Buddhist (Hybrid) Sanskrit Three Articles from a Panel of the XIIth Conference of the International Association of Buddhist Studies

Abstract

The following three papers have been originally read at a panel «Buddhist (Hybrid) Sanskrit» organized in the framework of the XIIth Conference of the International Association of Buddhist Studies held in Lausanne (Switzerland) on August 24, 1999. The purpose of the panel was, as formulated in the call for papers, first, to reassess the seminal work of Franklin Edgerton which is mainly known as his monumental Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary to which a series of his articles dealing with this language (labeled hereafter «Buddhist Sanskrit») are to be usefully added. The reassessment has been and still is deemed possible indeed on the basis of new analysis of the texts in Buddhist Sanskrit known to Edgerton as well of the texts discovered and published after Edgerton’s work has been completed. The second purpose was to reconsider the problem of the internal structural cohesion of the Buddhist linguistic tradition involving a thorough analysis of grammatical and lexical evidence in Buddhist Sanskrit texts. The three scholars who responded to the call and whose papers have been prepared for the present publication base their research on different data and use understandingly different approaches, but I like to stress that all are aware of the complex nature of the linguistic and literary phenomena they examine. Interestingly, two of them, S. Karashima and K. Lang, share unpremeditatingly, needless to say, several presuppositions which seem to me as fertile as promising for further research. The main point common to these two authors is that beyond the general bewildering picture of Buddhist data, commonly considered as escaping any attempt to uncover an underlying linguistic structure and norm, the authors still see at least regular phenomena following a technique which cannot be due to a haphazard use of the language material and forms. The position of R. Salomon is different as different as his evidence, as will be seen from his article.