Elisa Freschi Livres

The concept of “Adaptive reuse,” originally from architecture, is applied to various cultural activities, including the creation of new texts and the reimagining of concepts and rituals. The first section presents five case studies that explore the adaptive reuse of Sanskrit philosophical and grammatical texts in works of philosophy, grammar, and poetry. Here, adaptive reuse facilitates the emergence of new forms and content within a traditional framework, enhancing the prestige of the original sources. The second section, “Adaptive Reuse of Tropes,” examines the motif of the chariot across Vedic, medieval, and contemporary works and rituals, showcasing its application in diverse religious contexts. The third section focuses on philosophical and religious texts, highlighting the reuse of sources that are either lost or never existed. This reuse often supports the introduction of innovations into established traditions, with the prestige of the new works reflecting back on the purportedly reused sources. Lastly, the section “Reuse from the Perspective of the Digital Humanities” discusses the computer-based identification of potentially reused text passages in epic literature, uncovering connections that might otherwise remain hidden.

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 Kalpasūtra, Vyākaraṇa and Mīmāṃsā, 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.