Rule-Extension Strategies in Ancient India

Description:

This study focuses on the devices implemented in classical Indian texts on ritual and language in order to develop a structure of rules in an economic and systematic way. These devices presuppose a spatial approach to ritual and language, one which deals for instance with absences as substitutions within a pre-existing grid, and not as temporal disappearances. In this way, the study reveals a key feature of some among the most influential schools of Indian thought. The sources are Kalpasūtra, Vyākaraṇa and Mīmāṃsā, three textual traditions which developed alongside each other, sharing - as the volume shows - common presuppositions and methodologies. The book will be of interest for Sanskritists, scholars of ritual exegesis and of the history of linguistics. - Cover.

subjects: Anthropological linguistics,  Indians, languages,  Indische Philosophie,  Ritual,  Mimamsa,  Criticism, interpretation,  Hinduismus,  Indic Philosophy,  Śrautasūtra,  Śrautasūtras,  Tantrism,  Prāsaṅgika