The essays presented in this volume constitute a progression from general considerations related to the 'etic' (in the geertzian sense of the word) approach to South Asian cultural productions, to peculiar and detailed investigations of them.

I. Understanding South Asian Cultural Production. In Search for a New Historical and Hermeneutic Awareness; II . 'Pasadin', 'vaitandika', 'vaitä¿ika' and 'nastika'. On Criticism, Dissenters and Polemics and the South Asian Struggle for the Semiotic Primacy of Veridiction; II. Being Good is Being 'vaidika'. On the Genesis of a Normative Criterion in the 'Manavadharmasastra'; IV. 'na mlecchabhasam sikseta'. On the Authority of Speech and the Modes of Social Distinction through the Medium of Language; V. Punishing in Public. Imposing Moral Self-Dominance in Juridical Sanskrit Sources