Union Académique Internationale

Corpus Iuris Sanscriticum

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Project nº43, adopted in 1987

Juridical treatises constitute one of the most representative literary genres of Indian thought and have propagated far beyond the boundaries of the Subcontinent, exerting their influence on the cultures of Central Asia and chiefly of South-East Asia. The knowledge of this outstanding cultural, social and religious heritage is absolutely essential in order to go into the ancient traditions and the contemporary reality of both India and Indianized Countries. This literature, whose chronological development can be included between the IX-V cent. B.C. and the XVIII A.D., is really outstanding. P.V. Kane in his monumental History of Dharmaśastra mentions about 1.500 authors and list thousand texts: some of them are already edited, some are still unpublished, and some others are only known from quotations. It is an impressive material - rooted in the most ancient religious and social beliefs – whose peculiar features characterise it more as a corpus of prescriptions than as a collection of rules related to the body of legislation of the Positive Law. The work of the commentators who assumed a more exegetical than a theoretical position, not always serves to clear up the essence itself of the Law, nor to define exactly which role the body of coactive legislation and the customary precepts carried out on the laying down the Law, as both seem often to involve and overlap reciprocally. The modern Bibliography, born as exegesis to the texts, or urged to set such a vast material and to suggest an organic settlement of the whole legal mater, is impressive. It is a fact that the most of the minor Sanskrit texts on social and religious Law has been published as independent volumes with different editorial methods. This objective reality and the actual opportunity of proposing a new reading of these texts, on the basis of a more recent documentation, suggested the main lines for the Series of the Corpus Iuris Sanscriticum, in which the texts choice and the editing criteria are rigorously established according to strict principles of critical homogeneity. Since early stage the editing features of the Project were devised with Ludwik Sternbach according to K.V.Sarma’s article “Some new techniques in collating mss. and editing texts”. Such an exacting and arduous task has requested a long organizing phase during which invaluable was the collaboration of Prof.Colette Caillat and Siegfried Lienhard. The Project has been honoured by the patronage of the Unione Accademica Nazionale, Roma (1980), of the Sahitya Akademi, Delhi (1987) and of the Union Académique Internationale, Bruxelles (61st Section, Barcelona, (14-20/6-1987), in consideration of the “nature internationale hautement scientifique du project”. Responsible Academy of the Project: the Unione Accademica Nazionale, Roma; partner Academies: Accademia delle Scienze, Torino, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi; other partners institutions: Università di Torino. The Project was awarded the prize “Hikuo Hirayama” by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres de l’Institut de France in the years 2000 and 2016.