Vidyarnavavandanam: Essays in Honour of Asko Parpola.

• Author: Rocher, Ludo
• Position: Book Review

Vidyarnavavandanam: Essays in Honour of Asko Parpola. Edited by KLAUS KARTTUNEN and PETTERI KOSKIKALLIO. Studia Orientalia, vol. 94. Helsinki: FINNISH ORIENTAL SOCIETY, 2001. Pp. 511. Finnmarks 250.

On July 12, 2001, Asko Parpola celebrated his sixtieth birthday. On this occasion the Finnish Oriental Society honored him with a separate volume in their series Studia Orientalia. In a brief but informative preface Klaus Karttunen traces the history of Sanskrit studies in Finland, from Herman Kellgren, Otto Donner, and Julio Natanael Reuter, down to Parpola's teacher, Pentti Aalto. He then describes the development of Parpola's work, from his doctoral dissertation on the Latyayana and Drahyayana srautasutras and their commentaries (1)--his 1963 M.A. thesis already dealt with this topic--and his field work on Vedic ritual in South India, to his fascination with the riddle of the script of the Indus civilization.

Petteri Koskikallio has provided a complete bibliography of Parpola's works (except for popular writings mainly in Finnish, reports, book reviews, translations, abstracts, etc.). This bibliography includes lists of reviews of Parpola's works (some of which have been "severe, partly openly negative," p. 13), as well as a number of forthcoming publications.

I do not have sufficient space here to discuss, or even list, the thirty-one essays (all in English, except for two in German and one in French) that constitute the body of this sizeable volume. Nor would it be fair to single out for discussion one or two of them and pass the others in...