Preface
The present volume of Pandanus includes most of the papers read at the Pandanus international seminar in Prague in May 06.¹ on this occasion a number of colleagues from all over Europe joined forces and in the course of two and a half days presented their findings from various areas of Indian literatures. It was a good occasion to discuss this topic, which seems to be 'ripening' day by day and which inspires many of us to see aspects of literature (and most recently also religion and art) from the point of view of the semiotics of the symbol-ac speech of nature, both animate and inanimate. In fact, these subject ferns infinite possibilities not only for Indian literatures, but also for other classical and modern world literatures. However, we seem to be still far away from the ability to make more general or theoretical observations. We are currently more or less in the heuristic phase of research though we can occasionally generalise or make suggestions which will be useful for the study of the broader contexts and perhaps also for a comparative perspective.
In a sense this volume is a sample of this broad scale of possibilities.
There are a few papers which have more general implications, provide-ang a summary of a certain general picture. Some other papers are of a more specific nature, analysing concrete aspects of nature and them
Nature in Indian Literatures, Art and Religion. May 18-21, 2006. Charles University, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Prague. See the Programme at the end of this volume. Several of the papers will be included into the next volume of Pandanus '07. Some of them are explicitly mentioned below to underline the common context in which the papers published here were presented.
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