Prakrit Language and Literature

Disclaimer This paper is an independent undertaking, and the views expressed are solely my own. I make no claim to an intimate knowledge of the extensive IVC archeology nor linguistics. The discussion offered here is not intended to cause offense to any reader but to see if the context can give clarity to content. ChatGPT was used to polish up my incorrigible journalistic English for a more academic tone.

This article provides a description and analysis of the practices of cataloguing Sanskrit manuscripts in the 19th century, both in South Asia as well as in European institutions. A brief introduction provides an overview of historical lists of manuscripts in Sanskrit, together with an analysis of early European cataloguing practices of South Asian manuscripts from the 17th to the early 19th century. The focus of the article is a description of collecting and cataloguing practices after 1868 survey, by means of catalogues in different languages as well as published and unpublished letters by scholars.

The figure of the king and the sacred and ideological dimensions of kingship have long been objects of scholarly inquiry. In this chapter, I decenter the king to show how expressions of political authority were tied to kinship. I focus on the Ikṣvāku dynasty (ca. 225–325 CE) and locate the beginnings of the tradition of royal eulogy as patrilineal genealogy in the early medieval Deccan.

At the turn of the first millennium, some Jaina thinkers raised an unprecedented question: why should one story be accepted over others? This question emerged within a social and religious environment in which various groups told and retold competing versions of popular narratives, such as the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. While certain groups privileged specific versions, they rarely articulated the criteria by which a story should be evaluated or accepted as authoritative. This dissertation examines how a body of Jaina narrative literature called the Investigation of Dharma confronts this question. Focusing on its two earliest extant versions—Hariṣeṇa’s Apabhramsha Dhammaparikkhā (988 CE) and Amitagati’s Sanskrit Dharmaparīkṣā (1014 CE)—I argue that the Investigation models a theory of adjudicating narrative credibility and, by extension, testimonial authority. Through a close analysis of these texts, I demonstrate how their authors used narrative literature to train audiences in evaluating the credibility of stories, thereby cultivating readers capable of discerning authoritative knowledge from falsehood. These works, I argue, engage a rich premodern South Asian literary milieu—one characterized by multiple coexisting versions of shared stories—in order to offer explicit models for evaluating the truthfulness of stories and the ethical stakes of accepting or rejecting them.
Framed by the repeated appearance of two Vidyādhara protagonists—a Jaina layman and his friend—who engage in debate with Brahmins by presenting a series of implausible stories, the Investigation uses narrative form to stage epistemological dilemmas that mirror those faced by readers of purāṇic literature. These nested stories raise questions about what makes a story credible and what it means to evaluate a story’s claims. In this reading, the Investigation functions as a literary device for cultivating epistemic virtues in its audience by immersing them in staged scenarios that demand critical evaluation and judgment of the stories they encounter. Moreover, my dissertation demonstrates that Hariṣeṇa and Amitagati did not write in a vacuum. By situating the Investigation in conversation with a broader body of Jaina thinkers across languages and time, I reconstruct the ways its authors conceptualized their project in relation to their literary environment and intellectual interlocutors. Framed in this way, I suggest, the Investigation emerges as part of a wider Jaina discourse on reason and the evaluation of authority—one that opens further possibilities for the study of South Asian literature.

तकनीकी शिक्षा आधुनिक भारत के विकास की रीढ़ है, जो विज्ञान, प्रौद्योगिकी, इंजीनियरिंग और गणित (STEM) के क्षेत्रों में नवाचार, अनुसंधान और औद्योगिक प्रगति को दिशा देती है। भारत जैसे बहुभाषी देश में, जहाँ हिंदी और अन्य भारतीय भाषाओं के करोड़ों वक्ता हैं, तकनीकी शिक्षा का माध्यम लंबे समय से अंग्रेजी होने के कारण भाषायी असमानताएँ बनी हुई हैं। यह शोधपरक लेख तकनीकी शिक्षा में हिंदी और अन्य भारतीय भाषाओं की आवश्यकता, ऐतिहासिक पृष्ठभूमि, वर्तमान स्थिति, प्रमुख चुनौतियों और संभावनाओं का बहुआयामी विश्लेषण करता है। इसमें राष्ट्रीय शिक्षा नीति 2020 और एआईसीटीई की बहुभाषी इंजीनियरिंग शिक्षा योजना जैसी पहल के साथ-साथ जापान, जर्मनी, रूस, चीन और फ्रांस के अंतरराष्ट्रीय अनुभव भी शामिल हैं। अंततः, लेख एक ठोस नीतिगत रोडमैप प्रस्तुत करता है, जिससे भारत तकनीकी शिक्षा के क्षेत्र में बहुभाषी वैश्विक मॉडल बन सकता है।
Keywords: तकनीकी शिक्षा, हिंदी, भारतीय भाषाएँ, एनईपी 2020, एआईसीटीई, बहुभाषी शिक्षा, भाषा नीति, STEM, मातृभाषा

The Indus Valley script, undeciphered for over a century, has been approached through narrow interpretative lenses focusing on single functions. This paper proposes a comprehensive multi-domain framework recognizing the script as a sophisticated information system serving multiple concurrent functions across Harappan society. We argue that the script simultaneously served as: (1) technical documentation for engineering and construction specifications, (2) commercial records for trade and resource management, (3) institutional knowledge preservation for specialized crafts and procedures, (4) administrative records for social organization and governance, and (5) environmental and seasonal notation for agricultural and urban planning. This multifaceted approach explains the script's brevity, standardization, widespread adoption, and contextual distribution patterns. Rather than seeking a single decipherment key, we propose that understanding the Indus script requires recognizing it as an integrated information ecosystem serving the complex needs of one of history's most sophisticated Bronze Age civilizations. This framework calls for interdisciplinary research combining archaeology, engineering analysis, economic modeling, and administrative studies.

This essay examines the tragedy of the Indus Civilization, not only in its decline but in the long denial of its children and their languages. The Indus cities created a civic culture that gave birth to Proto-Prakrit, the natural vernacular of South Asia, and to traditions later preserved in Purāṇic genealogies. Yet this heritage was obscured—first by Vedic exclusivity, later by colonial philology, and even by modern scholarship that dismissed the Purāṇas as myth. Against this backdrop, the essay argues that the Purāṇas, carried through the oral commitment of the sutas, deserve recognition as the humanities of the ancient world, repositories of genealogy and civic memory. To deny them is to participate in the erasure of India’s earliest urban voices. Recovering the civic lexicon encoded in the Indus script restores the rightful place of the Indus as the first cradle of India’s cultural and linguistic heritage.

This paper examines Indus Script sign 293, the crescent, in relation to its lexical and cultural continuities across Prakrit, Sindhi, and later Indic traditions. Through phonetic grid analysis, the sign is read as sīa (white, pure, moon), frequently occurring at the beginning of inscriptions as a classifier. When combined with sign 267 (pāv, “share/portion”) and sign 512 (chaṇa, “festival, full moon”), the sequence sīa pāv chaṇa is revealed as “Festival of the Autumn Moon.” This interpretation aligns directly with the living tradition of Śarad Pūrṇimā, a lunar festival of purity, prosperity, and white foods still celebrated across India. Comparative analysis further shows that sign 391 (vai) denotes the dark fortnight, establishing a binary system of bright and dark lunar halves already present in the Indus corpus. The findings demonstrate remarkable continuity from Indus civic-religious life to Vedic, Purāṇic, and modern festivals, inviting a rethinking of the Indus Script as a phonetic civic lexicon.

Arun Kolatkar's collection of poems titled Jejuri has often faced critical ire because of its stark, non-glorifying depiction of snapshots of daily-life in the temple town of Jejuri in Maharashtra. As a consequence, he has been labeled as an "atheist," "an agent of the West," and a "weekend tourist" among other things. To counter such simplified critical dismissals, this paper engages in a problematization of essentialism and essential identities vis-à-vis Kolatkar's Jejuri. The hypothesis of this paper is that the poet through Jejuri is destabilizing any attempt at essentialization through his choice of language and idiom, through his use of artwork and its imagery, and most importantly, through his choice of subject matter and its aesthetic treatment. It demonstrates how Kolatkar's collection of poems resist such binarized labels attributed to him by his critics.

स्वस्थ शरीर में ही स्वस्थ मन का निवास होता है, किंतु आधुनिक सभ्यता की प्रगति के साथ मनुष्य अपने स्वाभाविक जीवन से इतना दूर हो गया है कि उसका जीवन अप्राकृतिक बनता जा रहा है। अनजाने में उसने ऐसी आदतें अपना ली हैं, जिनके कारण उसका शरीर और मन रोगग्रस्त हो गया है। यहाँ तक कि अब उसे रोग भी अस्वाभाविक नहीं प्रतीत होते। मनुष्य को निरोग बनाने और जीवन शक्ति बढ़ाने हेतु विभिन्न प्रयोगों पर तीव्र गति से कार्य हो रहा है।
प्रस्तुत शोध पत्र भारतीय ज्ञान परंपरा के संदर्भ में मानसिक स्वास्थ्य के लिए षट्संपत्ति का एक समीक्षात्मक विश्लेषण है, जो गुणात्मक शोध पर आधारित है। इसमें षट्संपत्ति के छह गुणों का अध्ययन किया गया है, जो किसी व्यक्ति के आध्यात्मिक विकास, मानसिक स्वास्थ्य और आत्मानुभूति के लिए अत्यंत आवश्यक हैं।
विषयगत विश्लेषण के अंतर्गत षट्संपत्ति की उत्पत्ति, महत्व, व्यावहारिक अनुप्रयोग तथा मानसिक स्वास्थ्य पर प्रभाव को समझने के लिए प्रमुख प्राचीन साहित्य ग्रंथों, शोध प्रबंधों, शोध पत्रों, लेखों और आध्यात्मिक पत्रिकाओं की समीक्षा की गई है।
मुख्य निष्कर्ष यह दर्शाते हैं कि षट्संपत्ति एक प्राचीन शक्तिशाली संकल्पना है, जो मानसिक स्वास्थ्य की देखभाल और आत्मानुभूति के लिए एक व्यावहारिक एवं दार्शनिक ढांचा प्रदान करती है। षट्संपत्ति के छह गुणों का अभ्यास करके व्यक्ति मानसिक स्वास्थ्य के लिए एक सुदृढ़ आधार विकसित करता है और आत्मानुभूति की दिशा में अग्रसर होता है।

प्रमुख शब्द: षट्संपत्ति, भारतीय ज्ञान परंपरा, मानसिक स्वास्थ्य शिक्षा, मनोवैज्ञानिक शिक्षा, मनोरोग।

English: Along with the emergence, development and progress of human life, there has been a change in the nature of education, culture, thoughts, behavior and activities. The culture of education has developed from ancient times to the present technological era. In ancient times, the primary education of the Gurukul system has now settled in the primary education school along with nursery, LKG, UKG. The place of family education has become very secondary. Every person has become completely dependent on school and college. While the minimum age for admission in Gurukul was eight years, now there is a well-planned scheme to get admission in Bal Vatika in two to two and a half years. The inclusion of psychology in education has been revolutionary for the modern education system. Psychologists have said that the first five years are important for the child. Technology and modern stimulating resources have proved to be very effective for him. Indian lifestyle is diverse as compared to other countries. Keeping in mind these diversities and needs of country, time and circumstances, Indian National Education Policy 2020 was introduced in the 21st century after several decades. By making structural changes in this policy, better management of primary education and preprimary education has been done. To achieve the criteria set in the National Education Policy 2020, it has been kept in mind in the National Curriculum Framework 2022 that universal and educational access to education culture should be accessible to every boy and girl.

While they are now canonical poets in Turkey, seen as representatives of a homegrown modernism, in the 1950s and 1960s the movement known as the "Second New" (İkinci Yeni) was the subject of a vitriolic literary debate. Among charges of elitism and obscurity, one insult stands out: for the Second New’s detractors, this poetry represented a dangerous revival of the poetry of the Ottoman Empire. This essay explores how “Ottoman” came to be an epithet in mid-century Turkish literary circles. It asks how a body of poetry pushing the boundaries of grammar and syntax, and exploring themes of alienation and desire in rapidly modernizing urban spaces, got slapped with the label of a bygone empire.

भारतीय सांस्कृतिक परंपरा में योग केवल शरीर के व्यायाम या आसनों की एक प्रणाली भर नहीं, बल्कि आत्मा की गहराइयों तक उतरने वाली एक साधना है, एक जीवन-दृष्टि है। योग का उद्देश्य केवल तन की तंदुरुस्ती या बाहरी चपलता नहीं है, बल्कि यह अंतःकरण की शुद्धि, चित्त की स्थिरता और आत्मबल की प्राप्ति है। "योगः चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः", पतंजलि द्वारा प्रस्तुत यह परिभाषा किसी जटिल दार्शनिक ग्रंथ का निष्कर्ष नहीं, बल्कि जीवन का वह सूत्र है जो हर उस व्यक्ति के लिए है जो स्वयं से मिलना चाहता है। जब इंसानी ज़िंदगी आज के दौर में तेज़ी, तनाव, टकराव और तन्हाई का शिकार हो चुकी है, जब हर कोई बाहरी दुनिया में खुद को साबित करने की होड़ में अपने ही अंदर के सुकून को खोता जा रहा है, ऐसे में योग सिर्फ़ एक आध्यात्मिक अभ्यास नहीं बल्कि एक आंतरिक क्रांति बन जाता है। आज की दुनिया जहाँ लोग भाग-दौड़ में उलझे हुए हैं, जहाँ रिश्ते वक़्त के साथ बिखरते जा रहे हैं, जहाँ मन का सुकून ग़ायब है, वहाँ अष्टांग योग हमें फिर से सिखाता है कि शांति बाहर नहीं, भीतर है। योग यह बताता है कि पहले अपने मन को साधो, फिर जगत को साधना सरल हो जाएगा। यम और नियम हमें व्यवहार की नैतिकता सिखाते हैं, आसन और प्राणायाम तन को स्थिर व सशक्त करते हैं, प्रत्याहार इंद्रियों को संयम में लाता है, धारणा और ध्यान हमें एकाग्रता का पाठ पढ़ाते हैं, और अन्त में समाधि - आत्मा से आत्मा की मुलाक़ात कराती है। ये आठ अंग किसी मंदिर की आठ सीढ़ियाँ नहीं, बल्कि ज़िंदगी के वो आठ पड़ाव हैं जो मनुष्य को पशुता से देवत्व की ओर ले जाते हैं। वर्तमान समय में जब हर शख्स किसी न किसी मानसिक दबाव, चिंता, अवसाद या असंतुलन से ग्रसित है, तब योग एक ऐसा औज़ार बनता है जो व्यक्ति को खुद से जोड़ता है। मनोविज्ञान कहता है कि चित्त की वृत्तियाँ स्मृतियाँ, वासनाएँ, इच्छाएँ- जब नियंत्रित होती हैं, तब व्यक्ति मानसिक स्वास्थ्य की ओर अग्रसर होता है। पतंजलि का योगसूत्र महज़ एक शास्त्र नहीं, बल्कि चिकित्सा, परामर्श और आत्मपरिक्षण का एक समग्र मार्गदर्शन है। "तदा द्रष्टुः स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम्" - यानी जब चित्त की वृत्तियाँ रुक जाती हैं, तब आत्मा अपने स्वरूप में स्थित होती है। यही आत्मस्थिति, यही स्व की अनुभूति, योग का परम लक्ष्य है।

Recently, studies on Kautilya’s Arthashastra are gaining importance because of the readiness to accept the theories established in India in ancient times. Throughout these years, Arthashastra is believed as a book of political theories. In actual, it is not the whole picture. Kautilya’s Arthashastra is an account which represents the great Indian ancient knowledge written, discussed, executed and submerged with the society approximately 2200 years ago. This paper’s aim is to rectify a particular part and to present it with the thorough understanding. The part, interestingly, is about writing. How to write is the main question answered here in the aspect of Kautilya’s Arthashastra.  This paper is mainly divided in two parts. The first part will discuss the excellences of writing as presented by Kautilya. And the second one will throw a light on the defects of writing. In general, this paper will help to understand Kautilya’s views on tactics of good writing and how to develop it further.

The narrative Dhammillahiṁḍī, 1 generally held to be a late insertion 2 into the famous Vasudevahiṁḍī (Vh), 3 commences with the education and marriage of Dhammilla. When he came of age, Dhammilla was married off to Jasamatī but paid scant attention to her, ignorant as he was in matters amorous. 4 When Dhammilla's mother heard that her son was not paying due attention to his wife, she was much upset and sent him to a courtesan for appropriate instruction. Dhammilla was captivated by the courtesan's charms so much that he stayed on at her house for several years and squandered his entire patrimony. What distinguishes this story from the other parallel versions is the reason given for Dhammilla's disinterest in women. Dhammilla, it was narrated, received instruction in seventy-two arts (bāvattarīsu kalāsu). These began with writing 1 The last part of this title is variously spelt in manuscripts: with short i (hiṁḍi ) and also with long ī (hiṁḍī). Some people transliterate this term into Roman as hiṇḍi/ī, but in writing Prakrit, anusvāra is preferable to parasavarṇa nasals.

Building upon Rajesh Rao's statistical analysis of the Indus script and phonetic studies by Sue Sullivan and Yajñadeva, this paper examines Indus seals lacking clear Sanskrit interpretations. Yajñadeva's decoding of 3,674 seals reveals Sanskrit-based phonetic patterns, though many terms lack direct Vedic parallels and are reconstructed through rootverb alignments and phonetic similarity. Despite extensive archaeological evidence of trade with Mesopotamia and Egypt, foreign place names are rarely identifiable; the sole recognition of Madra hints at more hidden toponyms. The study highlights recurring glyph clusters on seals-appearing at the start, middle, end, or in isolation-often paired with other repeating forms. While their function has been unclear, Yajñadeva's phonetic assignments yield coherent Sanskrit words, offering interpretative potential. This paper tries to find place called Magan in IVC seals and its related people focusing on 48 seals, the research proposes that glyphs read as Moka/Maka-Prākṛta forms of Makran-and their variants Mokana and Mokanī represent geographic names like Oman, Makran, and Maganlinked regions. These may have denoted ancient transhipment ports or entrepôts. The suffixes-ana and-anī, serving as plural markers in both Sumerian and Sanskrit, suggest a wider linguistic continuum. The interpretation is corroborated by Sumerian Cuneiforms references to 32 Lords of Magan, including King Manium, linked to the Akkadian Maništušu. This alignment enhances our historical understanding of Maka and highlights the seals as carriers of meaningful geographic information. The study thus opens new pathways for exploring Indus-Mesopotamian intercultural links through seal analysis.

There is agreement among scholars that at some point in time in the early history of Buddhism, there came to be a lingua franca, but also a perception that what constitutes Pali is a ‘translation’, or a ‘normalization’ of this, but post-Canonically. In Part I, this paper argues that Pali was no translation, but indeed the very ‘lingua franca’ (see later for change of label) in which the Canon was transmitted, and that it comes to be shaped at the hands of the Buddha himself, making him the ‘Progenitor’. The ‘critical other’ for this to happen is Ananda, ‘foremost’ in several language related skills, this suggesting the emergence of Pali to be around twenty years post-Enlightenment. However, Pali was no parole, i.e., not used for speaking, but a langue (in the Saussurean distinction), with only the inner circle of pupils privy to it initially, and over time, only the ordained Sangha, both male and female. As such, it comes to be used exclusively as the linguistic medium of the Dhamma...

The article reassesses Turner's (1926) classification of Romani within the Indo-Aryan group, drawing on insights from recent research and several years of the author's work on the Romani Etymological Dictionary (ЭСЦЯ, jointly with Kirill Kozhanov). Turner's approach has proven robust, but some of his specific conclusions need revision. While some of the isoglosses identified by him remain valid indicators of Romani's historical position within Indo-Aryan, others appear less reliable upon closer examination of the etymological evidence. The article also presents some recent findings and hypotheses on Romani prosody, including evidence for preservation of ancient vowel length potentially detectable through comparison with Dardic tonal-moraic systems. Additionally, it touches upon the puzzling distinction between OIA kh vs. kṣ preserved in Romani, mentions the preservation in Romani of vestiges of the neuter, and brings up non-trivial Romani stress patterns in connection with the reconstructed "rhythmic law.”

In this paper, it is shown that (i) the synthetic ablative and locative case in Niya Prakrit have come to be restricted to inanimate nouns and pronouns, and that (ii) analytic formations with postpositions are used for animates: (pro)noun + paride 'from' for ablatival functions, and (pro)noun + vaṃti 'in, at, to' for locatival functions. In addition, it is argued that in the Khotan Prakrit document CKD 661 the postposition sagaji /saγāźi/ 'in, at, to' is used in the same function as Niya Pkt. vaṃti.

For Open Access download, see https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jsall-2025-0004/html

Among Classical sources (Phylarcus, Strabo, Arrian, Plutarch, Justin, and Orosius), there seems to be no common spelling of Candragupta's name. The spelling Σανδρόκοττος (i.e., the canonical one) is used by Phylarchus (FGrHist 81 F 35b), Strabo (II.1.9; XV.1.53; XV.1.57), and Justin (Epit. XV.4.13). Later on, the spelling Σανδράκοττος is adopted by Arrian (Anab. V.6.2; Ind. 5.3; 9.9), whereas Ἀνδρόκοττος is adopted by Mnaseas (fr. 14 FHG), Plutarch (Alex. 62.4; Mor. 542d), Appian (Syr. 55.282), and Orosius (III.23). This article aims at investigating the reasons behind these different spellings in the light of a wider dynamic involving morphophonological and semantic processes towards compounded loanwords in ancient Greek (and Latin). We shall carry out an in-depth analysis of the different spellings of Candragupta's name in Classical sources within the Contact Linguistics Framework. After focusing on the socio-historical context underlying the language-contact dynamic, we will take into account several elements that may justify the lack of uniformity (e.g., the compounded nature of the name, the constituents' semantics, and the accent pattern). Finally, we conclude that the spellings of the Classical sources depend on ancient Greek morphophonological processes involving (compounded) loanwords, that result in a process of folk etymology, thanks to which Candragupta's name is definitely integrated into the ancient Greek compound system.

This brief communication presents some of my findings on ascetic poetry in the earliest texts in the Śvetāmbara Ardhamāgadhī Āgama: Āyāra, Sūyagaḍa, Dasaveyāliya, Uttarajjhayaṇa, Isibhāsiyāiṃ. This poetry is probably quite early; the ideal of the itinerant, homeless, mendicant muni certainly is old. Many verses would fit well in Buddhist or Brahmanic texts, but there is also a lot that is distinctly Jaina. In general the earliest Jaina community composed its own stanzas, based on certain conventions, vocabulary, formulas, and a heroic ascetic ideal, which it shared with other renunciant groups.

This paper critiques the popular hypothesis that the homeland of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) languages was in the Pontic steppe. The hypothesis suggests that IE-speaking steppe nomads invaded Western Europe during the Bronze Age, leading to widespread language displacement. However, the paper highlights several inconsistencies and vulnerabilities in this model. It argues that the evidence supporting the steppe hypothesis is largely conjectural, based on subjective interpretations of archaeological and linguistic data. The paper questions the plausibility of large-scale language displacement when the target population is incomparably larger than incoming migrants and challenges the notion that the steppe nomads possessed the necessary demographic, organizational, technological, and logistical capabilities to achieve such an outcome.

The notion of cause and effect, fundamental to human understanding, takes on fascinating intricacies within the Jaina philosophical framework. This research article delves into the complexity of Jaina causality, exploring its unique relationship between cause and effect and challenging traditional perspectives.Examining core principles like Anekānta (nononesideness) and Syādvāda (relativity of truth), the paper demonstrates how Jainism rejects simplistic linear causality. Instead, it embraces a nuanced, multi-faceted model where multiple factors interweave and interact, influencing not only consequences but also the very understanding of "cause."Through a rigorous examination of key concepts and their interconnectivity, this research article offers a comprehensive exploration of the profound and often counterintuitive Jaina model of causality. It invites us to reconsider our own ingrained assumptions about cause and effect, ultimately prompting a deeper understanding of the complex tapestry of reality.

This article examines the importance of education suggested by Baba Saheb Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar for modernising India, and the study discusses how education plays an important role in individual development, development of the community and the country. Only education can eliminate the caste system from our country and change the mindset of those who still believe in the caste system. The researchers conducted this study using historical analysis methods and secondary sources from existing literature. The methods combine ideas and evidence from a variety of sources, analysing concepts and arguments. Ultimately, this article discusses the issues in a balanced manner, making coherent and supporting arguments and evaluating the views and arguments of others regarding the poor implementation of the traditional reservation system and the conflict among Dalits. The article proposes novel approaches and elucidates the resolution to the growing gap.

In this paper, the author has tried to get into a comprehensive examination of the commercial infrastructure and exchange networks that may have existed in the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) between ca. 2800 BCE and 1900 BCE, tracing their evolution into the early historic period. By integrating archaeological data ranging from sealed weights and caravan encampments to port installations with literary and epigraphic sources spanning Vedic hymns, Pāṇinian grammar, Buddhist travelogues, and Greco-Roman accounts, the study reconstructs the roles of caravan leaders (sārthavāhas), caravan routes (Uttarapatha, Vaṇnupatha), and maritime corridors (from Tamralipti to Alexandria). It highlights the technical and institutional innovations such as standardized weights, caravan guilds, ritual sanctions, and shipbuilding lexicon that facilitated long-distance exchange of grains, textiles, metals, spices, and luxury items. The analysis further situates IVC trade within a broader Afro-Eurasian context, revealing its enduring legacy in South Asian economic traditions.

This book is primer guide for Sanskrit and Prakrit Students and researchers who are beginners to textual criticism field. In this book we try to understand the step by step process of Textual Criticism of a single manuscript by the help of short Prakrit text which includes 50 gathas.

In the first part of this talk, I outline how, taking “World Literature” as an instrumentalized conceptual object, three main visions (the Goethean/Arnoldian acquisition of “the best in the world,” Étiemble's thematic and formal extended universalism, and Damrosch's circulatory model) combine or compete in its manipulation today. In a second part, I rapidly sketch the cosmopolitan foundation of a radically revisionist, readerly or co-poietic view of World Literature. This view activates a dialogic aesthetic practice instead of a politics of classified cultural sets. In the third part, I embark on a meditation on immediacy and mediation, and the non-hierarchical interplay between emotion and sense-making or interpretation. To be of any descriptive and critical use, “World literature” must be understood as a shared practice whose particulars illustrate basic universals by their multiple singular embodied occurrences.

The Jaina Prosopography Database (JPD) is an
online searchable database produced by the Centre
of Jaina Studies (CoJS) at SOAS. To facilitate the
creation of the JPD, an agreement was signed between
SOAS and the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
(BORI) in 2019 and the actual work of data entering
started in March 2020. BORI has a large collection of
more than 4,500 Jaina manuscripts (mss.). This paper consists few examples which are indicative of our findings that we
contributed to the JPD.

स्वतंत्र भारत की शताब्दी को दृष्टिगत रखते हुए “विकसित भारत 2047” की संकल्पना भारत को एक समावेशी, आत्मनिर्भर, सशक्त एवं विकसित राष्ट्र के रूप में स्थापित करने का प्रयत्न है जो न केवल आर्थिक प्रगति तक ही सीमित है अपितु सामाजिक न्याय, समानता, समरसता के साथ उत्तरदायी शासन के आदर्शों को समाहित करती है। ऐसे में सरदार वल्लभभाई पटेल के दृष्टिकोण की पुनर्व्याख्या अत्यंत आवश्यक प्रतीत होती है जिन्होंने भारत के एकीकरण के साथ-साथ प्रशासनिक कुशलता, संघीय समरसता एवं लोक कल्याणकारी शासन की दृढ नींव रखी। सरदार पटेल की राजनीतिक दूरदृष्टि एवं कड़े निर्णय लेने की क्षमता ने भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप को एक सशक्त-एकीकृत राष्ट्र का स्वरूप प्रदान किया साथ ही उन्होंने शासन व्यवस्था को स्थानीय स्तर तक सशक्त करने, नागरिक सहभागिता बढ़ाने तथा विविधता में एकता को बनाए रखने पर बल दिया। उनके ये विचार वर्तमान केंद्र सरकार की नीतियों में प्रमुखता से वर्णित समावेशी शासन के आदर्शों के अनुरूप हैं। विकसित भारत 2047 का लक्ष्य केवल अवसंरचनात्मक विकास नहीं अपितु प्रत्येक नागरिक की सहभागिता, प्रतिनिधित्व एवं समान अवसर सुनिश्चित करने का भी है। प्रस्तुत शोध आलेख सरदार पटेल की विचारधारा तथा विकसित भारत 2047 की अवधारणा के बीच अंतर्संबंधों का विश्लेषण करता है एवं समावेशी शासन के सिद्धांतों को आज के संदर्भ में क्रियान्वित करने हेतु नीतिगत सुझाव भी प्रस्तुत करता है। यह लेख नीति-निर्माताओं, शिक्षाविदों तथा शोधकर्ताओं हेतु एक वैचारिक पथ प्रदान करता है जिससे कि भारत समरसता, न्याय एवं विकास के समन्वय से एक वैश्विक नेतृत्वकारी राष्ट्र बन सके।

"Hindi-Urdu's Ghalib construction" appears in a volume of papers written to honour Dr. Dhanesh Kumar Jain who left this world on the 31st of March 2019. The volume, "An Ocean of Gems", edited by Deven M. Patel, was published in 2024 by Primus Books (an imprint of Ratna Sagar P. Ltd.) 
Pp. 134-156.

This paper investigates the complex causal relationships within Jain narrative literature (prathamānuyoga/dharmakathānuyoga), specifically focusing on the examination of the Sītā abandonment narrative across Prakrit, Sanskrit, and Apabhramsha textual traditions. By employing textual analysis and philosophical interpretation, the study explores the intricate causative mechanisms in narratives by Vimalas ūri, Ravis. en. a, and Svayambh ūdeva. The paper addresses critical research questions examining the multifaceted nature of causality: the root causes of Sītā's abandonment, the identification of precursory causal signs like dreams, cravings during pregnancy and omens, an analysis of Sītā's philosophical response to her circumstances, and the complex interplay between external and internal instrumental causes (bahira ṅgaand antara ṅga-nimitta-kāran. a). Through rigorous textual comparison and philosophical analysis of the Paümacariyam. , Padmapuran. a, and Paümacariü, the study reveals that Jain narrative literature predominantly employs instrumental causality as its primary explanatory framework. The paper demonstrates how external and internal instrumental causes interplay, and explores the role of Sītā's bad or good karma in shaping her narrative trajectory. The paper contributes to the ongoing scholarship on Jain narratives by analyzing causality in religious narratives, offering philosophical insights into narrative causation, providing an interdisciplinary perspective that bridges literary analysis with philosophical interpretation, and illuminating the ways Jain narratives employ causality to explain complex human experiences and ethical dilemmas, ultimately revealing how narrative structures reflect deeper metaphysical and philosophical concepts within the Jain textual tradition.

The Dholavira Signboard, a significant artifact of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), has long been a subject of scholarly interest. This paper presents a systematic linguistic and economic analysis of the inscription by applying Indus Valley Script (IVP) decipherment methodologies. By examining the Left-to-Right (LTR) and Right-to-Left (RTL) interpretations, we explore its possible meanings, economic implications, and governance structure in the IVC.

This paper presents a comprehensive proof of the Indus Valley Script (IVP) decipherment by integrating linguistic comparisons, statistical frequency analysis, computational modeling, and real-world testing methodologies. By leveraging previously developed 800character datasets and validating results across multiple linguistic families, we establish IVP as a structured system capable of conveying economic, administrative, and cultural information. The study further emphasizes the importance of independent pattern recognition, particularly through AI-assisted analysis and human intuition, demonstrating that non-traditional methodologies can successfully decode ancient scripts.

This paper systematically analyzes the Indus Valley Script (IVP) as a structured phonetic system, refuting claims that it was merely a symbolic trade language or a pre-literate guild speech. By leveraging phonetic mappings, computational linguistic analysis, and economic record comparisons, we establish that the IVP was a fully functional written language used in governance, taxation, trade, and administrative functions. This study also examines grammatical continuity between IVP, Proto-Dravidian, and early Sanskrit, reinforcing its structured linguistic properties.

The caves of Kuḍā are situated in the present-day Raigaḍ district of Maharāśṭrā. It is a complex of 27 caves, located on the west of the Rājpuri creek. The caves are affiliated with the Buddhist faith. The Prākṛit inscriptions in these caves are bold, crisp, and clear. They also record donations from various types of classes that seem to have existed in those days, the royalty, the clergy, and the laity.
The author of this paper attempts to take a deeper look at the twenty-six inscriptions of these caves. The paper focuses on the aspects of orthography and calligraphy. In the course of this paper, the role of the scribes who engraved these epigraphs shall be studied. The paper shall also try to compare the inscriptions of different classes to get a fair idea about the handwritings seen. The methodology used here can be replicated in other caves in Western India.

This paper explores how Rabindranath Tagore's translations of Kabir's poetry reshape its cultural and ideological meanings. Despite Kabir's influence and Tagore's role in introducing his works globally, existing research often overlooks the impact of these translations on the original sociocultural contexts. For example, Tagore's translation of Kabir's critique of social and religious hypocrisy ("Kabira khada bazaar mein") shifts from a direct critique to a more neutral observation, reflecting Tagore's reformist views and the colonial Indian context. Tagore also overlays his own philosophical interpretations on Kabir's spiritual allegories, transforming the original mysticism to align with his vision of universal spirituality. Using postcolonial and sociocultural frameworks, the paper examines how these translations both reflect and challenge colonial ideologies. Case studies of specific translations illustrate how Tagore balanced fidelity to the source material with adaptation to his audience's cultural