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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