History of Krsisastra: A History of Indian Literature on Traditional Agriculture.

• Author: Rocher, Ludo
• Position: Book review

History of Krsisastra: A History of Indian Literature on Traditional Agriculture. By GYULA WOJTILLA, Beitrage zur Kenntnis sudasiatischer Sprachen und Literaturen, vol. 14. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2006. Pp. 91.

This is the second, enlarged edition of a study first published, in 1999, in Supplementum IX of the Acta Antiqua et Archaeologica (Acta Universitatis de Attila Jozsef Nominatae), at Szeged. Wojtilla's name has been connected with research on krsi for the past three decades: his first article, on the Krsiparasara, which goes back to 1976, was followed by eighteen others (and two are listed as forthcoming), all devoted to some aspect of texts dealing with agriculture in classical India (pp. 89-91).

The format of the book, published by Harrassowitz, is reminiscent of some volumes in Jan Gonda's A History of Indian Literature. It is divided into two main parts. Part one, "Krsisastra Literature" (pp. 11-19), deals with general questions, such as "What is Krsisastra?" and "The origin and development of Krsisastra." Unless the krsisastra literature remains silent on a topic that attracts so much attention in other genres of Sanskrit writings, it is surprising not to see any reference to who may and who may not engage in agriculture.

The more informative part two (pp. 21-62) provides, in alphabetical order, a survey of the state of scholarship on individual krsisastras. The entries vary in length from just a few lines to more than seven pages for the Kasyapiyakrsisukti, "the...