Inside the texts, Beyond the Texts

images1
The present volume, the outcome of an International Vedic Workshop held at Harvard University in June 1989, is now published with kalpa -like delay –due to many reasons, mostly not of my own choice and not necessarily of my own making. Yet, I am sure, it still is worthwhile to publish the presentations of some of the leading specialists in the field not just as a record of the workshop, but because most of its results are still new and fresh.


index  Read More

The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools

images1
A detailed list of the texts which make out the Vedic canon does not exist in Vedic or early post-Vedic literature. There are, of course, medieval lists of Vedic exts and schools, such as those contained in the Prapañcahdaya.In the Vedic period itself, we find incipient lists which stress the particular division of the Vedic texts into three or four
branches.


index  Read More

Early Sanskritization

images1
The Mahabharata is, by and large, the tale of a great battle between two sections of the ancient Kuru people of the Haryana/W. Uttar Pradesh region, as told at the snake sacrifice of the post-battle Kuru king Parıks it. Since the Vedic texts are “tape recordings” of the Vedic period we can use them as basis for judging the less strict tradition of the Epics. To provide such a basis, the present paper is an investigation of the forces behind the formation of the Kuru realm at the end of the R̊gvedic period.


index  Read More

How To Enter The Vedic Mind

images1
The text selected here is one that I edited and translated some twenty years ago: the Kaha Ārayaka a Bråhmaa style text of the Black Yajurveda.In doing so, I had to go through all steps of dealing with a Vedic text: learning a new script, the śåradå of Kashmir, figuring out the unmarked ends of sentences and trying to understand their meaning, and interpreting the arcane śrauta ritual and the homologies of Vedic thought.


index  Read More

Early Indian history: Linguistic and textual parametres

images1
During the last 60 years the writing of the early history of South Asia has suffered from several flaws; political,and large sections of social, history above all, remain to be adequately treated. To begin with, archaeological discoveries of the past few decades remain to be evaluated against the background of the texts composed in this period, i.e. the Vedic texts.


index  Read More

  • Featured Video

  • Teaching Profession

    The Assistant professor of Indology,University tubingen, Germany.

    1978-1980 Associate Professor of Sanskrit,Instituut Kern, University of Leiden,The Netherlands

    1981-1986 Professor of Sanskrit language and literature University of Leiden,The Netherlands

    1986-1987 Visiting Professor of Sanskrit,Harvard University

    1987-Harvard University,Wales Professor of Sanskrit,Faculty of Arts and Sciences,Harvard University

    1997 Invitation to become Prof of Indology and head of the Department Indology and Iranin Studies,Munich University,Germany,declined,as to remain at Harvard.

    1999-President, Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, Boston

  • Books Published

    The Home of the Aryans

    Autochthonous Aryans

    Indian Philology and South Asian

    Vedic Hinduism

    Das Alte Indien

    Katha Aranyaka

    The World’s Mythologies

  • Articles by Subject

    Agriculture

    Culture

    Evolution

    Natural Resources

    New Discoveries

    Pottery

    Raw Materials

    Religion

    Seals

    Technology

    Textiles Trade Writing

  • SITE VIEWERS