by E. Garzilli

Thank you! I did not expect so many letters of appreciation from you... Starting from the next issue we will publish them -- with your permission. You can also ask to the editors and/or the other members scholarly questions, addressing them to me ([email protected] or [email protected]) or to the whole mailing list ([email protected]).

I am very pleased to announce that Prof. Geraldine Forbes (State University of New York College at Oswego) has joined us as a member of the Editorial Board. I also welcome Carlos Lopez, Ph.D. candidate at the Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies (Harvard University), who will join us as an Assistant Editor. In a few days you will find their short cv on our WWW pages.

The paper published in this issue is entitled "Stridhana: To Have and to Have Not", by Dr. Enrica Garzilli. For the last two years I have been a Visiting Researcher at the Harvard Law School. I have taught as a Lecturer and temporary Professor of Sanskrit in many Universities abroad, and at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass., USA). You will find my short cv and a list of my other publications on law regarding Hindu women (stridharma) under my name, on our WWW pages.

This paper is a re-elaboration of the talk I gave at the First International Conference on Dowry and Bride-Burning (Harvard Law School, Sept. 30 - Oct. 2, 1995). With some changes, it will be published in the book entitled Bandhu. Miscellanea di Studi in Onore di Carlo della Casa, edited by R. Arena, P. Bologna, M. L. M. Mayer, A. Passi, Milan 1997.

The paper deals with the Hindu women's rights to property in India from the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. to modern times. Therefore, it presents a few Sanskrit terms which have been explained and transliterated according to the Kyoto-Harvard transcription. This easy system of transliterating the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet (called Devanagari), which presents many diacritics, into Roman letters is provided before the paper.