Frits Staal

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Frits Staal (born 1930 in the Netherlands) is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and South & Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Staal studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, and continued with Indian philosophy and Sanskrit at Madras and Banaras. Staal was Professor of General and Comparative Philosophy in Amsterdam, 1962–67. He became Professor of Philosophy and South Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968, and he retired in 1991.

Staal's specialized in the study of Vedic ritual and mantras, and the scientific exploration of ritual and mysticism. He is also a scholar of Greek and Indian logic and philosophy, Sanskrit grammar. In 1975, a consortium of scholars, led by Staal, documented the twelve-day performance, in Kerala, of the Vedic Agnicayana ritual. His recent study has been concerned with Greek and Vedic geometry.

[edit] Bibliography

Books

Advaita and Neoplatonism, University of Madras, 1961.
Nambudiri Veda Recitation, The Hague: Mouton, 1961.
Word Order in Sanskrit and Universal Grammar, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1967.
A Reader on the Sanskrit Grammarians, Cambridge Mass.: MIT, 1972.
Exploring Mysticism. A Methodological Essay, Penguin Books; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
The Science of Ritual, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1982.
with C. V. Somayajipad and Itti Ravi Nambudiri, AGNI - The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar, Vols. I-II, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1983.
The Stamps of Jammu and Kashmir, New York: The Collectors Club, 1983.
Over Zin en Onzin, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1986.
Universals. Studies in Indian Logic and Linguistics, Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1988.
Een Wijsgeer in het Oosten. Op reis door Java en Kalimantan, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1988.
Rules Without Meaning. Ritual, Mantras and the Human Sciences, Peter Lang: New York- Bern-Frankfurt am Main-Paris, 1989.
Jouer avec le feu. Pratique et theorie du rituel vedique, Paris: College de France, 1990.
Concepts of Science in Europe and Asia, Leiden: International Institute of Asian Studies, 1993, 1994.
Mantras between Fire and Water. Reflections on a Balinese Rite, Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences/North-Holland, 1995.
Drie bergen en zeven rivieren: Essays, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff 2004.
KA KHA GA of the Vedas (forthcoming).

Additional Biographical Source: Frits Staal. "There Is No Religion There." Pp. 52-75 in The Craft of Religious Studies, edited by Jon R. Stone. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.