If not peerless as an Indologist, Pandurang Vaman Kane (1880-1972) may have barely a few equals. A legitimate recipient of many, many enviable awards, including the ‘Bharat Ratna’ — the highest national honour in India, he was the distinguished Sanskritist, National Professor of Indology, Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University, Member of Parliament (nominated), and entitled ‘Mahamahopadhyaya’. And was a prolific author too — his literary writings in English, Marathi and Sanskrit having been estimated to run across nearly 15,000 printed pages. Yet, M.M. Kane is to stay immortalized for his multivolume History of Dharmashastra: an encyclopaedic, at once authoritative work on ancient India’s religious and civil laws. This volume puts together nineteen of his essays to reinforce Professor Kane’s unique insightfulness into Dharamashastra literature. Discreetly culled from the prodigious mass of his writings, these essays show how Dr. Kane conjures some of the most obscure, hitherto-unnoticed sources not just to dispel widely-accepted fallacies or straighten out distortions, but (importantly) to project the fabulous legacy of India’s Dharmashastra literature: in both its variegated richness and unflawed authenticity. Covering diverse themes from Dharmashastra literature: ranging from Pauranic legends to the Pauranic worldview of dharma and sacrifices, from the literary use of the Mahabharata citations to the questions of identity and chronology of Dharmashastra authors, Professor Kane’s collection shows how King Bhoja evidenced the relevance of Dharmashastras to astrology; how far the Matsyapurana is indebted to Kautilya’s Arthashastra; or how, in turn, Kautilya’s classic compares with Kamashastra or Manu-Smriti; and how Vijnaneshvara is positioned vis-a-vis his predecessors.

How far has the poetic style of the Vedas influenced the later Sanskrit literature, specially the authors of Brahmanas, Upanishads, and even lexicons? How far do the Dharmashastras, particularly in terms of their value concepts, manifest borrowings from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata? Or, again, how do Dharmashastras view the juridical concepts, like ‘nyasa’ (deposit) and ‘witness’? How, and what for, have Valmiki, Kalidasa, and other classical poets/playwrights used astronomical symbology — like, for instance, the phenomenon of ‘Moon-Rohini’ association, in their writings? How is Professor H.D. Velankar’s contribution to Vedic Indology, specially Rg-Vedic interpretations, unique in its own right? An eminent Sanskritist, Dr. Moghe addresses these and other Indology-related questions, drawing on his highly specialized studies of Dharmashastras, Purva-Mimamsa philosophy, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, literary classics and dramaturgic texts. In this composition of 12 writings, of varying lengths, the author discovers fresh linkages between Dharmashastras and India’s foremost epics, highlighting how both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana’s ethical/social/legal values found almost universal acceptance with the writers of Dharmasastras, either in their unaltered form or with certain modifications. Among other thematic specificities, A Peep at Indology takes a critical look at some of the hitherto-unnoticed niceties of Banbhatta’s Harshacaritam, Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsham and Abhijnana Shakuntalam, and other classical Sanskrit plays — against the backdrop of Hemadri and Ranganatha’s well-known commentaries. Invaluable to the scholars/researchers of Vedic Indology, Dharmashastra literature, and classical Sanskrit.