Dharmasūtra Parallels: Containing the Dharmasūtras of Āpastambha, Gautama, Baudhāyana,and Vasiṣṭha by Patrick OlivelleReview by: Stephanie W. JamisonJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 128, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 2008), p. 396Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25608396 .

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396 Journal of the American Oriental Society 128.2 (2008)

(chapters I, II, XIII; e.g., I "Young Svetaketu: A Lit

erary Study of an Upanisadic Story," 1999), dharma

literature (V-XII, XIV; e.g., VIII "Structure and Com

position of the M?nava Dharmas?stra," 2002), and re

ligion and the body (XV-XVII, e.g., "Food for Thought:

Dietary Rules and Social Organization in Ancient India,"

2002). These topics are not surprising, of course, espe

cially the first two. The Upanisadic articles coincide, more or less, with Olivelle's work on his 1998 edition

and translation of the early Upanisads (The Early Upani sads: Scholar's Edition [Oxford Univ. Press]; see also

the earlier Upanisads [Oxford World Classics, 1996], with translation only). And the abundance of articles on

dharma attest to Olivelle's more recent concentration on

the legal literature, culminating in two monuments (I do not use this word lightly): the edition and translation

of the early dharmas?tras, Dharmas?tras: The Law

Codes of ?pastambha, Gautama, Baudh?yana, and

Vasistha (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000; see also the

earlier Dharmas?tras: The Law Codes of Ancient India

[Oxford Univ. Press, 1999], with translation only), and

the critical edition and translation of Manu, Manu's

Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the M?nava-Dharmas?stra (Oxford Univ. Press, 2005).

The articles on the body and on food arise naturally from the dharma texts' preoccupation with these matters

and also hark back to Olivelle's treatment of those issues

in the context of asceticism (see above). It is simply impossible within the confines of a re

view to do justice to the richness of these two collec

tions, and I will not even try. But it does give me

pleasure to draw the attention of our readership to these

two volumes, and it gave me even more pleasure to read

through these articles again and to watch Olivelle, time

and time again, demonstrate what philology can do in

the right hands.

S. W. J.

Dharmas?tra Parallels: Containing the Dharma

s?tras of ?pastambha, Gautama, Baudh?yana, and Vasistha. Edited and translated by Patrick

Olivelle. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2005.

Pp. 230. Rs. 29700.

This extremely useful work lays out, in synoptic

fashion, the parallel passages found in the early dharma

s?tras?the legal treatises, mostly in prose, associated

with particular Vedic schools, that precede the major

dharmas?stras, especially the M?nava Dharma S?stra,

the law code of Manu. It is organized by topic, from

"Sources of Dharma" through "Legitimate Seizure of

Property"; there are thirty main headings, each with a

number of subheadings. For each topic the treatments

of each text, in both Sanskrit and English translation,

are arranged in tabular form, allowing easy comparison of provisions and wording across texts. This layout also

allows one easily to see when a particular text does not

treat a particular topic, a lacuna that can be almost as

interesting as the treatment itself. Though the passages from the various dharmas?tras are not presented in the

order of the text, a complete index allows the treatment

of any passage to be located in the main text.

There is a minimal introduction and no notes. The

book is designed to be used with Olivelle's invaluable

edition and translation of these same texts, his 2000

Dharmas?tras: The Law Code ofApastambha, Gautama,

Baudh?yana, and Vasistha (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass), a review of which I hope will be forthcoming in JAOS.

Needless to say, the text and translations in the volume

under review are extracted from the 2000 edition. The

special value of this present work is the direct access it

affords to comparative approaches to the same topic, and

this access should stimulate even more scholarly work

on the development of early Indian law.

S. W. J.

Collected Papers, vol. VIII. By K. R. Norman. Lan

caster: Pali Text Society, 2007.

This book forms a welcome addition to the multi

volume Kleine Schriften of K. R. Norman, one of the

monumental figures in Middle-Indic studies in modern, or indeed, any times. Middle Indo-Aryan has been ex

ceptionally lucky in the scholars attracted to it, and

Norman, with his bracing mixture of philological and

linguistic acumen, is no exception. The volume contains fifteen papers (nos. 133-47 in

the through-numbering system of the Collected Papers), which appeared between 1999 and 2006, and ten re

views (nos. R22-31) from a longer chronological range

(1979-2002). The articles include both detailed philo

logical treatments of particular texts (e.g., two install

ments of "The Metres of the Lakkhana-suttanta" [V and VI, 2001 and 2002]; a detailed consideration of

"Asoka's Thirteenth Rock Edict," including the Greek

version as well as the Prakrit versions, 1999) and dis

cussions of larger issues in the linguistic and religious

history of speakers of MIA (e.g., "Early Buddhism

and Jainism: A Comparison," 1999; "Pali and the Lan

guages of Early Buddhism," 2002 [a reconsideration of

his discussion of the same topic; in Bechert's 1976

symposium on language(s) in early Buddhism, pub lished as The Language of the Earliest Buddhist Tra

dition, 1980]). The reviews are classified under four different topics:

"Language and Linguistic Studies" (four), "Vinaya Studies" (three), "Middle Indo-Aryan Grammar" (two), and "Indus Valley Studies" (one).

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