The only extant treatise on statecraft from classical India, the Arthsastra is an invaluable resource for understanding ancient South Asian political thought; it also provides a comprehensive and unparalleled panoramic view of Indian society during the period between the Maurya (320-185 BCE) and Gupta (320-497 CE) empires. This volume offers modern English translations of key selections, organized thematically, from the Arthasastra . A general Introduction briefly traces the arc of ancient South Asian history, explains the classical Indian tradition of statecraft, and discusses the origins and importance of the Arthasastra . Thorough explanatory essays and notes set each excerpt in its intellectual, political, and cultural contexts.

An illuminating biography reconstructing the life and legacy of a unique king in world history and the most famous emperor in South Asian history   There are few historical figures more integral to South Asian history than Emperor Ashoka, a third-century BCE king who ruled over a larger area of the Indian subcontinent than anyone else before British colonial rule. Ashoka sought not only to rule his territory but also to give it a unity of purpose and aspiration, to unify the people of his vastly heterogeneous empire not by a cult of personality but by the cult of an idea—“dharma�—which served as the linchpin of a new moral order. He aspired to forge a new moral philosophy that would be internalized not only by the people of his empire but also by rulers and subjects of other countries, and would form the foundation for his theory of international relations, in which practicing dharma would bring international conflicts to an end.   His fame spread far and wide both in India and in other parts of Asia, and it prompted diverse reimaginations of the king and his significance. In this deeply researched book, Patrick Olivelle draws on Ashoka’s inscriptions and on the art and architecture he pioneered to craft a detailed picture of Ashoka as a ruler, a Buddhist, a moral philosopher, and an ecumenist who governed a vast multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious empire.

'Manu was seated, when the great seers came up to him: "Please, Lord, tell us the Laws of all the social classes, as well as of those born in between..."' The Law Code of Manu is the most authoritative and the best-known legal text of ancient India. Famous for two thousand years it still generates controversy, with Manu's verses being cited in support of the oppression of women and members of the lower castes. A seminal Hindu text, the Law Code is important for its classic description of so many social institutions that have come to be identified with Indian society. It deals with the relationships between social and ethnic groups, between men and women, the organization of the state and the judicial system, reincarnation, the workings of karma, and all aspects of the law. Patrick Olivelle's lucid translation is the first to be based on his critically edited text, and it incorporates the most recent scholarship on ancient Indian history, law, society, and religion. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A new English translation of the most influential legal text in medieval India. A Treatise on Dharma, written in the fourth or fifth century, is the finest example of the genre of dharmasastra-texts on religious, civil, and criminal law and the duties of rulers-that informed Indian life for a thousand years. It illuminates major cultural innovations, such as the prominence of documents in commercial and legal proceedings, the use of ordeals in resolving disputes, and the growing importance of yoga in spiritual practices. Composed by an anonymous author during the reign of the imperial Guptas, the Treatise is ascribed to the Upanishadic philosopher Yajnavalkya, whose instruction of a group of sages serves as the frame narrative for the work. It became the most influential legal text in medieval India, and a twelfth-century interpretation came to be considered "the law of the land" under British rule. This translation of A Treatise on Dharma, based on a new critical edition and presented alongside the Sanskrit original in the Devanagari script, opens the classical age of ancient Indian law to modern readers.

This volume brings together papers on Indian ascetical institutions and ideologies published by Patrick Olivelle over a span of about 30 years.

This collection brings together the research papers of Patrick Olivelle, published over a period of about ten years. The unifying theme of these studies is the search for historical context and developments hidden within words and texts.

Whether defined by family, lineage, caste, professional or religious association, village, or region, India's diverse groups did settle on a concept of law in classical times. How did they reach this consensus? Was it based on religious grounds or a transcendent source of knowledge? Did it depend on time and place? And what apparatus did communities develop to ensure justice was done, verdicts were fair, and the guilty were punished? Addressing these questions and more, A Dharma Reader traces the definition, epistemology, procedure, and process of Indian law from the third century B.C.E. to the middle ages. Its breadth captures the centuries-long struggle by Indian thinkers to theorize law in a multiethnic and pluralist society. The volume includes new and accessible translations of key texts, notes that explain the significance and chronology of selections, and a comprehensive introduction that summarizes the development of various disciplines in intellectual-historical terms. It reconstructs the principal disputes of a given discipline, which not only clarifies the arguments but also relays the dynamism of the fight. For those seeking a richer understanding of the political and intellectual origins of a major twenty-first-century power, along with unique insight into the legal interactions among its many groups, this book offers exceptional detail, historical precision, and expository illumination.

The Upanisads are the central scriptures of Hinduism. They represent some of the most important literary products in the history of Indian culture and religion, both because they played a critical role in the development of religious ideas in India and because they are our greatest source for the religious, social, and intellectual history of ancient India. Composed at a time of great social, economic, and religious change, the Upanisads document the transition from the archaic ritualism of the Veda into new religious ideas and institutions. The first major English translation of the ancient Upanisads for over half a century, Olivelle's work incorporates the most recent historical and philological scholarship. The introduction and detailed notes make this edition ideal for the non-specialist as well as for students of Indian religions. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The only extant treatise on statecraft from classical India, the Arthsastra is an invaluable resource for understanding ancient South Asian political thought; it also provides a comprehensive and unparalleled panoramic view of Indian society during the period between the Maurya (320-185 BCE) and Gupta (320-497 CE) empires. This volume offers modern English translations of key selections, organized thematically, from the Arthasastra . A general Introduction briefly traces the arc of ancient South Asian history, explains the classical Indian tradition of statecraft, and discusses the origins and importance of the Arthasastra . Thorough explanatory essays and notes set each excerpt in its intellectual, political, and cultural contexts.

The Buddhist monk Ashva-ghosha composed Life of the Buddha in the first or second century CE probably in Ayodhya. This is the earliest surviving text of the Sanskrit literary genre called kavya and probably provided models for Kali-dasa's more famous works. The most poignant scenes on the path to his Awakening are when the young prince Siddhartha, the future Buddha, is confronted by the reality of sickness, old age, and death, while seduced by the charms of the women employed to keep him at home. A poet of the highest order, Ashva-ghosha's aim is not entertainment but instruction, presenting the Buddha's teaching as the culmination of the Brahmanical tradition. His wonderful descriptions of the bodies of courtesans are ultimately meant to show the transience of beauty.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http: //www.claysanskritlibrary.org

The Law Code of Visnu (Vaisnava-dharmasastra) is one of the latest of the ancient Indian legal texts composed around the seventh century ce in Kashmir. Both because the Vaishnava-Dharmasastra is the only Dharmasastra that can be geographically located and because it introduces some interesting and new elements into the discussion of Dharmasastric topics, this is a document of interest both to scholars of Indian legal literature and to cultural historians of India, especially of Kashmir. The new elements include the first Dharmasastric evidence for a wife burning herself at her husband's cremation and the intrusion of devotional religion (bhakti) into Dharmasastras. This volume contains a critical edition of the Sanskrit text based on fifteen manuscripts, an annotated English translation, and an introduction evaluating its textual history, its connections to previous Dharmasastras, its date and provenance, its structure and content, and the use made of it by later medieval writers.

The Pancatantra is the most famous collection of fables in India and was one of the earliest Indian books to be translated into Western languages. No other Indian work has had a greater influence on world literature, and no other collection of stories has become as popular in India itself. A significant influence on the Arabian Nights and the Fables of La Fontaine, the Pancatantra teaches the principles of good government and public policy through the medium of animal stories. Its positive attitude towards life and its advocacy of ambition, enterprise, and drive counters any preconception of passivity and other-worldliness in ancient Indian society. Patrick Olivelle presents the Pancatantra in all its complexity and rich ambivalence, examining central elements of political and moral philosophy alongside the many controversial issues surrounding its history, including its numerous versions and translations, and the reconstruction of the original text by Franklin Edgerton. This new translation vividly reveals the story-telling powers of the original author, while detailed notes illuminate aspects of ancient Indian society and religion to the non-specialist reader. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India presents an English translation of Kautilya's Arthasastra (AS.) along with detailed endnotes. When it was discovered around 1905, the AS. was described as perhaps the most precious work in the whole range of Sanskrit literature, an assessment that still rings true. Patrick Olivelle's new translation of this significant text, the first in close to half a century, takes into account a number of important advances in our knowledge of the texts, inscriptions, and archeological and art historical remains from the period in Indian history to which the AS. belongs. The AS. is what we would today call a scientific treatise. It codifies a body of knowledge handed down in expert traditions and is specifically interested in two things: first, how a king can expand his territory, keep enemies at bay, enhance his external power, and amass riches; second, how a king can best organize his state bureaucracy to consolidate his internal power, to suppress internal enemies, to expand the economy, to enhance his treasury through taxes, duties, and entrepreneurial activities, to keep law and order, and to settle disputes among his subjects. The AS. stands alone: there is nothing like it before and there is nothing like it after.

This is the full edition of the early Upanisads, the central scriptures of Hinduism. Featuring Patrick Olivelle's acclaimed new English translation (Oxford, 1996), it also includes the complete Sanskrit text, as well as variant readings, scholarly emendations, and explanations of Olivelle's choices of particular readings. The volume also contains a concordance of the two recensions of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, and an extensive bibliography.

The lesser known and explored of the two pillars of Hinduism--=a'srama and var.na--=a'srama is the name given to a system of four distinct and legitimate ways of leading a religious life: as a celibate student, a married householder, a forest hermit, and a world renouncer. In this, the first full-length study of the =a'srama system, Olivelle uncovers its origin and traces its subsequent history. He examines in depth its relationship to other institutional and doctrinal aspects of the Brahmanical world and its position within Brahmanical theology, and assesses its significance within the history of Indian religion. Throughout, he argues that the =a'srama system is primarily a theological construct and that the system and its history should be carefully distinguished from the socio-religious institutions comprehended by the system and from their respective histories.

The first readable and accurate translation of twenty of the most authoritative Hindu documents pertaining to ascetic ideals and the ascetic way of life, this text opens to students a major source for the study of the Hindu ascetical institutions and of the historical changes they underwent during a period of a thousand years or more. Beginning with an analysis of the historical context that gave rise to Indian ascetical institutions and ideologies, Patrick Olivelle moves on to elucidate the meaning of renunciation-the central institution of holiness in most Hindu traditions-and the function and significance of the various elements that constitute the rite of renunciation. The Samnyasa Upanisads will be an unparalleled source of information and insight for students of Hinduism and Indian asceticism, mysticism, and holiness.