3 Review(s)

About The Book : A Discovery of this ritual work, which had thus remained latent under a wrong designation, would at all times have been welcome to those engaged in the study of Vaidik literature ; it gained in interest from the facts that a doubt had been raised, I do not know on what grounds, whether a copy of it had survived, and that a commentary of Kumarila on these Sutras, had, so far as my knowledge goes, never yet been spoken of in any European or Sanskrit book. It was but natural, under these circumstances, that I should think of making the knowledge I had obtained generally available, by editing this manuscript ; but, to my utter disappointment, I soon perceived, after having examined it in detail, that it belonged to that class of written books, the contents of which may be partially made out and partially guessed, but which are so hopelessly incorrect that a seeming restoration of their text around require a greater amount of conjecture than could be permitted to an editor, or might be consistent with the respect due to the author of the work itself. This resolution was strengthened by the consideration that even a correct text of these Sutras would be serviceable only to the few scholars who are familiar with this branch of the oldest Sanskrit literature, and that they would be able, by the aid they might get from other existing Sutras on the Vaidik ritual, and the Mimansa works, to turn to account even this incorrect manuscript, in spite of the many doubts it leaves. About The Author : Theodor Goldstucker (1821–1872) was a German Sanskrit scholar. He was born of Jewish parents in Konigsberg, Prussia. After attending the gymnasium of that town, he entered its university in 1836 as a student of Sanskrit. In 1838 he removed to Bonn, and, after graduating at Konigsberg in 1840, proceeded to Paris; in 1842 he edited a German translation of the Prabodhacandrodaya by Kṛṣṇamiśra Yati (fl. c. 1050-1100), a standard text widely read by Sanskrit students in India. From 1847 to 1850 he resided at Berlin, where his talents and scholarship were recognized by Alexander von Humboldt, but where his political views caused the authorities to regard him with suspicion. He was asked to leave Berlin during the revolutions of 1848 in the German states. In 1850 he moved to London at the invitation of H. H. Wilson. In 1852 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit in University College London. He worked on a new edition of Wilson's Sanskrit dictionary, of which the first instalment appeared in 1856. But his work became infeasible long and detailed, and publication of the dictionary ground to a halt. In 1861 he published his best known work Panini: his place in Sanskrit Literature. He was the founder of the Sanskrit Text Society (four volumes appeared); he was also an active member of the Philological Society, of which he was president at the time of his death and of other learned bodies. He died in London.