Book Reviews

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

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REVIEWS
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2 See also p. 210. 1 Zemledel'českij mif v drevneindijskom èpose (Skazanie o Rišjašringe)', Literatura i kultura drevnej i srednevekovoj Indii (Moskva, 1978), pp. 99-133 (cf. pp. 99-104 for his criticism of Lüders).
Australian National University
J. W. DE JONG
Wolfgang Morgenroth (ed.), Sanskrit and World Culture. Proceedings of the Fourth World Sanskrit Conference of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies Weimar May 23-30, 1979 (Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des alten Orients 18). Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1986, 766 pp., 7 pl.
At the Fourth World Sanskrit Conference in Weimar 153 papers were read. The present volume contains 119 papers in English, French, German and Russian. It is of course not possible to list the titles of all the papers. • According to the preface the main subjects of the conference were: 1. Sanskrit and Humanistic Sciences; 2. Sanskrit and Ancient History of India; 3. Role of Sanskrit in South Asia, especially India; 4. Role of Sanskrit in the World, especially in Central Asia, South East Asia and Europe. The subjects were mostly dealt with in plenary sessions. Subjects treated in the sections comprise: 5. Linguistics (General Linguistics, Sanskrit, MiddleAryan, Indian Grammarians); 6. Philosophy and Religion (Veda, Buddhism/ Jainism, Hinduism); 7. Science and Medicine; 8. Poetry (Epics, Classical Poetry, Narrative Literature, Poetics); 9. Archaeology and Art History. When one sees the great variety of the topics dealt with, one wonders whether it would not be advisable in future conferences to select a very limited number of themes and to invite prominent scholars to introduce them.
In this conference the socialist countries were well represented and especially with regard to the subjects dealt with in the plenary sessions. It is also interesting to note that in some fields the number of papers was extremely limited. For instance, there are only three papers on Buddhism and one on Jainism. Filliozat writes that Vedic studies seem nowadays to be less promising than a century ago and predicts a new future for them by looking for traces of the Veda in the development of Indian thought up to the present (cf. p. 18). However this may be, and I believe that many Vedic scholars would not share his point of view, it is encouraging to see twelve papers in the Vedic section, two of which deal with the Paippalāda-Samhita (Karl Hoffmann and Sri Dukhisyama Pattanayak). The section on Sanskrit lexicon comprises five interesting papers: Bernhard Forsmann, 'Ein etymologischer Beitrag zum Vedischen: ürú-'; Jean Kellens, 'La racine
Indo-Iranian Journal 31 (1988).