Böcker i Harvard Oriental Series-serien

The traditions of oral ritual speech in the Himalayas have a lively existence alongside the written "great" traditions that predominate. But the oral traditions are still little known and even less understood. This collection of oral texts from Nepal, Bhutan, and northeast India is rich with translation and editorial interpretation.

Arthur McKeown examines newly revealed Tibetan and Chinese biographies of Sariputra and a collection of historical documents in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. These sources point to a fundamental reconsideration of later Indian Buddhism, its relationship with Brahmanism and Islam, and its enduring importance throughout Asia.

This volume offers insights into the history of the Veda, the earliest texts of South Asia, and their oral transmission. In side-by-side facsimiles, Witzel and Wu present the two oldest known Veda manuscripts, recently found in western Tibet: the Vajasaneyi Samhita of the White Yajurveda and its contemporaneous sister text, a Vajasaneyi Padapatha.

The Nepalese Gurung recitations known as pe form a diverse group of oral narratives performed by a medicine man or shaman to promote health and prosperity. This two-volume set includes an analytical introduction, 13,000 lines of annotated transcriptions for 92 pe, color plate illustrations, and field recordings on an accompanying DVD.

The Veda in Kashmir presents a detailed history and the current state of Veda tradition in Kashmir. Included in this two-volume set is a DVD that contains additional texts, rituals, sound recordings, and films taken in 1973 and 1979.

The Madhyamakahrdayakarika along with its auto-commentary, the Tarkajvala, is the earliest work to examine Sravaka, Yogacara, Samkhya, Vaisesika, Vedanta, and Mimamsa in detail. Olle Qvarnstroem provides a critical edition and English translation of the Samkhya and Vedanta chapters of this treatise and a historical introduction.

Brahmanical Theories of the Gift constitutes the first critical edition and translation into any modern language of a dananibandha, a classical Hindu legal digest devoted to the culturally and religiously important topic of gifting. David Brick has included an extensive historical introduction to the text and its subject matter.

Prasun is a non-literary, unwritten language spoken in the Prasun Valley that varies from village to village. The texts in this volume were collected in 1956 and 1970. Included are all the texts collected, a German translation, a glossary, lists of numbers, place and personal names, the Prasun calendar system, and a brief Introduction in English.

Jonathan A. Silk provides the most comprehensive philological accounting of this fundamental work of Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. The edition and translation of the Sanskrit text includes core verses and author commentary based directly on manuscript evidence, accompanied by texts from the Tibetan Tanjurs and a manuscript from Dunhuang.

Into Sur's Ocean picks up many threads from Sur's Ocean, a volume in the Murty Classical Library of India, translated by John Stratton Hawley. In this book, Hawley provides a substantial introduction to Surdas, the great sixteenth century Hindi poet; an overview of editions; an analysis of the translation; and commentary on 433 poems.