Buchbesprechungen Comptes Rendues

SR No.: 269424
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nalini Balbir
Publisher: Nalini Balbir
Total Pages: 15
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

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BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN/COMPTES RENDUES
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BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN/COMPTES RENDUES
NALINI BALBIR: Avasyaka-Studien, Introduction générale et Traductions. Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien 45,1. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1993. THOMAS OBERLIES: Avasyaka-Studien, Glossar ausgewählter Wörter zu E. Leumanns "Die Avasyaka-Erzählungen". Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien 45,2. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1993.
E. Leumann's booklet Die Āvaśyaka-Erzählungen (AKM Band 10 - Nr. 2, Leipzig. 1897) has never received much attention. The reasons for this neglect seem fairly obvious. To begin with, there is the jumble of typographic devices which were introduced in order to combine the different versions of a story into one text. Secondly, no information is given concerning the specific setting and function of a story. Leumann's Übersicht über die Āvaśyaka-Literatur, which appeared posthumously in 1934, did not make good this omission. Thirdly, the stories were edited without a glossary explaining at least the most obscure Prākrit words and passages.
Professor Balbir has taken it upon herself to retrieve the Avaśyaka stories from oblivion and to make them accessible to a wider public. In the first part of Avasyaka-Studien she describes the literary corpus to which the stories belong, while in the second part Leumann's text is presented, translated and annotated. Dr. Oberlies prepared a glossary of the more difficult and rare Prākrit words occurring in the stories. This glossary was published in a separate volume.
Among other things, Balbir has gone through Leumann's Nachlass in search of papers relevant to the subject at hand. It is somewhat sad to have to comment on the neglect of Die Āvasyaka-Erzählungen, seeing, from the conspectus on pp. 26-30 and from the extracts published throughout the book, how much work had already been done by Leumann himself.
In the first part of the book (881-6) the reader is expertly guided through the highly complex, multi-layered Avasyaka corpus. This corpus has previously been described by Leumann (Übersicht, 1934) and by Bruhn ("Avaśyaka Studies I", Studien zum Jainismus und Buddhismus (Gedenkschrift für Ludwig Alsdorf), 1981, pp.11-49). In the case of Leumann the description had been based entirely on manuscripts. At present, for most of the texts concerned printed editions are available, admittedly of uneven quality, through which Leumann's material could be complemented. Even while the overall picture has changed only in detail, one