The Classical Moment is a reexamination of the concept of a supreme moment in the literatures of Greece, Mesopotamia, India, China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Taking the case of Greece as its starting point, it examines what such "moments" have in common, how they are created, and what effect they have on subsequent literary creation.

Vedic Sanskrit literature contains a wealth of material concerning the mythology and religious practices of India between 1500 and 500 B.C.E. a crucial period in the formation of traditional Indian culture. Stephanie W. Jamison here addresses the conditions that have limited our understanding of Vedic myth and ritual, such as the profusion and obscurity of the texts and the tendency on the part of scholars to approach mythology and ritual independently. Tracing two key myths through a variety of texts, Jamison provides insight into the relationship between early Indic myth and ritual as well as offering a new methodology for their study.

After a brief survey of Vedic literature and religion, Jamison examines the recurrences of the myths "Indra fed the Yatis to the hyenas" and "Svarbhanu pierced the sun with darkness." Focusing on their verbal form and ritual setting, she essays a general interpretation of the myths and their ritual purpose. Her book sheds new light on some central figures in Vedic mythology and on the evolution of Vedic mythological narrative, and it points to parallels in other cultures as well. Indologists and other scholars and students of South Asian culture, Indo-Eurepeanists, folklorists, historians of religion, classicists, and comparatists will welcome this rich and suggestive introduction to the Vedic tradition."

Vedic Sanskrit literature contains a wealth of material concerning the mythology and religious practices of India between 1500 and 500 B.C.E. a crucial period in the formation of traditional Indian culture. Stephanie W. Jamison here addresses the conditions that have limited our understanding of Vedic myth and ritual, such as the profusion and obscurity of the texts and the tendency on the part of scholars to approach mythology and ritual independently. Tracing two key myths through a variety of texts, Jamison provides insight into the relationship between early Indic myth and ritual as well as offering a new methodology for their study.

After a brief survey of Vedic literature and religion, Jamison examines the recurrences of the myths "Indra fed the Yatis to the hyenas" and "Svarbhanu pierced the sun with darkness." Focusing on their verbal form and ritual setting, she essays a general interpretation of the myths and their ritual purpose. Her book sheds new light on some central figures in Vedic mythology and on the evolution of Vedic mythological narrative, and it points to parallels in other cultures as well. Indologists and other scholars and students of South Asian culture, Indo-Eurepeanists, folklorists, historians of religion, classicists, and comparatists will welcome this rich and suggestive introduction to the Vedic tradition."

The Program in Indo-European Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, sponsors an Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference. The Conference, held on campus every fall, welcomes participation by linguists, philologists, and others engaged in all aspects of Indo-European studies. Contents: Chundra Cathcart: RUKI in the Nuristani Languages: An Assessment; Michael Ellsworth: The First Palatalization of Greek; Randall Gordon: Verbal Arguments and the Verbal Noun in Old Irish; Dieter Gunkel and Kevin Ryan: Hiatus Avoidance and Metrification in the Rigveda; Gary Holland: Active and Passive in Hittite Infinitival Constructions; Mattyas Huggard: On Wh-(Non)-Movement and Internal Structures of the Hittite Preposed Relative Clause; Alexander Lubotsky: The Origin of Sanskrit Roots of the Type s?v- 'to sew', d?v- 'to play dice', with an Appendix on Vedic i-Perfects; H. Craig Melchert: The PIE Verb for 'to pour' and Medial *h3 in Anatolian; Gregory Nagy: The Aeolic Component of Homeric Diction; Kanehiro Nishimura: On the Chronology of Vowel Contraction in Latin Marc Pierce: The Status of the ONSET PRINCIPLE in Early Germanic; Ryan Platte: Pindaric Mythopoesis; Ryan Sandell: The Morphophonology of Reduplicated Presents in Vedic and Indo-European; Christopher Wilhelm: The Aeneid and Italian Prehistory