are and what it implies for the conception of mind in both ancient traditions. Additionally, we offer a brief comparison with the image of the mind-container that emerges from the use of this metaphor in modern English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses problems of staging, address and word order in Greek tragedy to shed light on a controversial passage in Sophocles: Aj. 339-343. Ajax's cry within, ἰὼ παῖ παῖ (339), has been alternatively taken to refer to Eurysaces (as suggested by Tecmessa) or to Teucer (whom Ajax mentions at 342-343). The paper argues for Teucer and responds to three arguments against this view: (1) παῖ is not only acceptable, but also effective to address one's sibling; (2) the word order of 342, Τεῦκρον καλῶ , strictly implies 'It's Teucer I'm calling' (not just: 'I call on Teucer'), hence it cannot mark the move to a new addressee; (3) it is hardly possible for Ajax not to hear Tecmessa's 340-341: short interactions across the skēnē door may occur, and the parallel scene at Euripides, Medea 1270a-1278 suggests that Ajax most likely hears Tecmessa's words and corrects her wrong guess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of the numerous medieval and early modern Sanskrit-medium commentaries on the various recensions and sub-recensions of the Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa frequently found themselves in a somewhat awkward hermeneutical position. The epic itself, like many Indic texts, is highly revered both as a religious text, one of the earliest and most influential Vaiṣṇava texts, and as a literary work that is not only a great poem but indeed the very first poem and the fons et origo of all subsequent poetry. Moreover, like Vyāsa, the author of the Rāmāyaṇa’s sister epic, the Mahābhārata, Vālmīki was regarded not merely as an inspired poet and sage, but as a ṛṣi, that is to say an inerrant seer whose speech, in his case inspired directly by the creator divinity Brahmā and the god’s gift of a divine vision, must therefore be accepted as absolutely true and authoritative. The problem facing the work’s commentators is that Vālmīki’s text portrays its hero, Rāma, as not only a god in the form of a man, but as one who, ignorant of his own divinity, suffers all of the mental, emotional, and physical pain to which ordinary mortals are prey. In this Rāma differs sharply from the subsequent Vaiṣṇava avatāra and central figure of the Mahābhārata, Kṛṣṇa, who, fully aware of his godhood, rarely suffers in any way mentally or physically. But the Rāmāyaṇa’s commentators are living and writing in a world in which the development of the medieval bhakti movements has led poets and theologians to conceive of and write about Rāma as an omnipotent and omniscient figure very much like Kṛṣṇa. The present essay discusses the lexical, grammatical, and hermaneutical strategies the commentors adopted to negotiate the tension between Vālmīki's apparent depiction of the suffering of his hero and a proposed deeper meaning in which the avatāra conforms more fully to what became the medieval and modern theology of god on earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming that, more than a specialized religious technique, yoga was a cultural phenomenon, and therefore its study should consider its various representations, including those from literature, this article explores the image of yoga in the epic poem Raghuvamśa (The dynasty of the Raghus) by the Indian author Kālidāsa (5th century). Thus, key passages are translated for the first time from Sanskrit into Spanish and analyzed, arguing that representation of yoga in the poem rests upon the ideals of equilibrium and self-mastery in accordance with the political, spiritual, and aesthetical values of the period, and noting the importance of such representation for the study of the History of yoga. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian Literary tradition is rooted in Sanskrit and two finest manifestations comprising both are The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. The two texts stand at the helm of Sanskrit and Indian literature and have, since times immemorial, stood as its flag bearers. So much so that Jonathan Culler marks The Mahabharata as the Foundational Narrative in the Oriental World. The Sanskrit Drama, on the other hand marks its presence with the plays of Bhasa, albeit the oldest treatise on Sanskrit drama, Natyashastra, precedes Bhasa. In his plays can be found the first signs of what contemporaneity calls Alternative Literature, literature dealing with rerenderings of the erstwhile Foundational Epics. This research paper delves into the deviations that Bhasa incorporates in his plays that adapt The Mahabharata. An attempt has been made to assess how significant the deviations are in comparison to the primary text; and the implications thereof on the stature of the Indian Foundational Epic, as Culler calls The Mahabharata. The paper also strives to ascertain what the discovery of Bhasa’s plays means to the corpus of ‘unchallengeable’ Primary Indian Texts. Finally, the Paper elaborates on the contemporary relevance of these alternative renderings in literature and life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first translation into Spanish of the first chapter of the Buddhist work Mahāvastu from the beginning of the Common Era, composed in mixed Sanskrit. "The Sūtra on the Section of Hells" (Narakaparivartanāmasūtra) offers descriptions of the eight hells, explaining the causal connections between the punishments and the behaviors that lead beings to experience them. The text stands out by presenting one of the oldest systematic arrangements of the hells within Buddhism, revealing the interest of ancient Buddhists in fashioning a meticulous and well-structured cosmography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines available references to the Ājīvikas that are often identified by scholars, notably by Basham (1951), as genuine quotations from Ājīvikas' lost works. In addition, the paper analyses some additional material not previously indentifed as possible quotations relevant to Ājīvikism. Unfortunately, none of such references seem to be genuinely derived from an Ājīvika source: All of such passages or verses previously considered genuinely taken from Ājīvika literature turn out to have been composed by non-Ājīvika authors and usually derive either from Jaina works or from fables and narrative literature. There is no clear proof that the Ājīvikas developed their own Sanskrit literature (in addition to Prakrit works), much less philosophical literature in Sanskrit. Further, the faithfulness and reliability of reports of the Ājīvikas and paraphrases of their views cannot be assessed with any certainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the rise and circulation of large numbers of Sanskrit literary anthologies as well as story traditions about poets in the second millennium together index important changes in the 'author-function' within the Sanskrit literary tradition. While modern 'empirical authorship' and external referentiality in Sanskrit has long been deemed 'elusive'by Western scholarship, the new forms of literary production in the second millennium suggest a distinct new interest in authorship among wider literary communities. This new 'author-function' indexed a shift in the perceptions of literary production and the literary tradition itself. Focusing on the famous sixteenth-century work known as the Bhojaprabandha as both an anthology as well as a storybook about poets, this essay further argues that the paradigmatic courts of kings like Vikramāditya and Bhoja (but particularly the latter), placed not in historical time but in an archaic temporality, became the mise en scène for the figure of the poet in the second-millennium literary imagination. They were courts where the finest poets of the tradition appeared and where their virtuosity could be savored and reflected upon by generations of readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents challenge the notion of the S. M. Tagore's book "Mani-Málá" as a disinterested translation of past Hindu knowledge. Topics discussed include effects of book to amplify and solidify knowledge about Sanskrit texts already alive in British discourse; appreciation for how India as a real and imaginary site of knowledge-production about diamonds; and information on how Tagore was a musicologist and staunch supporter of British imperialism in India.

Cases of past absence (prāṅnâstitāsthala) involve agents noticing in retrospect that an object or property was absent, such as when one notices later that a colleague was not at a talk. In Sanskrit philosophy, such cases are introduced by Kumārila as counterexamples to the claim that knowledge of absence (abhāva) is perceptual (pratyakṣa), but further take on a life of their own as a topic of inquiry among Kumārila's commentators and their Nyāya interlocutors. In this essay, I examine the Nyāya philosopher Gaṅgeśa's epistemology of past absence, according to which agents learn that a recollectable (smaraṇârha) object or property was absent by inferring its past absence from failing to recall (asmaraṇa) that object or property. Gaṅgeśa's account is best appreciated against the backdrop of earlier theories and their shortcomings, and I begin by presenting historical views leading up to his. I identify two groups of views about the epistemology of past absence: recollection views, according to which cases of past absence involve agents recalling negative information; and recollection failure views, according to which cases of past absence involve agents failing to recall positive information. I reconstruct two early recollection views: a Bhāṭṭa view belonging to Uṃveka, and a competing Nyāya view belonging to Jayanta and Bhāsarvajña. I then examine Śālikanātha and Sucarita's critiques of recollection views, following which I reconstruct a Bhāṭṭa recollection failure view belonging to Pārthasārathi. I then examine Gaṅgeśa's critiques of Pārthasārathi's account and the recollection failure view he constructs out of its shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, divided into two parts, traces and discusses two pairs of analogies invoked in Sanskrit(ic) literature to articulate the paradox of God's oneness and multiplicity vis-à-vis the souls and the manifest world, reflecting the philosophical positions of pariṇāmavāda (and bhedābheda/dvaitādvaita or, in some cases, viśiṣṭādvaita) and vivartavāda (and abheda/advaita). These are, respectively, the analogies of fire in wood and dairy products in milk, and moon/sun in pools of water and space in pots. Having introduced prevalent ideas about the status of the supreme principle(s) vis-à-vis the souls and creation in Śaivism, Sāṅkhya, and Vedānta, and having investigated instances of the first pair of analogies in multiple textual genres in Part I, here I turn to the discussion of the second set of analogies. Having proposed that the first set reflects the influence of pariṇāma-Vedānta on an early strand of the Śaiva textual corpus, I argue that the second set, attested prevalently in relatively late sources, betrays a (post-)Śaṅkarian origin (even if it was used in a pariṇāma-sense), thereby suggesting a vivartavāda-Advaita Vedānta influence on the Śaiva corpus after the 9th or 10th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, divided into two parts, traces and discusses two pairs of analogies invoked in Sanskrit(ic) literature to articulate the paradox of God's oneness and multiplicity vis-à-vis the souls and the manifest world, reflecting the philosophical positions of pariṇāmavāda (and bhedābheda/dvaitādvaita or, in some cases, viśiṣṭādvaita) and vivartavāda (and abheda/advaita). These are, respectively, the analogies of fire in wood and dairy products in milk, and moon/sun in pools of water and space in pots. In Part I, having introduced prevalent ideas about the status of the supreme principle(s) vis-à-vis creation in Śaivism, Sāṅkhya, and Vedānta, I investigate instances of the first pair of analogies in multiple textual genres, and especially in Śaiva literature from South and Southeast Asia, to highlight the influence of pariṇāma-Vedānta on the Śaiva textual corpus. Arguing that the distribution of the two pairs of analogies may cast some light on the relationship between different strands of dualistic and non-dualistic scriptures, I propose that the first pair could be traced back to the "formative" period of Śaivism—that is, prior to the emergence of the fully dualistic Śaiva Saiddhāntika corpus known to us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wave of the Bhakti movement significantly affected India for over a period of twelve centuries. Considering that it left inerasable impressions on the history and culture of the land, this research paper argues that what only imbibed the feeling of pure devotion also became a tool in the hands of those who were desirous of radical religious, political and social changes. To prove this, the paper undertakes the translation of Dadu Dayal's Sanskrit compositions. Additionally, the paper also questions the very model of Bhaktikal (the Age of Devotional Literature), propagated by the scholars of Hindi Literature, which divides it into two distinct theological categories, Sagun and Nirgun. By examining the devotional poetry of Jayadeva Goswami and Dadu Dayal, and their sectarian positions, it demonstrates that the proponents of the two diametrically opposite schools of Bhakti did not always honour such a distinction for bhakti's spirit is above such schisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kāraka theory in the Pā inian grammatical tradition in the Sanskrit studies stands as a benchmark to understand the confluence of Sanskrit syntax and semantics. The theory has been explored from syntactico-semantic and philosophical perspectives till date by ancient and modern scholars in India and beyond. Relying on the earlier theoretical discussions, the current report, the first of its kind, tries to investigate the cognition of the kārakas in real-life human communication by carrying out experimental research on a total of 900 readers of Sanskrit and Marathi. The study argues that (1) the ontological classification of the verbs affects the cognition of the kārakas, (2) while kartā (agent) and karma (object/destination) of the verb are more accurately cognized, adhikaraa (location/substratum) of the verb is not, unless it adds to the main semantic component of the sentence, (3) the first language of the readers affects their comprehension of the kārakas in the second language, provided if the secondlanguage is not used in daily life conversations. The novelty of the research lies in the experimental methodology that is still in its infancy in Sanskrit studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vedic literature constitutes the fulcrum of Sanskrit literature and is repositories of some fundamental concepts of human rights. This manuscript endeavors to decode the tenets of human rights concealed in the Vedic texts. It further endeavors to view a connection between archaic Vedic literature and human rights and approaches the subject of human rights from the perspectives of Vedic texts. As an articulated concept, human rights have distinct western inception though the elements that constitute the concept postulate different cultural forms and are found in sundry civilizations of which one is Vedic civilization. The Vedic rights are certainly not akin to modern-day human rights but then it would not be feasible to expect much from the texts that are approximately 3500 to 4000 years old. Though the Vedic literature vividly resonates with some rudimentary conceptions of human rights, the relationship between Vedic literature and human rights is not entirely smooth and tension free. This manuscript withal fixates on the incongruities subsisting between Vedic literature and human rights.

This essay explores the dialectic of form, content and social life in the new poetry of the medieval Sanskrit anthologies. Did the seeming anarchy of content evinced in unfamiliar tables of contents produce genuine newness of aesthetic effect or affect, new possibilities for social value judgement—a critical and self-critical perspective—in response to changing sociopolitical conditions and the rise of the vernacular? Or else did this poetry simply do what it always did best: to be everything for everyone at the royal court, everywhere and nowhere? This article argues that the anthology may have spawned a contradictory dynamic: crafting a new sociological immediacy for the form, and yet reconciling the courtly ka-vya tradition to a future in which it no longer figured so centrally. Finally, in a methodological annex, the aforementioned case study spawns higher-order reflections on the mutual determination of art and social life in early medieval South Asia, and the materialist analysis of premodern cultural form. Thinking through premodern sociocultural change from the point of view of capitalist modernity fundamentally challenges the historical imagination, revealing self-reflexivity as both its first and last resort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Harivaṃśa has usually been seen as a later addition appended to the Mahābhārata, and so the Mahābhārata has usually been understood without it. This article first introduces an alternative approach, whereby these two texts are viewed as a single whole, and justifies that approach on the basis of the details presented in Mbh 1.2. Then the Harivaṃśa’s narrative mechanics are summarized, to contextualize what follows. The main body of the article offers three kinds of answer to the title question of what difference the Harivaṃśa makes to the Mahābhārata. The first answer is theological: the Harivaṃśa emphasizes the divine level of the Mahābhārata story as the story of the gods descending to help the earth. The second answer is narratological: the Harivaṃśa continues and completes the story of Janamejaya begun in Mbh 1, thus emphasizing his role for the text as a whole. The third answer is structural: if the Mahābhārata includes the Harivaṃśa then the whole text (Mbh 1–18 plus the Harivaṃśa) can be studied and analyzed as a macrocompositional unit. The “Mahābhārata as a whole” has been the subject of collaborative study in recent years, and this article continues that study, with regard to a fuller whole. The article, unlike that whole, is short, sketchy, and provisional. It looks forward to further and corrective studies in all the sketched areas, and more. The Harivaṃśa has usually been seen as a later addition appended to the Mahābhārata, and so the Mahābhārata has usually been understood without it. This article first introduces an alternative approach, whereby these two texts are viewed as a single whole, and justifies that approach on the basis of the details presented in Mbh 1.2. Then the Harivaṃśa’s narrative mechanics are summarized, to contextualize what follows. The main body of the article offers three kinds of answer to the title question of what difference the Harivaṃśa makes to the Mahābhārata. The first answer is theological: the Harivaṃśa emphasizes the divine level of the Mahābhārata story as the story of the gods descending to help the earth. The second answer is narratological: the Harivaṃśa continues and completes the story of Janamejaya begun in Mbh 1, thus emphasizing his role for the text as a whole. The third answer is structural: if the Mahābhārata includes the Harivaṃśa then the whole text (Mbh 1–18 plus the Harivaṃśa) can be studied and analyzed as a macrocompositional unit. The “Mahābhārata as a whole” has been the subject of collaborative study in recent years, and this article continues that study, with regard to a fuller whole. The article, unlike that whole, is short, sketchy, and provisional. It looks forward to further and corrective studies in all the sketched areas, and more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper gives a detailed comparison of the two Sanskrit lamentation passages, the laments of Aja (Ragh. 8. 37-69) and Rati (Kum. 4.1-38); it is conducted against the background of some other texts with similar content. The laments share a number of similar motifs. When examining the structure of these passages (as well as that of other related texts, not only those written in Sanskrit), the following elements may be discerned: the speakers' stupor or loss of consciousness; their attempts at self-destruction; an address to the dead in which personal experiences are recalled. The lamenting persons are shown as coming to cry over themselves, thereby embracing some personal memories and finding comfort or protection. Apart from offering words of comfort, the consolatory speeches addressed to them also give an explanation of the causes of their loss (the death of Indumatī or the incineration of Kāma). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of scholarly life in early modern India have concentrated on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. My essay has two aims: to push this study into the long eighteenth century, and to contextualise the new configurations of Sanskrit scholarship in the movement of people between Banaras and Thanjavur, theorised here as centres of gravity and of levity, respectively. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Maharashtrian scholar Raghunātha Gaṇeśa Navahasta moved from his post as temple priest at Chāphaḷ, in the Sātārā district, down south to Thanjavur, to receive the patronage of Queen Dīpābāī. At the behest of the queen, Raghunātha began writing in Marathi instead of Sanskrit, in order to reach a wider audience. Despite his elite education as a young man in Banaras, his Sanskrit writing itself was likely accessible to the same audience that the queen had envisioned. What were Raghunātha's true aspirations, and how did changes in his working conditions shape his career? In this essay, I trace Raghunātha's entrepreneurial spirit through his Bhojanakutūhala, or Curiosities on Consumption. Although traditionally the prerogative of cultural historians of food, the Bhojanakutūhala reveals just as much about the intellectual context of its author as he travelled from north to south. I conclude by comparing Raghunātha's career with that of his contemporary and namesake, Raghunātha Paṇḍita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounts of creation in Sanskrit literature include a number of hymns in the R̥gveda principal among which are R̥V 10.72, 10.81–82, 10.90, 10.121, and 10.129. Later accounts appear in the Mānavadhārmaśāstra, the Mahābhārata, and purāṇas. Scholars generally describe these accounts as various, mutually inconsistent myths, or as superseded stages of philosophical thought. Even recent treatments of Indian cosmogony that praise the poetic subtlety and prowess of their composers consider their work as products of individual poetic imagination. Yet, despite the variety of expression in the various accounts, they appear to convey a consistent model of the origin of the world. Moreover, the model of the absolute and the first stages of creation mirror the descriptions of the development of enlightenment in foundational texts of Vedānta and systematic analyses of Yoga. The descriptions of creation may therefore rather be the result of the special insight of enlightened sages than the results of individual imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If a chess-knight is moved on a vacant chess-board [8 × 8 square] such that it visits each one of the 64 squares once and once only, the knight is said to execute a Knight's Tour. Solution to the knight's tour problem was known in India as earlyasthe 9th century AD as a demonstration of wizardry in composing 32-syllable verses in Sanskrit. A pair of meaningful verses is composed in such a manner that when one verse is written serially (left to right and top to bottom) one syllable a square to fill up 8 × 4 cells — half of a chess board — the other verse appears as the Knight's Tour. The earliest example of this skill in poetry-composition is given in a Sanskrit treatise on poetics, kāvyālaṅkāra written by Rudraṭa who lived around the ninth century A.D. Knight's Tour as a mathematical problem was first noticed and discussed in the West by Leonard Euler in the eighteenth century. After providing the back ground to the subject as a puzzle on the chess-board, a problem in mathematics and as a challenge in verse-composition, the article discusses the special characteristic of Rudrata's example where the pair of verses reduces to a single verse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do four birds narrate the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa? Narrative enframement plays a crucial role in contextualizing Sanskrit literature. The narrative frame of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa exhibits acute awareness of the framing of the Mahābhārata. The Purāṇa's Birds are in fact direct descendants of the Śārṅgakas escaping devastation at the cataclysmic burning of the Khāṇḍava Forest. This hair-raising episode serves as the monumental terminal frame of the Ādi Parvan, which, as the epic's Book of Beginnings, itself serves as inaugural frame for the epic as a whole. The Śārṅgaka account is therefore laden with themes pervading the epic, themes upon which the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa Birds brilliantly comment. The Birds themselves partake in an even more involved intertextual device: they are deployed to address four questions which inaugurate the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, questions about the content of the Mahābhārata. This article examines the clever manner in which the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa's opening frame intertextually harkens to the Mahābhārata's Śārṅgaka episode, engaging the epic's avian artistry through its own. Building on the work of Alf Hiltebeitel and Simon Brodbeck, this article reexamines the Śārṅgaka episode in light of the story of Śṛṅgin, demonstrating that the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa avian frame responds to a core riddle proper to the epic's own masterful enframement, one dramatized in the plight of the Śārṅgakas. The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa thereby not only demonstrates a sophisticated cultural literacy when it comes to Sanskrit narrative, but it also leverages that literary legacy to execute its own ideological agenda, invoking India's great epic all the while. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the large number of adaptations of Sanskrit literature, especially those based on the RÀmÀyaõa and the MahÀbhÀrata, in modern-day media, it is useful to think of a University-level postgraduate course that enables learners to critically engage with these different kinds of adaptations. This paper makes a case for the importance and necessity of such a course and suggests a broad framework based on which this course might be designed, to make it pertinent and useful to students and the society in today’s day and age. The implications of such a course for social policy and planning, including its suitability in the context of the National Education Policy, 2020, are also touched upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A translation of a major part of Prajñākaramati's canonical commentary on the Perfection of Patient Endurance chapter of Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra. The introduction clarifies the importance of the commentary and explores what can be learned from it. Prajñākaramati's comments help illuminate the meaning of the verses and provide evidence for the view that the Bodhicaryāvatāra should be understood as offering not just meditation exercises, but also rational arguments that can be evaluated as philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tells an intellectual history of Mammaṭa Bhaṭṭa's Kāvyaprakāśa in the Benares-Centered Network of Sanskrit Learning from c. 1600–1750 CE. The core narrative proposed herein is that the discourse on Sanskrit Poetics reaches a bifurcated state by the 1400s and 1500s: the Kāvyaprakāśa commentarial tradition constitutes a distinct domain, wherein commentators debate exclusively among themselves on lower-order issues (e.g. the bases for Mammaṭa's categories). This period of normalcy is ruptured by Appayya Dīkṣita, who effectively destabilizes the discourse, overhauling the conventional wisdom via his empiricist polemics and via the importation of a new doxographical methodology from Vedānta in his magnum opus on Sanskrit Poetics, the Citramīmāṃsā. Shortly thereafter, Jayarāma Nyāyapañcānana, the Benares-based Naiyāyika from the East, substantially defends Mammaṭa's system of poetic ornaments against Appayya's polemics within his Kāvyaprakāśa commentary, marking the beginning of the bifurcation's erosion. The tension of how to resolve Appayya's system(s) with Mammaṭa's dominates the literature for the ensuing century, and commentators such as Kamalākara Bhaṭṭa, Bhīmasena Dīkṣita, and Nāgeśa Bhaṭṭa all champion defenses of the Kāvyaprakāśa's authoritative and conservative system against Appayya. This tension culminates in the discourse's last major treatise, the Alaṅkārakaustubha of Viśveśvara Paṇḍita, wherein Viśveśvara situates himself on a continuum with Jayarāma and defends the core contours of Mammaṭa's system against Appayya and Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja. Viśveśvara systematically utilizes the most up-to-date frameworks and positions of Nyāya, entailing radical transformations for the core terminology, standards of debate, and philosophical underpinnings in Sanskrit Poetics. The article concludes by way of contextualizing Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja within this new narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strainer (cālanī) tests the strength of a definition of a particular kind. Suppose the definition D is stated in terms of an absence, and x is a definiendum of D. The strainer collects each x-token or x-individual that dissatisfies D in a specific case. Then, all the x-individuals put together would be equivalent to the type x. Hence—one would be forced to conclude that—in a sense, x dissatisfies D. This is a case of under-application of D, since, despite being a definiendum of D, x dissatisfies D. Therefore, D would be too narrow. Similarly, the strainer may detect over-application too. By using the strainer, Raghunātha Śiromaṇi demonstrated that Gaṅgeśa's conclusive definition of pervasion (vyāpti) had a defect, and redefined pervasion. The strainer test is based on intuitive principles. It may disqualify a definition that has an absence in its definiens. Therefore, strainer-proofing becomes an important consideration that must be borne in mind every time we formulate such a definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern Gayā, pilgrims are advised to make a seventeen-day pilgrimage programme visiting forty-five holy spots, which has been regarded as 'complete (sampūrṇa), most authorised (śāstrika) and correct in view of religious rule (vidhivat) gayā-śrāddha '. In the Sanskrit religious texts, however, you will not find a description of the seventeen days and forty-five holy spots of the Gayā pilgrimage. Beginning with the introduction of modern pilgrimage regulations, this article shows the descriptions in the purāṇas and nibandhas, which are different from the modern ones, and examines the relationship between the descriptions in the śāstras and modern practices. This article illustrates that the origin of the authorised pilgrimage programme can be traced back, not to Sanskrit literature, but to modern regulations that were developed with the help of Sanskrit literature; the rules were defined by Mr Thomas Law, a tax collector, at the end of eighteenth century and a manual written by the priest Mukuṭ Bihārī Gautam in the middle of the twentieth century. The article not only focuses on the changes of the pilgrimage programme itself but also on the interpretation and application of the past by people today. Through these investigations, this article examines how the śāstras, religious authorities and traditions have been created in Hinduism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a brief review of Gajanan Shastri Gaitonde’s corrected edition of J. Gerson Da Cunha’s 1877 text for the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa. It covers the import of O’Hanlon (2013) on the dating of various sections of the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa’s uttarārdha and the support it gives to earlier conclusions by Levitt. Furthermore, it covers the fragmentary text of Sahyādrikhaṇḍa uttarārdha 15, which, it turns out, is about Sārasvata Brahmans at a much earlier date, and the import that this chapter’s generally fragmentary state has with regard to the transmission of the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa. Finally, it briefly discusses the topic of the Pātityagrāmanirṇaya, a separable section of the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa’s uttarārdha, and the historical nature of the text. My edition and translation of this have recently been released by Motilal Banarsidass as no. 6 in their Hindu Tradition Series.