[Buddha-l] The state of buddha-l: a brief report

[jkirk]

Well, Dan,

'sites'? 
cites is the word........... 

Just for the record, before Richard's comment you quote from,
yesterday I had already cross-posted Dominik's message that you
refer to on Buddha-L, followed by my expression of looking
forward to his English translation of a 17th c ayurvedic text.
So observant list readers (not the philistines you imagine)
would already have known about Domink's research since that post
had already been mentioned on the list. The header was _bad karma
causes illness_?

Joanna
=========

-----Original Message-----
From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com
[mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Dan
Lusthaus
Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 7:20 PM


In an effort to demonstrate how silly academics are, compared to
buddha-l's high-decorum antics, Richard proposed to give you a
sampling from the list Indology, which, like its name suggests,
is concerned with matters having to do with India.

The sampling is introduced thus:


> This is just in from INDOLOGY, where Dipak Bhattacharya writes:
> "Personally, I am certain that Papaver somniferum L. is not
known 
> before the second millennium AD in India.  One can see how
confused 
> medical authors are about it, even as late as the commentators
on 
> Sarngadhara's Sarngadharasamhita (ca 1400).  The Sanskrit name
is a 
> transparent borrowing from Greek."

Only a philistine would fail to recognize this is pulled out of
context from an ongoing discussion. Why, one might ask, would
anyone be intereseted in the provenance of a medical herb in
India? Answer: Lots, if one is trying to identify what was going
on in Indian medicine at various times, and how our
classification of plants, etc., does or does not overlap with
Indian classifications of various periods.

What someone who is not a subscriber to the Indology list would
not realize based on Richard's introduction, is that his
misattribution kle"sa is still acting up. The message he
(partially) sites was not written by D. Bhattacharya, 
but composed by Dominik Wujastyk, who is not only the main list
operator for Indology, but a noted scholar on Sanskrit Grammar
and in more recent years has turned his attention to classical
Indian medicine (numerous articles, and a book published by
Penguin, UK). His explanation arose in response to a query. Thank
goodness that sort of information is so easily accessible!

[etc]