This study focuses on the devices implemented in Classical Indian texts on ritual and language in order to develop a structure of rules in an economic and systematic way. These devices presuppose a spatial approach to ritual and language, one which deals for instance with absences as substitutions within a pre-existing grid, and not as temporal disappearances. In this way, the study reveals a key feature of some among the most influential schools of Indian thought. The sources are Kalpasutra, Vyakarana and Mimamsa, three textual traditions which developed alongside each other, sharing - as the volume shows - common presuppositions and methodologies. The book will be of interest for Sanskritists, scholars of ritual exegesis and of the history of linguistics.

The collected essays in this book are the result of a series of workshops held at the University of Cagliari in Italy; this work charts the evolution of key concepts on signless signification of traditional Indian grammar and deals with powerful mechanisms of meaning-extension, including rituals and speculative patterns. This collection brings an interdisciplinary approach to the examination of possible relationships between different cultural and linguistic systems of signification.