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to the study of Middle Indo-Aryan and his intimate knowledge of the many problems involved in the study of Middle Indo-Aryan is evident everywhere in his book. His knowledge of the literature is amazing and he seems to have studied even the most obscure publications relating to Middle IndoAryan. The chapter on the sources shows clearly their multiplicity. They comprise inscriptions and literary texts. The inscriptions are subdivided into Asoka inscriptions, more recent inscriptions and coins and seals; the literary texts into religious texts (Buddhist and Jain) and secular texts. The latter comprise narrative literature, poetry, theatre, indigenous grammars and dictionaries (Pāli grammars, Prakrt grammars and Prākrt dictionaries).
As can be expected from a scholar such as von Hinüber, his book is much more than a summary of the results obtained over the last seventy years. His personal views are clearly put forward and defended, and he does not hesitate to recognize when he has been wrong in the past. Von Hinüber's book contains within a small compass such a mass of materials that it is not possible to go into details. Undoubtedly scholars will continue to refer to his book for a long time to come, either to confirm or to reject the views he expresses, and also to elaborate on the basis which he has laid for the future study of Prākst grammar. His book belongs to the rare class of publications which can be said to be truly indispensable. We can but be grateful to von Hinüber for having written this work which marks an epoch in the history of Prākst studies.
Australian National University
J. W. DE JONG
David Smith, Ratnākara's Haravijaya. An Introduction to the Sanskrit Court Epic. Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1986. vii, 322 pp. Rs 200.
Ratnākara's Haravijaya is a Sanskrit court epic written in Kashmir in the ninth century A.D. According to David Smith it is the longest of the mahakāvyas, with fifty cantos (sargas) and 4351 verses. Probably very few Sanskrit scholars have taken the trouble to read the Haravijaya or even a few cantos of it. The histories of Sanskrit literature do not have much to say about it. Winternitz devotes only a few. lines to the Haravijaya, and even Lienhard in his book on kavya literature does not add much to the information given by Winternitz.' Neither Winternitz nor Lienhard say anything about the poetic qualities of the Haravijaya. In 1890 Jacobi showed that the Haravijaya contains 'unmistakable borrowings' from Māgha's Sisupālavadha.? David Smith does not deny the borrowings but
Indo-Iranian Journal 31 (1988).
