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Sectional Studies.
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dogmatic matter (cosmography et alia, e.g. compare UPADHYE Va: 29-32), just as we can isolate narrative elements (see 1.3) within dogmatic literature.
If we agree that frame subjects, such as «Jainism» or «the two epics», form "microcosms", in other words, worlds in their own right, we are also free to consider "microcosms" in the teaching practice of colleges and universities and to ask whether the typical student of Sanskrit can be expected to study more than two or three of these peculiar worlds, along with their specific vocabulary. According to the prevalent teaching system, this question applies either to all students of Indology, including those who have chosen Sanskrit as their main subject, or only to students with Sanskrit as a subsidiary subject (in connection with a main subject such as Indian History). For example, the student may concentrate inter alia on the two epics and on epic Sanskrit. The actual curriculum (epics plus Puranas plus x, or some different combination) is, however, a matter which need not be discussed here.
Another entirely different proposal concerns the procurement of sentences for the teaching of Sanskrit. This can be done on the basis of the epic texts (sentences in the form of epic quarter-verses or half-verses). We admit that the narrow limits of the morphology of epic Sanskrit do not favour such a project, but we feel that this difficulty can be overcome by using certain strategies, the simplest being the variation of original epic sentences by the student (e.g. replacing singular by plural or first person by third person). Instead of collecting examples for each and every form (conjugation etc.), we can search for short epic sentences which lend themselves to exercises of this type.
§ 2. The Strategies
We have started our paper with a description of the various sections, because we felt that the sectional and subsectional lists would give immediate access to the basic idea underlying our scheme. Since this scheme is based on both sections and strategies, we now have to introduce the strategies. But before doing so we shall explain in as few words as possible how our sectional concept gradually took its present shape. Since we have sometimes given preference to sections and, at other times, to strategies, a description of the "birth" of the sectional concept seems legitimate at this point, i.e. after the methodical treatment of the sections in § 1 and before the methodical treatment of the strategies in the present chapter (§ 2).
Our basic idea has been to create an extension of the methodological canon (BRUHN Se: 37). This implies that the existing canon or «current canon> is not touched upon in our present discussion. It must remain as it is, unreviewed and unintegrated in our scheme, which serves simply as a supplement. In addition, it is difficult to draw a clear-cut line of demarcation between the «current canon>> and the
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«<extended canon», since any vague line of demarcation which exists at a given point in time may change from day to day. In other words, what is called «<extended canon>> today may be called «current canon» tomorrow. Again, the idea of extension was not conceived in an abstract manner, but was rather linked with the wish to achieve completeness and to avoid selection. This partiality for completeness and suspicion of selection has been reinforced by contemporary discussions during the seventies, which were dominated by the views of the New Left (BRUHN CI: 1.5). But whatever completeness may stand for, it had to be linked, from our point of view, with an ordering principle, and this has led to a certain propensity for "classifications". Since the limits of almost all classificatory schemes were all too obvious, we then attempted to arrange the relevant facts in at least a quasi-systematic manner, according to the requirements of each individual case. As the outcome of these various efforts we have now tried to devise, figuratively speaking, finely drawn "squared maps", which can accommodate corpuses of related facts. Thus we can be sure that not a single "square" remains empty and not a single fact unordered. The methodological device we have chosen for this purpose are the lists, as presented in § 1. Still, completeness was not our only objective. We also wanted to stress the specific methodological requirements of each subject, and this led to the conclusion that "each subject requires its own method" (BRUHN Se: 44). To be sure, this maxim is general and abstract and, as such, different, both in quality and extent, from the consideration of the Eigencharakter of frame subjects as discussed in § 1. In fact, our emphasis on methodological diversification was largely prompted by the growing influence of generalizing theories, which again is a Zeitgeist problem, and by our desire to "protect" the subject under discussion against the neutralization which can occur in a vast theoretical continuum. Summarizing our retrospective, we can also say that the scheme is intended to eliminate contingency. In other words, contingency must be replaced by planning.
There is, finally, a practical and also diplomatic consideration. An extended canon>> requires new methodological material, which can hardly come from nothing. Not only are we opposed, for several reasons, to claims that something really "new" is to be presented, but we also think it necessary to explain how the methodological material for the «extended canon» is procured. Since such material cannot be produced overnight, we state categorically that recourse should be taken to existing methods developed in other fields of research. This import of methods requires, of course, strategies for the selection» and «adaptation» of the relevant methods (BRUHN Se: 44-45, but see pp.48-49 below), although it cannot be denied that the sections also stimulate by themselves fresh approaches of one type or another and with or without tacit use of extraneous resources. We have not changed our opinion since 1991, but for techni cal reasons we have used «adaptation», i.e. «adaptation» as part of our standard terminology, in this paper only in a specialized sense (§ 5).
