The supplement to Ludwig!Alsdorf's 'Kleine Schriften':: A review article -: Notes and communications

The recent reprinting of, inter alia, Alsdorf's monograph on the manifestations of nascent vegetarianism in "Mahabharata" and the law books (1962), and of three of his last articles (1974-77) that deal with aspects of the "Chavaka" and "Bhuridatta" Jatakas and the Jain "Manipaticarita", draws attention to many facets of post-Vedic anticlericalism that had important consequences even for orthodox classical Indian culture. It can be shown that one of Manipati's tales, as the nucleus of the "Clay Cart" story, provides an explanation for the basic bilingualism of drama Prakrit; the "Chavaka" parish upbraids one who is a Vidusaka in all but name; and "Bhuridatta" shows how greatly "popluar" Indian culture was indebted to orthodoxy, rather than (as Alsdorf thought) to some primitive "Volksglauben". His case for the antiquity of the "Vasistha Dharmasastra"; and his lone sponsorship of "aghnya" as the sacrificial animal that is "unkillable", can be substantiated: a case for understanding "ahi", Avestan "azi", as "heifer" emerges. Alsdorf's derivation of Pali "u-" from "upa-" calls for more decisive refutation.