Untersuchungen zur Mihldlichkeit fruher her mittelidscher Texte der Buddhisten.

• Author: Rocher, Ludo
• Position: Brief Reviews of Books

Untersuchungen zur Mihldlichkeit fruher her mittelidscher Texte der Buddhisten. By OSKAR VON HINUBER. Akademie der Wissensehaften und der Literatur. Mainz; Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Kl., 1994, no. 5. Stuttgart: STEINER VERLAG, 1994. Pp. 45.

This is the third monograph in a series Untersuchungen zur Spreachgeschichte und Handschriftenkunde des Pali (Abhandlungen 1988, no. 8, and 1991, no. 6). In this study von Hinuber resorts to the oldest parts of the Theravada canon to gain access to the language in which the teachings of the Buddha were transmitted before they were preserved in written form. In particular, he uses a technique that has been applied successfully to other branches of literature, especially to the epics and the Jatakas: the study of formulae, in this case formulae preserved within prose texts, which reveal different chronological layers in the language. More important, since these formulae are found in the oldest written Buddhist texts, they testify to the existence of an ancient, non-Vedic ("neben dem Veda [stehende]") tradition which is otherwise totally lost (pp. 6-7).Failing the necessary research tools (indices, concordances, etc., for the Pali and Buddhist Sanskrit texts), it is not possible yet to aim at a comprehensive sur vey of all such formulae. The present study, therefore, is "nur ein erster Schritt" to show, with a...