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Sacrifice (yajña) is considered to be one of the most mentioned words in the Hindu texts, and Panikkar understands it in relation to the preservation, continuation, and regeneration of the universe in existence. While Panikkar’s interpretation of sacrifice focuses mainly on creation, this article extends his arguments to interpret the Hindu apocalypse as a yajña from four major angles, including the end of a kalpa and the concept of declining dharma in the successive yugas, the journey from the cosmological to the transcendental brahman, entire creation being the food of sacrifice, and the apocalypse as a reflection of the yajña. This study incorporates both śruti and smriti texts.

Among the earliest reincarnation narratives found in India’s Puranic texts, we find the stories of Jaya and Vijaya, the two gatekeepers of the spiritual world. Though there is little in these stories to explain reincarnation in a philosophical sense, the teaching of transmigration is implicit in the stories themselves, for we follow the two gatekeepers through three successive incarnations (along with the three incarnations of the divine who follow them through their various lifetimes).

This article examines significant, yet apparently unnoticed sociolinguistic aspects of the common Sanskrit particlebhoḥand its Prakrit equivalentbho, which are frequently used in respectful addresses in our literary sources. Its specific aim is to demonstrate the important connection betweenbhoḥand members of the twice-born social classes, especially Brahmins, that pertained during a large period of early South Asian history (c. 500 B.C.E.-500 C.E.). The major conclusion it draws is that, at least according to the normative Brahmanical view of this time, both addressing others with the particlebhoḥand being addressed by others with it marked a person as a member of an elite fraternity that was comprised exclusively of either twice-born men or speakers of Sanskrit.

This article examines the structures of the epico-Purāṇic divisions of time (yugas/sandhyās/kalpas) and asks what is joined by the Purāṇic ages known as yugas or joinings. It concludes that these structures reflect a combining of three systems of number—Greek acrophonic, Babylonian sexagesimal and Hindu decimal—represented as divisions of time. Since most interpretations of these structures, particularly yugas, focus on questions of dharma and its decline over the various ages rather than on number, it asks in conclusion if there is any necessary relationship between number and dharma.

Ingais represented in Argentina by six species and one variety. However doubts emerge about the validity of these taxa. Phenetic relationships were studied among 75 specimens belonging to the seven recognized taxa, in order to evaluate their validity. A morphological matrix of 46 characters was analyzed by clustering and conglomerate methods. The dendrogram and the principal components analyses (PCA) show six groups, consequently six species can be clearly recognized:I. saltensis, I. marginata, I. laurina, I. virescens, I. affinis, andI. uraguensis. A key for the identification of species is presented together with distribution maps in Argentina.

Based on extensive research in Sanskrit sources, Mathematics in India chronicles the development of mathematical techniques and texts in South Asia from antiquity to the early modern period. Kim Plofker reexamines the few facts about Indian mathematics that have become common knowledge--such as the Indian origin of Arabic numerals--and she sets them in a larger textual and cultural framework. The book details aspects of the subject that have been largely passed over in the past, including the relationships between Indian mathematics and astronomy, and their cross-fertilizations with Islamic scientific traditions. Plofker shows that Indian mathematics appears not as a disconnected set of discoveries, but as a lively, diverse, yet strongly unified discipline, intimately linked to other Indian forms of learning.

T. Yuga, 38, said his son Navenkumar was diagnosed with two major valves defects and needed RM35,000 for surgery at the Gleneagles Medical Centre here.

This is an addendum to an earlier essay on the Purāṇic cosmograph interpreting it in terms of the principles of stereographic projection: Kloetzli (Hist Relig 25(2): 116—147, 1985). That essay provided an approach to understanding the broad structures of the Purāṇic cosmograph but not the central island of Jambudvīpa or its most important region (varṣa) of Bhārata. This addendum focuses on the works of Ptolemy as a resources for understanding the Purāṇic materials. It reaffirms the broad outlines of earlier conclusions, but by understanding the major concerns of Ptolemy's Geography, is able to provide a far ranging interpretation of the Purāṇic central island of Jambudvīpa. Viewed in the light of the main features of Ptolemy's Geography, Jambudvīpa, the central island of the Purāṇic cosmograph, can be seen as a geograph modeled on the principles of Ptolemy's Geography embedded within a larger cosmograph modeled on the principles of Ptolemy's Planisphaerium—the earth at the center of the universe. Parallels between the seven Ptolemaic climates and the Purāṇic varṣas, the Nile and the Ganges, and the inhabited world (oikumene) and Bhārata deepen our sense of shared tradition as do representations of Bhārata alternately as Alexandria and Babylon.

Beginnings and endings play a crucial role in any text, but they are especially important when the text is devoted to the narration of events; in other words, when it tells a story, as in the case of the Mahabhrata.