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Indic Scripts...
Indic Scripts
Palaeographic and Linguistic Perspectives by: P.G. Patel , Pramod Pandey , Dilip RajgorThis Volume is the first attempt to cross-fertilize palaeography and linguistics in the ongoing research on Brahma and its daughter scripts used in the present-day India. The palaeographic papers cover the main issues in the decipherment of the Indus Valley script, and the linguistic papers explore the issues of the roots of the orthographic unit akshara in Vedic phonetics. Palaeographers epigraphists, linguists and computational scientists, will find this volume interesting and useful.
₹1,260.00
ISBN: 9788124604069
Year Of Publication: 2007
Edition: 1st
Pages : xiii, 266
Bibliographic Details : Indices
Language : English
Binding : Hardcover
Publisher: D.K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Size: 25
Weight: 900
This volume presents the advances in the ongoing research on Brahmi and its daughter scripts used in the present day India. It brings together two main trends: evolutionary-historical development and linguistic grounding. This is the first attempt to cross-fertilize palaeography and linguistics. The palaeographic papers cover the main issues in the decipherment of the Indus Valley script, the origin and evolution of Brahmi, and the palaeographic methods and considerations employed in the decipherment of scripts. These present different trends and arguments of writers on the origin of Brahmi as having been around the Mauryan era or at a much earlier stage, relate to broader historical and cultural issues. They also deal with the need for the use of established and more current palaeographic techniques in classifying regional and stylistic variants of scripts. The linguistic papers in the volume explore the issues of the roots of the orthographic unit aksara in Vedic phonetics, its claim as a minimal articulatory phonetic unit, and the properties of Brahmi as a generative writing system. The philosophical and linguistic underpinning of the concept aksara is shown to thread its use in the varieties of treatises, from the Vedas to phonetic texts. The papers help in providing linguistic evidence for historical accounts of the script as an invention at a given time or as an evolving evolutionary system, apart from relating the development of the script to the linguistic history of India. Palaeographers epigraphists, linguists and computational scientists, will find this volume interesting and useful.
Preface
Acknowledgement
Key to Transliteration
Introduction
1. Aum : Aksara in Indian Thought
— Kapil Kapoor
2. On the origin of the Early Indian Scripts
— Richard Salomon
3. Typological Observations on the Indic Scripts and their Relationship with Other Alphasyllburies
— Richard Salomon
4. The art of Writing at the Time of the Pillar Edicts of Ashoka
— Harry Falk
5. Evolution of Early Writing in India
— Subhash C. Kak
6. Progress of Modification of Brahmi Alphabet: As Revealed by Inscriptions of Sixth-Eighth Centuries
— A.K. Singh
7. The So-Called Shankha-Lipi (Shell Script)
— B.N. Mukherjee
8. Evolution of Brahmi Script: A Linguistic Approach
— Dilip Rajgor
9. Brahmi Manuscript Palaeography
— Andrew Glass
10. Akshara as a Linguistic Unit in Brahmi Scripts
— Purushottam G. Patel
11. Akshara as the Minimal Articulatory Unit
— Pramod Pandey
12. Phonological and Generative Aspects of Brahmi and its Derivatives
— Pramod Pandey
The Contributors
List of Sanskrit Terms
List of Inscriptions and Place Names
List of Languages
Author Index
Subject Index
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Sale!Pali Language and Literature ₹2,250.00
In Pali is preserved the Buddhist canon. Which, considered as the most authentic form of Buddhavacana, constitutes the very matrix of its 2500-year-long Theravada tradition. A refined, widely-spoken language of the early Middle Indic (Indo-Aryan) stage: about bc 600-200, Pali has also left, for posterity, a splendid legacy of secular literature that captures contemporary socio-cultural milieus not only of India, but of Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other neighbouring countries as well. Here is, in two volumes, a fascinating, well-knit study of the Pali language, and also of its literature: both canonical and non-canonical. Beginning with a systematic description of the language, its historical evolution, phonology and major grammatical categories, VOLUME 1 takes an indepth, critical look at the canonical Pali texts all the three Pitakas : the three baskets (collections): the Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma, which, among other things, embody Sakyamunis own universal message, the writings of his immediate monastic followers/disciples, the basic principles of shula (ethical behaviour), the disciplinary codes for the sangha and, above all, the Theravada philosophy in its truly pristine frame. VOLUME 2 surveys nearly the whole variety of Non-canonical Pali Literature covering creative writings, manuals, and as many as 25 chronicles: from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand besides numerous commentaries of the old-world scholars, like Buddhadatta, Buddhaghosa, and Dhammapala. In focus here are also a range of treatises on law, grammar, lexicography, and poetics including rhetorics and metrics. A painstakingly documented work with a comprehensive index, involving years of Dr. Hazras research effort, this book is invaluable to the scholars/researchers of Buddhist Studies, specially of Theravada Buddhism, Pali language and Pali literature.
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Sale!Dimensions of Panini Grammar ₹855.00
Leonard Bloomfield described Panini’s Ashtadhyayi (7th century bc) as ‘one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence.’ It is a complete, explicit and comprehensive grammar of both spoken and textual (compositional) Sanskrit. Most of the reputed and renowned Indian and foreign universities running courses on Indian knowledge systems, study it for its principles of analysis, organization and description. What is of great interest is the theoretical framework that informs this grammar, a framework that has remarkable power to describe human languages, particularly the Indian languages.
Panini is the watershed in the linguistic history of India. Before Panini, there was extensive work in phonetics, in morphology and lexicon (in the patha tradition) and in nirvacana (etymology). There is evidence also of the existence of several schools of grammar. In what is characteristic of the Indian intellectual traditions, Panini distilled the available grammatical knowledge and put it in 32000 syllables — as if, it has been said, an ocean has been accommodated in a cow’s hoof-mark. After Panini, a whole tradition developed and produced rich works by Patanjali, Candrakirti, Jainendra, Bhartrihari, Bhojraja, Hemacandracarya, Bhattoji Dikshita, Nagesha Bhatta and many others. It also inspired work in literature and philosophy and has left its mark on the entire intellectual tradition. In the modern period, there is a spread of Ashtadhyayi studies round the globe and it has proved to be of great interest for the study of knowledge representation in the departments of system sciences.
A comprehensive study of the different dimensions of this wonderful grammar enlarges and alters the conceptual horizons of young minds and of all those who care to be associated with the Indian grammatical systems. This book is a record of that adventure. -
Sale!Building a Theory of the Indic Brahmi Writing System ₹360.00
This book develops a consilience of research and thinking in epigraphy, archaeology, and linguistics on the Indic Brahmi writing system. Its objective is to identify the problems that need to be tackled by anybody who tries to develop a theory of the Brahmi writing system. As for the currently scientifically supported hypothesis that Brahmi originated in Tamil Nadu during the sixth century BCE or earlier, Patel opts for the need to keep this as an idea for the working basket awaiting new archaeological research in the sixth-century Magadha region.
The book deliberates upon how ancient Tamil Nadu was receptive to literacy. The Brahmanical fascination for orality blocked literacy in Vedic India. The brahmanas from north India entered Tamil Nadu only during the third century bce and lived away from residential areas. Tamil Nadu at the time had no caste system. This is reflected in the Sangam literature, which followed historically the grammarian Tolkappiyar. The conditions in Sri Lanka before and after the arrival of Buddhism are noted in relation to the rise of literacy. The relationship between Brahmi in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu is highlighted for the purpose of further research. Also noted is the need for research on the differences between Dravidian and northern scripts in the way the aksharas are formed in graphic representation. -
Sale!Sabdapramana ₹675.00
Shabdapramana or Testimony is a formidable doctrine within Indian philosophy. A thorough investigation of this thesis is long overdue. What is shabdapramana (word as knowledge)? What is involved in hearing words? Is the understanding derived through hearing utterances direct or indirect? Does this peculiarly linguistic understanding (shabdabodha) amount to knowledge (prama), or does it depend on certain other conditions for its truth? Further, what sort of theories of meaning, understanding, and knowledge would be required to ground a successful shabdabodha as prama,> need careful attention. It is sometimes said that Indian thinkers had no particularly interesting theory of understanding. The present work sets out to address these issues issues that have engaged traditional and modern thinkers alike. Based on the classic text, Advaita Vedanta-paribhasha of Dharmarajadhvarindra (17th century), the analysis and arguments extend to the views of and criticisms from the Nyaya, Purva Mimamsa and the grammarian/linguistic schools within Indian philosophy, with a treatment of similar concerns in Western philosophy. There is a compelling thesis here that should be taken seriously in any philosophy. Long discarded as a distinct source of knowledge in Western philosophy, Testimony might be fruitfully re-examined. This could lead to mutual dialogue between philosophy and religion, and pave the way for critical metaphysics.
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Sale!Sabda ₹720.00
It is the first ever study of the fifth-century scholar, Bhartriharis Vakyapadiya in an altogether modern, the post-Fregean, perspective on the Philosophy of Language. A uniquely original thinker in Indias splendid grammarians tradition, Bhartrihari overreached the limits of language analysis set by his predecessors like Panini and Patanjali constructing, as he did, a brilliant Philosophy of Language that sought to spell out, among other aspects, the subtle distinctions between the knowable and the sayable, between what is said and what is meant, between the semantics of everyday speech and literary discourse. Sadly, Bhartrihari has, through the centuries, suffered neglect, largely because the Grammarian School never figured in the six major systems of traditional Indian philosophy.
For the first time, this monograph tries to reinterpret Bhartriharis position as a philosopher, emphasizing the high relevance of his Vakyapadiya to modern Western thought. A reputed scholar of grammar, philosophy and Sanskrit studies, the author presents Bhartriharis analyses of language methodically, unbiased. And, significantly, in contemporary philosophical idiom with contextual focus on the views of modern Western philosophers: Frege, Wittgenstein, Grice, Austin, Davidson, Searle, Strawson and the like. Also offered here is a lucid exposition of the Sphota Theory.
Growing from Dr Patnaiks a decade-long research on Bhartriharis philosophy, the volume highlights not only ancient Indian contribution to the study of language, but the interconnectedness among its indigenous approaches to linguistics, philosophy, logic and aesthetics as well.
