Buchbesprechungen Comptes Rendus

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269477/1

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BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN / COMPTES RENDUS
Ludwig ALSDORF: Kleine Schriften. Nachtragsband. Herausgegeben von Albrecht Wezler. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. (GlasenappStiftung; Band 35.) - Pp. 1-VIII, 763-935. - ISBN 3-515-06366-8.
The Kleine Schriften of the Glasenapp-Stiftung do not only collect the articles of Indologists who are no longer alive. Occasionally volumes are dedicated to scholars who are alive and active. Supplements are then required to take care of work appearing later. The present Nachtragsband fulfils precisely this purpose. Ludwig Alsdorf's Kleine Schriften appeared in 1974, four years before his death. The present volume contains the six articles that Alsdorf was still able to write in those remaining years: "The impious Brahman and the pious Candāla", "Pali miscellanies". "Zwei Proben der Volksdichtung aus dem alten Magadha", "Das Bhüridatta-Jätaka. Ein antibrahmanischer Någa-Roman", and "Ardha-Magadhi" (not "Ardha-Magadhi" as in the "Inhaltsverzeichnis"). The "Inhaltsverzeichnis" (p. VII) incorrectly calls the second article "Pali Miscellanies: uddhamsara". The word uddhamsara is a subheading which covers only part of the article; the remainder has the subheading "Pali u Page #2

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Freiheit. This work had, at Alsdorf's request, not been mentioned in the bibliography contained in the original Kleine Schriften, because its author did not consider it a scholarly work. Alsdorf was not, however, of the opinion that this work might make him susceptible to accusations of proximity to national socialism. Wezler explains that, far from being a national socialist and a racist, Alsdorf was a passionate protagonist of independence for India.
ders who have struggled with Leumann's Übersicht über die vasvakaLiteratur it is reassuring to read here (p. 123): "Methodologically, future work on the [Avaśyaka-) literature will certainly differ from LEUMANN'S approach, ... largely in the sense that LEUMANN's writings must be decoded and that ways must be found of providing LEUMANN's high-tech philology with a sound didactic fundament."
Johannes Bronkhorst
Johannes Bronkhorst
Catalogue of the Papers of Ernst LEUMANN in the Institute for the Culture and History of India and Tibet, University of Hamburg, compiled by Birte PLUTAT. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998. (Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien, hrsggb, vom Institut für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets an der Universität Hamburg; 49.) - 136 pp. - ISBN 3-515-07096-6.
Louis RENOU: Choix d'études indiennes. Réunies par Nalini Balbir et Georges-Jean Pinault. 2 tomes. Paris: Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient. 1997. (Réimpression de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient, No. 9.) - ISBN 2-85 539-562-3. - XVI, 1052 pp.
Erst Leumann died in 1931. The following year his son, Manu Leumann, handed over a collection of his father's papers, altogether more than 550 notebooks, to Walther Schubring. They are being kept at the Institut für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets in Hamburg.
The present catalogue lists 555 items. The shortest cover just one page, the longest well over a hundred pages. Most concern Jaina texts: transcriptions of manuscripts, extracts from texts, translations, glossaries, lists of manuscripts, descriptions, etc. Two indexes facilitate access to the catalogue. Index 1 concerns "Names and keywords", index 2 provides information as to which manuscripts have been dealt with in the notebooks. An appendix presents Walther Schubring's systematic synopsis, on the basis of which the notebooks have been ordered. Two articles by Ernst Leumann in which he presented and described items 1-129 are reprinted pp. 100-118 (ZDMG 45 (1891), 454.464, and 47 (1893), 308-315). A remark on the first page of the first of these two articles ("[Es) ist ... ein Vorzug unseres Materials, dass dasselbe in gewisser Hinsicht, wegen Collationen, Berichtigungen, Verweisen und Achnlichem, weit mehr bietet als Originalhandschriften ...") seems to betray an attitude vis-à-vis "corrections" which may seem less self-evident to the modern scholar than it did a century ago.
An article by Klaus Bruhn ("Bibliography of studies connected with the Avašyaka-commentaries". pp. 119-136) concludes the volume. For rea.
A "Bibliographie des travaux de Louis Renou (1896-1966)" has come out in 1997 as a supplement to the Bulletin d'Etudes Indiennes no. 13-14, 199596. Of the 203 articles there listed, 42 are reprinted in the two volumes un der review. They are divided into five groups: 1. Védique et sanskrit: 11. Tradition grammaticale; III. Structure et genre des textes; IV. Lecture de la poésie; V. Histoire et culture.
The importance of Louis Renou in the history of Indological scholarship hardly needs to be emphasised, and many scholars will be grateful for these two volumes, which make a number of important articles casily accessible also to those who do not have the privilege of working in or near old and well-endowed libraries. The accessibility of these articles is further enhanced by three indexes: I. Auteurs et textes indiens (pp. 935-938): II. Formes et mots sanskrits (pp. 939-1037); III. Notions (pp. 1039-1052). More than thirty years after the death of their author, and more than sixty years after the publication of some of the articles here reprinted, this collection still has much to offer to scholars in the field.
Readers will regret one thing: that so many articles by Renou have not been included in these volumes. The editors were, for obvious reasons but regrettably, forced to make a choice. This choice includes a contribution, the last one, "qui atteste du souci constant de Louis Renou d'intégrer la connaissance de l'Inde, ainsi que d'autres civilisations orientales, dans un whumanisme élargis." The editors then comment:

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"Il est important de noter ce point, à l'heure où la mode du sculturalisme et de la prétendue authenticité tendrait à enfermer chaque civilisation dans ses valeurs et ses structures, incommunicables et intraduisibles, quant a l'orientalisme, il serait, selon une vision «politiquement correcte, un sous-produit du colonialisme et du racisme, voué à écraser les différences, au profit du modèle occidental. Dans ce débat, le travail de Louis Renou prend une résonance éthique et politique teu jours actuelle." (p. XIV).
Let us hope that these volumes will contribute, however modestly, to the realisation of such a wider view of humanism and of humanity.
This scheme is far from perfect, but shows nonetheless a tendency away from indigenous grammar and towards word- and etymological studies in more recent years. An article like "The first verse of the Trisaptiyam (AV.S 1.1 - AV, P 1.6) and the beginnings of Sanskrit linguistics" (pp. 932-938; first published in 1985) shows that the two domains are not completely isolated from each other in Thieme's mind. The "Excursus" to the article "Meaning and form of the grammar' of Panini" (pp. 1170-1201, originally published in 1982), which studies "[t]he meaning of vyakarana- n. and of the verb vya + kr" in various Vedic texts confirms this. It is however primarily the historical linguist and the Vedic scholar who will turn to this volume (and occasionally disagree with it).
The volume contains an "Addenda und Corrigenda", a "Verzeichnis der behandelten Wörter", a "Verzeichnis der behandelten Textstellen, and a "Namen- und Sachregister". In the "Addenda und Corrigenda" we find the following observation (p. 1234):
Johannes Bronkhorst
Paul THIEME: Kleine Schriften 11. Ed. Renate Söhnen-Thieme. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1995. (Glasenapp-Stiftung; Band 5,II.) - Pp. I-IX, 815-1278. - ISBN 3-515-05523-1. - DM/sFr 124,- (ÖS 967.--).
Ersetzung von adhi durch abhi in abhidhammakosa 'den Dharma betreffendet Schatz'; vgl. adhivedam 'den Veda betreffend', adhividyam das Wissen hetreffend'...".
Two volumes of Kleine Schriften and one volume of Opera Maiora have so far been published of Paul Thieme's work, and more has been announced. The "Vorwort" to Opera Maiora / speaks of "eine voraussichtlich mehrbändige Sammlung", and the "Vorwort" to Kleine Schriften II mentions a projected "Ergänzungsband".
Kleine Schriften I came out in 1971 and was reprinted in 1984. Kleine Schriften Il contains mainly articles published since 1970. If we leave out of consideration the "Rezensionen" and "Verschiedenes", these two volumes allow us to compare the development of Thieme's interests. Following the thematic division by the editors (Georg Buddruss for KiSchr I, Renate Söhnen-Thieme for KISchr II) one arrives at the following result:
This somewhat puzzling remark (where does abhidhammakosa occur?) seems to agree with Buddhadeva's interpretation of the word abhidharma. The Abhidharma Mahāvibhāṣā attributes to him the following words (as translated in Buswell, 1997:567):
"Abhi is a prefix ... which expresses the meaning of addition: cg, extreme pride (adhimåna) is called abhimana, highest enlightenment (adhibuddha) is called ah. hibuddha; extreme old age (adhijara) is called abhijara. This (word abhidharma) is just the same, for its adds to this (mundanc) dharma (making it into the higher dharma)"
Veda-Exegese und Wortstudien
Allgemeine und indogermanische
Sprachwissenschaft Vermischte Abhandlungen zur Kul
tur- und Religionsgeschichte Zur einheimischen indischen
Grammatik
KISchr 24 articles (50%)
277 pp. (43%) (no such category
in KISchr 1) 10 articles (21%)
236 pp. (37%) 14 articles (29%)
128 pp. (20%)
KISchr II 11 articles (38%)
152 pp. (38%) 9 articles (31%) 117 pp. (30%) 7 articles (24%)
86 pp. (22%) 2 articles (7%) 41 pp. (10%)
The present volume contains one article that had not yet been published before, the text of a lecture held in Erlangen in 1977: "Stand und Aufgaben der Rigveda-Philologie". It contains some methodological reflections, and emphasises the tentative nature of Rgveda-studies and Indological research in general. We meet here "Thiemes Radiergummi", ready to revise and give up earlier positions. Thieme points out that he has used his India rubber with regard to some of his own earlier points of view, and gives a few examples. Indian studies will be well served if its practitioners are to

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134 BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN/COMPTES RENDUS derive inspiration from this, and will take pride in using a "Radiergummi" when appropriate. REFERENCES BUSWELL, Robert E. 1997: "Buddhadeva: materials towards an assessment of his philo sophy." Journal of Indian Philosophy 25(6), 561-587. THIEME, Paul: Kleine Schriften (1). Ed. Georg Buddruss. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Ver lag, 1971. 2., unveranderte Auflage mit einem Nachtrag 1984 zur Bibliographie. 1984. (Glasenapp-Stiftung; Band 5.) THIEME, Paul: Opera Maiora Band I. Ed. Werner Knobl and Nobuhiko Kobayashi. Kyo to: Hozokan Publishing Co., 1995. Johannes Bronkhorst