This volume brings together sixteen articles on the religions, literatures and histories of South and Central Asia in tribute to Patrick Olivelle, one of North America’s leading Sanskritists and historians of early India. An exceptionally prolific scholar, Olivelle’s best-known works include ‘Manu’s Code of Law’ (2005), ‘The Early Upaniṣads’ (1998) and ‘The Āśrama System’ (1993). Over the last four decades, the focus of his scholarship has been on the ascetic and legal traditions of India, but his work as both a researcher and a teacher extends beyond early Indian religion and literature. ‘Religion and Identity and South Asia and Beyond’ is a testament to that influence.

The contributions in this volume, many by former students of Olivelle, are committed to linguistic and historical rigor, combined with sensitivity to how the study of Asia has been changing over the last several decades. Several of the essays examine the construction of religious and cultural identity (whether among Brahmins, Buddhists, Dalits or Muslims), while others are concerned particularly with problems of historical reconstruction and textual interpretation.

Steven E. Lindquist is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA.

Introduction: Patrick Olivelle and Indology; Major Publications of Patrick Olivelle; PART I. WORD, TEXT, CONTEXT; The Elusive Snātaka; Who Gets to Live Forever in Ancient India? Rethinking āyus (“life”) in the Rgveda; One Yājñavalkya… Two? On the (Questionable) Historicity of a Literary Figure; A Theologian in a South Indian Kingdom: The Historical Context of the Jīvanmuktiviveka of Vidyāranya; The Rhetoric of Secrecy in the Upaniṣads; PART II. CUSTOM AND LAW; Punishing Puns: Etymology as Linguistic Ideology in Hindu and British Traditions; Matrilineal Adoption, Inheritance Law, and Rites for the Dead among Hindus in Medieval Kerala; Punishing in Public: Imposing Moral Self-Dominance in Normative Sanskrit Sources; PART III. BUDDHISTS AND JAINS AS SELVES AND OTHERS; How the Buddha Dealt with Non-Buddhists; Sacrifice and Asceticism in Early Mahāyāna Buddhism; Text and Image: Identifying Ellora’s Jain Deities; PART IV. (RE)CONSIDERING GEOGRAPHICAL AND CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES; Spiritual Practice and Corporate Identity in Medieval Sufi Communities of Iran, Central Asia, and India: The Khalvatī/‘Ishqī/Shattārī Continuum; Digesting the Sacrifices: Ritual Internalization in Jewish, Hindu, and Manichaean Traditions; The Hindutva Underground: Hindu Nationalism and the Indian National Congress in Late Colonial and Early Postcolonial India; Marking the Boundaries of a New Literary Identity: The Assertion of ‘Dalit Consciousness’ in Dalit Literary Criticism; Young Śvetaketu in America: Learning to be Hindu in the Diaspora; List of Contributors

Religions of South Asia

‘The volume is well edited, and the strength of its essays shows it to be more than merely a tribute to a great scholar. Graduate students and advanced undergraduates will profit from individual essays; working scholars will find that there are still great riches to be found in the exploration of seemingly “well-known” texts from ancient India.’ —Herman Tull, ‘Religious Studies Review’