Stages and Transitions: Temporal and Historical Frameworks in Epic and Puranic Literature.

• Author: Rocher, Ludo
• Position: Book review

Stages and Transitions: Temporal and Historical Frameworks in Epic and Puranic Literature. Edited by MARY BROCKINGTON. Zagreb: CROATIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS, 2002. Pp. xvii + 408.

The first Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Puranas was held in August 1997. The papers, edited by Mary Brockington and Peter Schreiner, were published by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1999: Composing a Tradition: Concepts, Techniques and Relationships. The volume under review, again under the general editorship of Radoslav Katicic, who contributed the prefaces to both volumes, and again expertly edited by Mary Brockington, contains the proceedings of the Second Dubrovnik Conference, held in August 1999. The number of papers--eighteen--is the same in both volumes; the second volume exceeds the length of the first by about fifty pages.

Greg Bailey continues the tradition of writing the introductory paper. After his "Introductory Remarks on Future Research on the Sanskrit Epics and Puranas" (1997), he now reflects on the theme of the second conference, "Stages and Transitions." The core group of participants in both conferences includes, besides Greg Bailey (with an article in both volumes, in addition to his introductory remarks), Horst Brinkhaus, Mary and John Brockington (each with two articles in the first volume), Klara Gonc Moacanin, Petteri Koskikallio, Peter Schreiner, Renate Sohnen-Thieme, and Yaroslav Vassilkov. Occasionally, the second volume follows up on an article in the first, as Schreiner's "Five Topics, Three Functions, One God: On the Interrelatedness of Puranapancalaksana-Material and Trimurti in the Visnupurana," which, with "sometimes still conflicting views" (p. 261), continues Brinkhaus's "Cyclical Determination in the Development of the Trimurti-doctrine" (1999: 35-47). New participants in the second conference are Andreas Bigger, Mislav Jezic, Przemyslaw Szczurek, James L. Fitzgerald, Freda Matchett, Heinrich von Stietencron, Christophe Vielle, and Annemarie Mertens. Seven papers are, in different ways, connected with the Mahabharata; one paper is devoted to the Ramayana, and nine to the puranas.

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