365bet娱乐

It was since mid-fifties that I had started writing for various periodicals. My general approach was to take up a topic which was entirely new or one which had not received proper attention. I was actuated in this by a sentence which had struck me while going through a footnote in the Preface to the new edition of A Sanskrit-English Dictionary of M. Monier-Williams published in 1899: "I believe for an Alpine climber to establish reputation for mountaineering he must ascend some peak, however comparatively insignificant, that has never been ascended before (p.ix)." My writing activity has continued to the present day spanning a period of half a century. During this period more than a century and a half of my articles on most disciplines of Sanskrit and Indology have appeared in various journals and magazines of India and abroad and the commemoration and the felicitation volumes. There is still a sizeable number of them awaiting publication. It struck a young friend of mine Dr. Pravin Pralayankar to bring out a compendium of them to make them easily available to the scholarly community. He out of love and devotion for me volunteered to do the work. Old issues of the journals and the magazines were dug into and the off-prints of the articles were put together. Wherever they were not available, they had to be photocopied from the relevant issues of the journals and the magazines and the commemoration and the felicitation volumes, arranged subjectwise and set in type. So were those still in manuscript. The result of this massive effort is the present seven volumes which are being placed in the hands of scholars.

Since the articles had been appearing in journals and magazines from time to time, they did have some repetitive matter, particularly if they concerned one text or one theme. Now that they are appearing in book form, the repetition had to be avoided. This needed careful editing of all the available material which I had to do to the best of my capacity. Thus the articles "Un-paninian Forms in the Yogavasistha," "Notes on the Language of the Yogavasistha," "Onomatopoeia in the Yogavasistha, "Prepositional Verbs in the Yogavasistha", "A Note on ka-(kan-) ending words in the Yogavasistha", The Yogavasistha-A Study in Vocabulary", "Taddhita Formations in the Yogavasistha", "Etymologies in the Yogavasistha," and "Synonyms in the Yogavasistha" which had appeared in the Vishveshvaranand Indological Journal, Hoshiarpur, Vol. I, Part II, Sept. 1963; Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, Golden Jubilee Volume, 1958; Transactions of the Linguistic Circle of Delhi, 1968; Journal of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1967; Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, Diamond Jubilee Volume, 1977-78; Oscar Botto Felicitation Volume, Torino, Italy, 1992; Brahmavidya, Adyar Library Bulletin; K.K. Raja Shashtyabdapurti Felicitation Volume, Madras, 1980 and Prof. Biswanarayan Shastri Felicitation Volume, Gorakhpur, 1992 respectively have been clubbed into one single study: "The Yogavasistha-A Linguistic Appraisal". Similarly, the articles on Kalidasa, "Kalidasa's Philosophy of Life", "Kalidasa's Rsis" and "Vedic Sacrifices in Kalidasa" which had appeared in M.P.L. Sastry Felicitation Volume, Bangalore, 1985, the Rtam, Gopal Chandra Sinha Felicitation Volume, Lucknow, 1986 and the Bharatiya Vidya, J.H. Dave Felicitation Volume, Bombay, 1987 respectively have been put together under the title Kalidasa Studies. The article "Fate in Kalidasa which had appeared in A.C. Swain Felicitation Volume, Bhubaneswar, 1985 has been made a part of the article "Kalidasa's Philosophy of Life" which now appears in the Volume on Classical Sanskrit Literature under the new title of Kalidasa's Life-view. The articles concerning Hinduism, like the Festival of Spring and Dipavali which had appeared in the Daily Tribune, Ambala, Feb. 15, 1959 and Nov. 10, 1958 respectively

Preface 7 have been included in the Volume on Society and Culture under the title Hindu Studies. To these have been added two new studies, that had still been in manuscript, the 38 page study of Modern Hindu Society and a 12 page study of Hindu Marriage Ceremony. The two old studies on Jaina Sanskrit Dutakavyas, "The Induduta of Vinavijayagani" and the "Jaina Meghaduta of Merutunga" which had appeared in The Poona Orientalist, Poona, Vol. XXIV, Nos. 3-4, 1959 and Adhyayana-Anusandhana, Institute of Higher Studies and Research, Jaipur, Feb., 1974 respectively now form part of a general critical survey of the Sanskrit Dutakavyas. The various studies on Thailand which have appeared from time to time in various journals and commemoration and felicitation volumes have been clubbed together under Thai Studies to which has been added an hitherto unpublished detailed description in more than sixty pages of the fifty-odd of the old Hindu Shrines of Thailand. A notable study "Sanskrit Language and Literature: A Study in Environment" which had hitherto been in manuscript appears towards the close of the volume on Classical Sanskrit literature. The study on the Contribution of Muslims to Sanskrit in the Medieval Period, though not entirely new, however contains much new information. Entirely new certainly is the study on the Modern Christian Literature in Sanskrit. The articles connected with the Ramayana or the Rama story appear in a chain in the volume on Epics and Puranas. They are twelve of them. Of these the following seven: Historic Basis of the Ramayana, The Role of Rsis in the Ramayana, The Episode of Adityahrdaya: The Hymn to the Sun in the Ramayana, Four Women Characters of Valmiki: Manthara, Kaikeyi, Surpanakha and Mandodari, Rama Story in Thailand, Rama Story in Laos and Sita-How She is depicted in the Rama Story of Southeast Asia have been newly added, while the rest of the five: Putresti in the Ramayana: Was it Really necessary, Rama the Ruler as Valmiki reveals Him, Personality of Maharsi Valmiki as the Ramayana reveals it, The Significance of Dreams in the Ramayana and How the Ramayana Began had appeared respectively in the Indologica Taurinensia, Torino, Italy, Vol. VI, 1979, Proceedings of the International Ramayana Conference, Torino, Italy, 1992, Valmiki-Ramayana: Advitiya Mahakavya,

Patiala, 1997, Journal of the Oriental Institute, Vadodara, Vol. XL, Nos. 1-4, 1998-99 and G.V. Tagare Felicitation Volume, Sangli, 2001. "Synonyms in the Bhagavatapurana" that had appeared in the Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, Vol. II, 1971 now forms part of the write-up on "Sanskrit Synonyms" that had appeared in the Indologica Taurinensia, Torino, Italy, Vol. III, 1977. This has been expanded to include, though briefly, a study of Synonyms in the Ramayana as well, a step to extend it at some later stage to cover all the syonymous words in Sanskrit literature. The Volume on Society and Culture contains a write-up, which had been in manuscript, on Human Values in as many as hundred and ten pages. A new approach has been adopted in this in that definitions of the terms for human values as traced from old Sanskrit literature have been given, the terms elucidated and explained with examples in detail. The volume on Grammar and Linguistics has three studies on etymologies, the very first of their kind, which pertain to three voluminous works, one, the Yogavasistha, the other, the Devibhagavatapurana and the third, the Mahabharata. The first two are in English and the third in Sanskrit. The first, the "Etymologies in the Yogavasistha now forms part of the Linguistic Analysis of that work. It had earlier appeared in the Oscar Botto Felicitation Volume, Torino, Italy, 1992. The study on the etymologies in the Devibhagavata was published in the PuranaItihasavimarsa (S.G. Kantawala Felicitation Volume) Baroda, 1992 and the third on the Mahabharata, Mahabharate Nirvacanani had appeared in the Rtam (K.A.S. Iyer Felicitation Volume), Lucknow, Vol. II, VI, July, 1970, Jan. 1975. If one were to have a liking for the Navya-Nyaya style in Sanskrit, one can enjoy it in the highly abstruse and in-depth analysis of Dhatvartha, Samasa and Sphota in the volume on Grammar and Linguistics. There is a good number of extensive studies in the volumes which are appearing for the first time. These include the study of human values as gleaned from old Sanskrit texts with an attempt

Preface 9 to trace their definitions from them, a description of 50-odd Hindu temples of Thailand, the delineation of the Hindu marriage ceremony, an in-depth status report on the modern Hindu society, an assessment of the Mrcchakatika notable for fresh approach to its vocabulary, literary excellence and the psycho-analysis of its characters, the contribution of Saunaka to Vedic interpretation, a survey of modern Sanskrit literature in all its varied forms of poetry, prose (novels and short stories), campus and plays with a detailed appreciation of the new vocabulary surfacing in it, a study of the puja and the ritual in the Bali island of Indonesia and an account, informative and illuminating of the cultural excursions in countries of Southeast Asia. The volumes thus, apart from their utility in putting together most of my writings published so far, have also their utility in bringing to light my unpublished writings, as detailed above, in preparing which I have devoted the better part of my life. There are at least six studies in the volumes which extend upto roughly a hundred pages each. This in effect means that the volumes enclose six monographs in them. Then there are other studies which cover a wide range of subjects. All this research material I am placing in the hands of scholars. There are a number of studies which do not fit into the theme of any of these volumes. they would form part of another volume which could be devoted to miscellaneous matter. Even with these seven volumes I still have enough material to offer to scholarly fraternity. Though it may not go well with scientific arrangement, I have segregated the studies mediumwise. Since an overwhelming majority of my studies are in English, and in volume far exceed those in Sanskrit and Hindi, I have put them first. Sanskrit and Hindi studies follow them. It is only in a few cases they share the same theme with those in English. Since the arrangement followed in the volumes looks more elegant, I have gone in for it. I crave the indulgence of connoisseurs in this. Before I close, I would like to reiterate the contribution of my young friend Dr. Pravin Pralayankar in my research studies assuming the shape of the present volumes. It was at his suggestion cap

that I had started the work. He had been very helpful to me all through. I bless him and pray that he progress and prosper in life. While processing the volumes I encoutered many practical difficulties. I felt the need for a mature counsel to solve them. This I got from my old and beloved friend Dr. Satkari Mukhopadhyaya. Every time I was face to face with them, I contacted him over the phone and solicited his advice which he generously offered me. He is a veteran in the field with vast experience in the printing of Indological texts. His help, therefore, was of great value to me. He also acceeded to my request to go through the proofs of some sections of the volumes for which I owe him a deep debt of y gratitude. I also owe him gratitude in putting me into touch with Dr. Prakashchandra Chakrabarti, a young scholar, who read through the proofs of the volumes on Grammar and Linguistics and Classical Sanskrit Literature. He is very thorough and meticulous in his work. With his sound knowledge of English and thorough grasp of the system of Roman transliteration of Sanskrit words as also of the Sanskrit literature he can prove an asset to any institution. Dr. Satya Vrata Tripathi of the National Museum read through the proofs of the volume on Philosophy and Religion and a few other write-ups. To him I owe a debt of gratitude. Finally, I offer my hearty thanks to Yash Publications for undertaking the publication of the volumes and in seeing them through the Press expeditiously. The vast research material that I have been able to put together here I dedicate to fellow scholars, they being my Samanadharmans. October 25, 2005 New Delhi Satya Vrat Shastri