South Asia Research Series
Statement of Purpose
The South Asia Institute at the University of Texas, in collaboration with the Oxford University Press, New York, has initiated an innovative new series on South Asia by returning to old scholarly values. We are not much inclined toward the ephemera of the latest intellectual fads, but will focus, rather, on works that we think have the potential to have something like the shelf-life of the scholarly translations in The Sacred Books of the East, or Max Müller's edition of the Rig-Veda, both also published by the Oxford University Press, and neither of which would be easily published in today's market. We are interested in the kinds of works that, once published, all scholars will have to use. We are looking for works that will be basic tools of the trade, and works that will remain reference points in important scholarly enterprise.
The range of things we will consider will be determined not by discipline or area, but by quality. We are interested in collections of art historical material, for example, which will provide a definitive record of specific sites—like Coomaraswamy's La sculpture de Bharhut—or make available comprehensive data on a given area or form—like Nagaraju's work on the architecture of the Western Caves. We will consider archeological reports, which have so much difficulty making it into print, detailed ethnographies, comprehensive collections of inscriptions—like Lüder's Mathura Inscriptions—and collections of historical documents. We are especially interested in basic works of reference that will be significant to scholars of South Asia regardless of their discipline.
Our goals are not modest; but neither are they unattainable. We want to provide a place where scholars who undertake these difficult and unglamorous projects can publish their results. By proving such a forum—and by commissioning significant works—we hope also to encourage such basic research especially among younger scholars.
Published to date:
- Slaje, Walter. 2004, Medieval Kashmir and the Science of History
- Rocher, Ludo. ed. 2002. Jimutavahana's Dayabhaga: A Twelfth Century Sanskrit Text on Inheritance in Hindu Law. View Cover and Table of Contents (288KB PDF)
- Orr, Leslie C. 2000. Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God: Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu. View Cover and Table of Contents (156KB PDF)
- Tulpule, S. G. et. al. 1999. A Dictionary of Old Marathi. View Cover and Table of Contents (184KB PDF)
- Olivelle, Patrick. 1998. The Early Upanisads Annotated Texts and Translations. View Cover and Table of Contents (292KB PDF)
- Salomon, Richard. 1998. Indian Epigraphy A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Other Indo-Aryan Languages. View Cover and Table of Contents (1MB PDF)
