Books in the Harvard Oriental Series series

Jonathan A. Silk provides the most comprehensive philological accounting of this fundamental work of Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu. The edition and translation of the Sanskrit text includes core verses and author commentary based directly on manuscript evidence, accompanied by texts from the Tibetan Tanjurs and a manuscript from Dunhuang.

This edition is based on new manuscripts of this important treatise on classical Sanskrit poetics by the famous 11th-century King Bhoja of Malwa. The text is important because of the theoretical treatment of the erotic sentiment (srngara) in classical Sanskrit texts, and also as a mine of quotations from Sanskrit and Prakrit poetical texts.

A detailed discussion by the editor complements this critical edition and translation of the phonetical treatise (Pratisakhya) of the Saunaka Samhita, one of two versions of the second oldest Indian text, the Saunaka Atharvaveda. This contemporary reevaluation helps to re-establish the textual tradition of the Atharvaveda.

Containing three representative repertoires and over 250 texts, this bilingual (Nepali and English) volume includes both publicly chanted recitals and privately whispered spells of Western Nepal's three leading shamans, annotated with extensive notes.

This edition of Rig Veda presents the text (in Roman characters) in its original metrical arrangement and closely approximates the pronunciation of the time of its composition. Restorations deviating from the received Samhita text are printed in italics, so the traditional text can easily be reconstituted without reference to other editions.

This study and edition of Bcom Idan ral gri's (1227-1305) Bstan pa rgyas pa rgyan gyi nyi 'od was likely composed in the late 13th century. It is a systematic list of Sutras, Tantras, Shastras, and related genres translated primarily from Sanskrit and other Indic languages, holding a vital place in the history of Buddhist literature.

This book examines the revolution in Sanskrit poetics initiated by the ninth-century Kashmiri Anandavardhana. Anandavardhana replaced the formalist aesthetic of earlier poeticians with one stressing the unifunctionality of literary texts, arguing that all components of a work should subserve the communication of a single emotional mood (rasa).

This volume is a bilingual collection of shaman oral texts from the Bhuji Valley of Western Nepal, in the original Nepali and with line-by-line English translation. Accompanying the book is a DVD of audio recordings of the texts, supplementary texts, videos of shaman performances, and additional video and photographic documentation.

This is a critical edition of the Kramapatha and Jatapatha forms of recitational permutations of sections of the Saunakiya Atharvaveda available in six rare manuscripts found in Pune, India. As these variations are no longer available in the surviving oral tradition in India, the texts provide rare access.

This book interprets the ethnography of the Mru and Khumi, Tibeto-Burmese speaking horticulturalists who practice swidden agriculture in the hills straddling Bangladesh, India, and Burma. Their material and spiritual cultures are described in detail here, from dwellings to religious rituals. Nearly a hundred color photographs provide illustration.

"The Law Code of Visnu" ("Vaisnava-dharmasastra") is one of the of the ancient Indian legal texts composed around the seventh century ce in Kashmir. This title contains a critical edition of the Sanskrit text based on fifteen manuscripts, an annotated English translation, and an introduction evaluating its textual history.

The more than two dozen Rai languages in eastern Nepal, which make up the larger part of the Kiranti language family, are linguistically highly varied. This volume for the first time brings together different variants of myths from various Rai languages, presenting them with linguistic glossings in interlinear translations.

Dating to the first half of the first millennium BCE, the Katha Aranyaka is a ritualistic and speculative text that deals with a dangerous Vedic ritual that provides its sponsor with a new body after death. In a new critical edition, Michael Witzel presents this work which transitions the Vedic ritual into the philosophy of the Upanishads.

Georg Buddruss collected source texts in the Prasun Valley in 1956 and 1970, in several dialectal varieties. The present volume is the outcome of extensive work on this text corpus, and represents a major contribution to studies of Nuristani and other languages of the Hindukush-Karakoram region.

Into Sur's Ocean picks up many threads from Sur's Ocean, a volume in the Murty Classical Library of India, translated by John Stratton Hawley. In this book, Hawley provides a substantial introduction to Surdas, the great sixteenth century Hindi poet; an overview of editions; an analysis of the translation; and commentary on 433 poems.

The traditions of oral ritual speech in the Himalayas have a lively existence alongside the written "great" traditions that predominate. But the oral traditions are still little known and even less understood. This collection of oral texts from Nepal, Bhutan, and northeast India is rich with translation and editorial interpretation.

Prasun is a non-literary, unwritten language spoken in the Prasun Valley that varies from village to village. The texts in this volume were collected in 1956 and 1970. Included are all the texts collected, a German translation, a glossary, lists of numbers, place and personal names, the Prasun calendar system, and a brief Introduction in English.

Brahmanical Theories of the Gift constitutes the first critical edition and translation into any modern language of a dananibandha, a classical Hindu legal digest devoted to the culturally and religiously important topic of gifting. David Brick has included an extensive historical introduction to the text and its subject matter.

The Madhyamakahrdayakarika along with its auto-commentary, the Tarkajvala, is the earliest work to examine Sravaka, Yogacara, Samkhya, Vaisesika, Vedanta, and Mimamsa in detail. Olle Qvarnstroem provides a critical edition and English translation of the Samkhya and Vedanta chapters of this treatise and a historical introduction.

The Nepalese Gurung recitations known as pe form a diverse group of oral narratives performed by a medicine man or shaman to promote health and prosperity. This two-volume set includes an analytical introduction, 13,000 lines of annotated transcriptions for 92 pe, color plate illustrations, and field recordings on an accompanying DVD.

This volume offers insights into the history of the Veda, the earliest texts of South Asia, and their oral transmission. In side-by-side facsimiles, Witzel and Wu present the two oldest known Veda manuscripts, recently found in western Tibet: the Vajasaneyi Samhita of the White Yajurveda and its contemporaneous sister text, a Vajasaneyi Padapatha.

The Raute and Rawat people of the central Himalayan region live by hunting, gathering, and trading wooden carvings. A Comparative Dictionary of Raute and Rawat provides a useful reference work with new information about the speakers' ethnic identities and culturally significant plants, animals, deities, and material culture.

The Nepalese Gurung recitations known as pe form a diverse group of oral narratives performed by a medicine man or shaman to promote health and prosperity. This two-volume set includes an analytical introduction, 13,000 lines of annotated transcriptions for 92 pe, color plate illustrations, and field recordings on an accompanying DVD.

Tarun Chhabra offers detailed ethnographic descriptions of multiple aspects of the culture of the Todas, the oldest inhabitants of the Nilgiri Hills of South India. Chhabra's prologue details his journey to becoming a Toda "insider." The text and appendices include significant new data, and the book represents a major breakthrough in Toda studies.

The fourth-century Sanskrit treatise Yogacarabhumi is the largest Indian text on Buddhist meditation. In this book, leading Buddhist scholars from across the globe offer a critical summary of the work, elaborate on its compositional background, and reveal its reception history in India, China, and Tibet.

This volume explores the earliest available version of the Sikh canon. The book contains the first critical description and partial edition of the Goindval Pothis, a set of proto-scriptural manuscripts prepared in the 1570s. The manuscripts also contain a number of hymns by non-Sikh saints, some of them not found elsewhere.

The Vaikhanasas are mentioned in many Vedic texts, yet they are Vaisnavas, monotheistic worshipers of Visnu. Thus, they bridge two key ages in the history of South Asian religion. This text contains many quotations from ancient Vedic literature as well as architectural and iconographical data of the later first millennium CE.