The Memorial Sylvain Levy (Franch)

by Eli Franco

These fortythree papers of Sylvain Levi brought together by the good offices if Louis Renou, fall into two groups: in the one, essays, lectures, course resumes and travel reports which, though without doubt scholarly works, address an audience larger that that of the specialist; in the other, erudite articles in which palegraphy, epigraphy and philology directly contribute their methods and materials towards a history of the civilization and thought of the Indian world. This collection which contains only a very small part of Sylvain Levi`s oeuvre, provides however a faithful picture of it. One sees in it the ardent desire animating him to convey to the Occident Indian humanity. Sylvain Levi (1863-1935) asserted himself with his first publication as the uncotested master of Indian studies. Follwing his thesis on Indian theatre he published in 1898 La doctrine du sacrifice dans les Brahmanas. This analysis of a mythology created as a function of the ritual opens for us the way towards "an understanding from within of athe driving forces of vedic thought and at the same time provides a valuable model for the sociology of religion .