Studies on Veda And Avesta

It gives us a pleasure and pride to bring out this collection of research articles, flashing light on various aspects of the natural and historical relationship between two age-old traditions of our culture i.e. Veda and Avesta.

The students of Indo-European linguistics are well aware that these two traditions share something common. It is very interesting to see how these traditions are distinct but not different. Historically these two traditions have proved to be very accommodative and assimilative and still they succeeded in maintaining their distinct identity. The articles in this collection shed light and elaborate such points of these traditions that gave and still continue to give strength to them to do this. Therefore this comparison results in highlighting the fact that the Vedic and Avestan traditions are not two different fragments of the totality, rather these are two complementary parts of the totality and hence can never be contradictory ones.

Our scholars have taken much effort to highlight the areas — such as mythology, philology, ritual, philosophy etc. — to find out and establish the meeting points between these two traditions. We really have no words to express our gratitude towards the senior scholars Dr. M. A. Mehendale, Dr. Satkari Mukhopadhyaya, Mm Faribourz Nariman, Dr. Mrs. Sindhu Dange, Dr. S. K. Lal, Prof. M. G. Dhadphale, Mrs. Nalini Dhadphale, Dr. H. C. Patyal, Dr. Rooyintan Peshotan Peer, Dr. Indu Deshpande, Dr. G. U. Thite. Despite of their busy schedule and ill-health — in case of Prof. Mehendale and Mm Nariman — they honoured our request to contribute to the volume.

Mr. A. T. Hozdar being Chartered Accountant, Mr. Sam Motafram being retired Engineer ~ and Mrs. Roshan Thadani being corporate lawyer, belong to different fields where research pertaining to Indological topics hardly matters. However they are kind enough to share their thoughts with us. The readers would really agree if we say that their articles have the contemplative flavour, which certainly has added to the richness of this volume.

We hope that like all the publications of our Institute, the present one would also receive the approval of the scholars. We take this opportunity to express our heart—felt gratitude toward the philanthropic donars - Mr. Sudhakar Sathe, Mr. Wable (trustee, late V. D. Rishi trust, Pune, founder trustee, Mrs. Prabhavatibai Rishi) and Dr. V. N. Bhide (Washington, ~ U.S.A.) for donating the sumptuous amount for the publication of this volume. Without their help this collection of research articles hardly would have seen the light of the day.

We are also thankful to Ms. Ketaki Gokhale for the efforts she took for the neat and perfect type-setting and that too within a short span of time. We are also grateful to Ms. Vaijanti Dhole-Patil and Ms. Surekha Wagle of Step in Services, for speedy printing of this volume.

We conclude this preface expressing our indebtedness to the Rashtriya Sanskrit Samsthan, New Delhi for their constant encouraging support for our research activities.