New Distributed Titles Fall 2009 - Oxbow Books

asian studies
Recueil de décrets de trois ères
méthodiquement classés, livres 8 à 20
Traduction commentée du Ruijû sandai kyaku
by Francine Hérail
Considerable quantities of decrees were issued in Japan after the
implementation of the administrative and penal codes in 702.
Parts of these decrees were officially compiled in 820, 869 and
907 and recast in the 11th century under the title Methodically
Arranged Decrees of Three Eras, Ruijû sandai kyaku. The texts were
arranged categorically: religious worship, administration, taxation,
defense, suppression of crimes, etc. Although the three earlier
compilations are no longer extant, the more than one thousand
decrees of the later compilation have been preserved, supplying
rich material on the management of administrative personnel and
the difficulties of applying a complex fiscal system. French text.
824p, paperback, 9782600013390, $95.00(s), Librairie Droz,
December 2008, Hautes Etudes Orientales - Extrême Orient 46.
Vocabulaire du bouddhisme japonais
by Frédéric Girard
As a universal religion, Buddhism offers a defining core doctrine
while assuming distinctive conceptual and cultural coverings,
thus encompassing divergent matters and notions. Frédéric
Girard’s pragmatic nomenclature and vocabulary, based on an
ensemble of classical texts, lexicons, and personal readings,
thus responds to the need for a basic work presenting the common
notions of Buddhism. French text.
2 vols, 928 & 800p, paperback, 9782600012287, $120.00(s),
Librairie Droz, December 2008,
Hautes Etudes Orientales - Extrême Orient 45.
92
Of Death and Birth
Icakkiyamman, a Tamil Goddess, in Ritual and Story
by Barbara Schuler
Scholars of popular Hindu religion in India have always been fascinated by oral texts and rituals, but surprisingly only few
attempts have as yet been made to analyze the relationship between rituals and texts systematically. This book contributes
to the filling of this gap. Focusing on the dynamics of a local (non-Brahmanical) ritual, its modular organiszation and inner
logic, the interaction between narrative text and ritual, and the significance of the local versus translocal nature of the text
in the ritual context, the study provides a broad range of issues for comparison. It demonstrates that examining texts in their
context helps one better understand the complexity of religious traditions and the way in which ritual and text are programmatically
employed. The author offers a vivid description of a hitherto unnoticed ritual system, along with the first translation
of a text called the Icakkiyamman-Katai, composed in the Tamil language. Included is a film on DVD by the author.
544p, DVD, hardback, 9783447058445, $147.00(s), Harrassowitz Verlag, December 2008, Ethno-Indology 8.
Avoiding the Dire Straits
An Inquiry into Food Provisions and Scurvy
in the Maritime and Military History of China
and Wider East Asia
by Mathieu Torck
Scurvy is known to be one of the most gruesome pathological
phenomena that, in the course of centuries, has claimed
innumerable victims. Long distance seafaring operations, war
zones, prisons and crop failures all created breeding grounds for
the vitamin C deficiency disease. While the history of scurvy is
rather well-known from a Western perspective, the purpose of
this book is to trace the history of the disease in China, Japan and Southeast Asia and to highlight
the ways in which peoples from these regions in pre-modern and early modern times dealt with
provisioning in their seafaring and military enterprises.
288p, hardback, 9783447058728, $72.00(s), Harrassowitz Verlag, July 2009, East Asian Maritime History 5.
Vasubandhu’s Pañcaskandhaka
edited by Ernst Steinkellner and Xuezhu Li
The Pañcaskandhaka consists of a list of all factors of reality with
their definitions and a succinct summary of Buddhist philosophical
scholasticism as presented in the Yogacara-Vijñanavada tradition.
This small treatise, highly important for the history of Buddhist philosophy,
was known until now only through its Tibetan and Chinese
translations and is published here for the first time in its Sanskrit
original. This critical edition is based on a photocopy of a codex
unicus found in the manuscript collection of the Potala in Lhasa, as
well as on numerous secondary testimonies. It is accompanied by a
diplomatic edition of the text, as well as reading editions of the Tibetan and Chinese translations.
107p, paperback, 9783700161097, $42.00(s), Austrian Academy of Sciences, December 2008,
Sanskrit Texts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region 4.
The David Brown Book Company – Fall 2009