Volume 1 (preface)

This volume as the first of the series portrays the evolution of ideas that emerge from a broad spectrum of quests in Sanskrit and Iranian, Greek and Latin, Celtic and Slavic, Sino-Japanese and Tibetan, Thai and Indonesian history, art and linguistics.

The volume opens with a study of 'Life, space and structures' (p. 9f.): caitya or stupa as the cosmic rhythm of space, from the cosmic city to a Tantric mandala, time embodied in structures, ideograms in the configuration of monuments. Prof. Lokesh Chandra traces them back to the roots of biological instinct, from manusya the thinking man (man 'to think') to the animal that breathes (Latin anima 'breath') or the pasu that sees (pas 'to see'). The tenacity of life emerges from love and finds its continuity in structured living space, and finally converges in the symbolisation of sanctified space. The complementarity of the biological and the trans-human is apparent in etymologies embedded in words themselves. The vantage view of a classicist and humanist can be seen in the author's analysis of creativity and environment (p. 19f.) from the depths of the Rgveda, from the metaphoric fragments of Greek myths, or the Chip Buddhas of Enku, or in pluralism in the ideas of Nietzsche or Goethe. Nature as the human environment from the Vedic to the Puranic traditions is the sap and sinews of India's culture. The presentations on a shared earth (p.28f.), technology and cultural identity (p.33f.), and emerging paradigms (p.35f.) seek new realities of human striving in India's cultural syndromes.

In 'Calligraphy: thirst for the yonder form' (p.39f.) the author surveys the etymology of the English word as the flapping mind of civilisation. Calligraphy as aniconic sanctity, as poetry and painting in China-Korea-Japan, or as sublime austerity of Zen are detailed in creative and historic contexts. From calligraphy, the volume moves on to translation (p.46f.) as a crucial factor in the evolution of the Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, Indonesian, Greek, Latin, German, Slavonic and English literary traditions. The effortless innocence of known and unknown translators sharing new intellectual flows have enriched human thought. The modem world itself was born of the translation of Greeek works into Arabic.

The time and vision of India became the creation and continuity of a number of literatures in the world (p.58f.). Lucian, the satirist of the second century A.D., says that the Goddess of Philosophy first descended upon the Indians. The Indo-European elements in Greek and Latin languages and thought find explanation in the transparency of Sanskrit. The literatures of Central, East and South-East Asia share minds with India in their exploration of the immensity and the depths of life. From dance (p.64f.) in Indian, Hellenic and Chinese cadences the author moves on to India's thought and nature (p.69f.), logic and aesthetics. In Ellora (p.72f.) he reveals the oneiric caves as the syllogism of the soul, the creation of caves over the centuries, their illumination with murals or their sunyata filled with sculptures, and the identification of these paintings and icons from classical sources. The author points out that the earliest Sanskrit manuscripts (p.8lf.) come from Turfan in Central Asia and from Nara in Japan. While the historical evaluation of manuscripts is a contribution of European scholarship, the history of institutions like democratic republics has been pursued by Indian scholars in refutation of the prejudiced views of James Mill in his six-volume History of British India and others, an effort to detail the civilising role of White Man's imperialism (p.8lf.).

The author is the son of Prof. RaghuVira the famous thinker, freedom-fighter, Indologist, explorer of manuscripts in North, East, Central and South East Asia, and the creator of words for sciences, humanities, commerce, administration and other modem needs in Indian languages. In "My father is merged into the majesty of infinity" (p.97f.) he reminisces about the work of his illustrious father. Prof. Raghu Vira was the only scholar to be permitted by the Government of Mongolia to microfilm the Mongolian Tanjur. The microfilms were enlarged and deposited at Bonn and New Delhi. The author details the steps that led to this stupendous project (p.97f.).

'Buddhism as a pan-human syndrome' (p.lllf.) is an evaluative survey of developments within Buddhism wherein Buddha the Man, the Master was transformed into Lord, into the abstraction of Buddhahood. The historical vacua and contexts that led to its spread in several lands in the living stream of their hearts are discussed. From its formulations arose democratisation of socio-political structures, creation of alphabets, the evolution of printing technology (p.119f.), and so on. 'Buddhism and women' (p.123f.) is an overview of the feminine, as wisdom (prajna), heroine (suri), and learning (vidya), beyond the maternal.

'Kanchi and the cultural efflorescence of Asia' (p.128f.) highlights the role of this great city in the development of international commerce, philosophies of Zen and Vajrayana, performing arts, architectural monuments like the Borobudur, tea ceremony, and so on. The next article pertains to the other extremity of ancient India, to Udyana, which is now Jalalabad (p.140f.). It was a city where Indian, Graeco-Roman, Iranian and Chinese minds and merchandise met in the jostling of merchants and pilgrims. It arose as a monastic city, and was appropriately termed Nagarahara, from nagara 'city' of the hara or vihara 'monastery'. Its sanctity, strangely enough, has survived in the Pathan mind till this day as Abdul Ghaffar Khan wanted to find his last repose here. Alongwith Gandhara, Udyana and Kapisa, Kashmir (p.143f.) played a pivotal role in the dissemination of Indian culture to Central Asia. Prof. Lokesh Chandra has collected evidence from Chinese, Tibetan and Arabic sources that bear on it. Thereafter is a comprehensive bird's eye-view of the Mahabharata (p.148f.) in the literatures as well as visual and performing arts of Cambodia, Japan, China, Mongolia, Thailand and Indonesia. Mahabharata is the overwhelming expression of Indonesian culture.

The passion of Europe for Hellenism led to her discovery of Sanskrit as a focal point for the conception of Indo-European (p.156f.) and the rise of Romanticism. These resulted in the encouragement of modern European languages. The Sanskrit Worterbuch of 1854 inspired massive dictionaries of German, English and other European languages. The author brings out a new view-point for the encounter of Europe and India in the early nineteenth century. He presents an overview of the linguistic, mythological, political and economic relations of India and Greece in 'The cultural symphony of India and Greece' (p.163f.). The close affinities of 'Lithuanian and Sanskrit' (p.174f.) follow. More contemporary concerns can be discerned in 'India and Austria' (p.182f.) wherein the author pleads that the East and the West are not closed systems, but have to function in a new global matrix. He resumes this approach in his address to the Academy of Sciences of Hungary (p.186f.) on the occasion of the conferment of the coveted honour of an Academician. The next article appraises the studies on the Hungarian national hero Alexander Csoma de Koros (p.19lf.), who discovered a vast Sanskrit literature in Tibetan, and created the tools of a grammar and a dictionary for its understanding. With him a new vision of India's history dawned that was to inspire the Bengal School of India's cultural renaissance in the next century. The quest for roots has been a global concern for the last two centuries. Prof. Lokesh Chandra portrays this dimension of our times in the dedication of Yeats (p.194f.) to a national Irish drama, a native theatre, as the eternal frontiers of Ireland sank their roots in his poems and plays. The intense feeling of Nikolai Roerich (p.199f.) for mother Rus and his aesthetic unison with India are the flowing current that escapes from his hands.

In an overarching study of Sanskrit and Bulgarian (p.205f.), Prof. Chandra projects a new model for the original language and homeland of the Aryans/Indo- Europeans. The nineteenth century paradigrn of Drang nach Osten 'Push to the East' arising out of the imperial glories of the time conditioned the location of the home of the Aryans. The author points out that linguistic evidence of vocabulary does not point to a common original homeland of the Aryans, nor to a single Aryan identity, nor to a home in the West. The several layers of vocabulary indicate a Drang nach Westen, push from the East to the West, pre-Aryan substrates from earlier lost languages, with the superstratum of Indo-European grammar and vocabulary.

The volume leaps to South-East Asia in 'Unto the Siva Temple of Indonesia' (p.212f.), a record of his visit to the Isles in 1967. He presents the interpretation of Candi Loro Jongran, Prambanan in the light of Saiva Siddhanta cosmology. Then that forget-me-not of Indonesian archaeology, the Borobudur (p.219f.), the monument to love and compassion where the arid heart of man once recited: "Let Buddha be my refuge". In 1971 Indonesia convened the first international Ramayana seminar and festival. Ramayana is the epic of Asia, expressed in their narrative arts, belles-lettres, plastic and performing arts. The article provides a comprehensive view (p.223f.) of this adikavya in a short span, followed by a report on the performances at Pandaan in East Java.

Prof. Lokesh Chandra is well-known for his wide-ranging studies on Tibet. Here are ~is papers on the symbolic meaning of the Tibetan flag (p.232f.), the narrative art of Tibet (p.236f.) as represented by the Avadana-kalpalata of Ksemendra the polygraphist of Kashmir, and glimpses of the history of Indo-Tibetan medicine (p.242f.).

The Tibetan form of Buddhism, called Lamaism (may be better termed Bhotayana), spread to the Mongols in what is now Mongolia and in Buryatia in transbaikalian Siberia. The author visited these areas in 1957 and 1967 in search of manuscripts and xylographs. The reports of these visits afford a glimpse of Buddhism in Mongolia (p.246f.) and in Buryatia (p.255f.) under the shadows of communism.

The cultural interflow between India and China (p.279f.) is a symbolic echo of the time-honoured contacts. 'Brahmana in the East Asian tradition' (p.283f.) is a study of the far-reaching contributions to Chinese science through the Polomen/Brahmana books out of which came revolutionary discoveries like the creation of the first mechanical clock by I-hsing in the ninth century, long before its European invention.

The cultural encounter of Buddhism and Japan is covered in six articles. Japan has the second oldest Sanskrit manuscript, the oldest vina (A.D. 757), an alphabet based on the Indian sound-sequence, devas and naksatras, rsis and rasis, mudras and mantras. Japan's art is koreru ongaku 'frozen music' of forms. The aroma of Sakyamuni's land as it is found in Japanese cuisine is also discussed (p.32lf.). Dhyana to Zen (p.312f.) touches on the history and philosophy of Zen, a product of the Chinese and Japanese soil from the Indian seed of Enlightenment, in an Indian hut with Japanese bamboos. The book ends with Surya in East Asia (p.324f.) which points out outstanding images of him in Japanese art and ritual. Surya dispels the dark night of ignorance and is the illumination of life: tamaso ma jyotir gamaya.