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 Candala", "Pali miscellanies". "Zwei Proben der Volksdichtung aus dem alten Magadha", "Das Bhuridatta-Jataka. Ein antibrahmanischer Naga-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
BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN / COMPTES RENDUS BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN / COMPTES RENDUS 131 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 Ubersicht uber die vasvakaLiteratur it is reassuring to read here (p. 123): "Methodologically, future work on the [Avasyaka-) 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 fur Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets an der Universitat Hamburg; 49.) - 136 pp. - ISBN 3-515-07096-6. Louis RENOU: Choix d'etudes indiennes. Reunies par Nalini Balbir et Georges-Jean Pinault. 2 tomes. Paris: Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient. 1997. (Reimpression de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-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 fur 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-a-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 Avasyaka-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. Vedique et sanskrit: 11. Tradition grammaticale; III. Structure et genre des textes; IV. Lecture de la poesie; 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'integrer la connaissance de l'Inde, ainsi que d'autres civilisations orientales, dans un whumanisme elargis." The editors then comment:

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132 BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN/COMPTES RENDUS BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN / COMPTES RENDUS "Il est important de noter ce point, a l'heure ou la mode du sculturalisme et de la pretendue authenticite tendrait a enfermer chaque civilisation dans ses valeurs et ses structures, incommunicables et intraduisibles, quant a l'orientalisme, il serait, selon une vision <Page #4
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