If not peerless as an Indologist, Pandurang Vaman Kane (1880-1972) may have barely a few equals. A legitimate recipient of many, many enviable awards, including the ‘Bharat Ratna’ – the highest national honour in India, he was the distinguished Sanskritist, National Professor of Indology, Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University, Member of Parliament (nominated), and entitled ‘Mahamahopadhyaya’. And was a prolific author too – his literary writings in English, Marathi and Sanskrit having been estimated to run across nearly 15,000 printed pages. Yet, M.M. Kane is to stay immortalized for his multivolume History of Dharmashastra: an encyclopaedic, at once authoritative work on ancient India’s religious and civil laws. This volume puts together nineteen of his essays to reinforce Professor Kane’s unique insightfulness into Dharamashastra literature. Discreetly culled from the prodigious mass of his writings, these essays show how Dr. Kane conjures some of the most obscure, hitherto-unnoticed sources not just to dispel widely-accepted fallacies or straighten out distortions, but (importantly) to project the fabulous legacy of India’s Dharmashastra literature: in both its variegated richness and unflawed authenticity. Pauranic legends to the Pauranic worldview of dharma and sacrifices, from the literary use of the Mahabharata citations to the questions of identity and chronology of Dharmashastra authors, Professor Kane’s collection shows how King Bhoja evidenced the relevance of Dharmashastras to astrology; how far the Matsyapurana is indebted to Kautilya’s Arthashastra; or how, in turn, Kautilya’s classic compares with Kamashastra or Manu-Smriti; and how Vijnaneshvara is positioned vis-a-vis his predecessors.
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