Donald R Davis
Biographic Data
| ID | 3686801 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Donald R Davis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Donald R |
| FAMILY NAME | Davis |
| SIGNATURE | DAVIS D R |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8343-1268 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1964 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Pratiloma Paranoia: Class Hierarchy, Conservatism, and Ethics in Classical Hindu Law
The Hindu law tradition grounds its social ethics on an ideological hierarchy of class or caste known as varṇa. The positive inculcation of this hierarchy is bolstered by a fear of social inversion, known as pratiloma, in every area of law and society. Through an examination of the concept of pratiloma, this article contends first that the central Hindu law principle of dharma, religious and legal duty, depends upon knowing and abiding by one's p…
Sex with Purpose: Mimamsa Rules and the Dharma of Marital Intercourse
In this essay, the relationship between Mimamsa hermeneutics and Dharmasastra rules is explored through the topic of marital intercourse. The physical act of sex between married partners at prescribed times is viewed as an essential step in a ritualized understanding of the higher religious purposes or goals of intercourse. The transformation of ordinary actions into religiously purposeful actions though rules and restrictions is characteristic n…
Seeing through the law: A debate on caste in medieval Dharmasastra
It is well known that the legal texts of the Hindu tradition known as Dharmaśāstra vigorously defend caste and social hierarchy. Studies of the nature of caste in this textual tradition, however, have overlooked the important argument that legal texts and categories define and determine caste status. This article examines two major commentaries of the Dharmaśāstra tradition from medieval India and shows how they fit into a wider philosophical deb…
Cities, lights, and skills in developing economies
Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative. By Alf Hiltebeitel
Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative. By Alf Hiltebeitel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. xvii + 747. $74
Slaves and slavery in the Smṛticandrikā
This article contains both a study and a translation of the laws relating to slavery found in the thirteenth-century Hindu law digest called the Smṛticandrikā. By focusing on a single text, we can clearly see the ideology of slavery in the view of one important author of medieval India. First, slaves formed one end of a categorical continuum of workers, all of whom laboured for the benefit of others as they were denied legal autonomy. While not e…
A Spatial Knowledge Economy
Leading empiricists and theorists of cities have recently argued that the generation and exchange of ideas must play a more central role in the analysis of cities. This paper develops the first system of cities model with costly idea exchange as the agglomeration force. The model replicates a broad set of established facts about the cross section of cities. It provides the first spatial equilibrium theory of why skill premia are higher in larger …
Cities, Lights, and Skills in Developing Economies
Buddhist Law in Burma: A History of Dhammasattha Texts and Jurisprudence, 1250–1850. By D. Christian Lammerts
This book is original, corrective, and foundational. It immediately becomes the touchstone for all future work on the early legal history of Burma because of the depth and nuance of its research into the codicological and historical development of the genre of texts in both Pali and Burmese called dhammasattha. It is also a compelling account of the varieties of Buddhist law in Burma and an argument for the academic recognition of Buddhist law as…
The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law
The foundation of Hindu law is the voluminous textual tradition called Dharmaśāstra, the expert tradition on dharma . This book seeks to delineate the historical development of Dharmaśāstra, even though the tradition presented dharma as timeless and ahistorical. The volume establishes the importance of law for the history and study of Hinduism by providing interpretive descriptions of all the major topics of Hindu dharma according to this traditi…
Toward a History of Documents in Medieval India: The Encounter of Scholasticism and Regional Law in the Smrticandrikā
How Segregated Is Urban Consumption
We provide measures of ethnic and racial segregation in urban consumption. Using Yelp reviews, we estimate how spatial and social frictions influence restaurant visits within New York City. Transit time plays a first-order role in consumption choices, so consumption segregation partly reflects residential segregation. Social frictions also affect restaurant choices: individuals are less likely to visit venues in neighborhoods demographically diff…
Titles of Law: A New History of Dharmasastra
The term vyavahārapada has two related meanings: “a matter under dispute” and “an area of litigation,” sometimes rendered as a “title of law.” In the dharma tradition, the vyavahārapadas are the categories of private transactions that can be litigated in royal courts. They pertain to disputes initiated by private parties and are, to that extent, distinct from rules the king might enforce on his own prerogative. This chapter explores the developme…
Toward a History of Documents in Medieval India: The Encounter of Scholasticism and Regional Law in the Smṛticandrikā
a Perennial challenGe in the study of law in medieval India concerns the encounter of scholastic legal discourse and local and regional practices of law.Composed over a period of roughly two thousand years, the notoriously ahistori cal Sanskrit textual corpus called dharmaśāstra contains systematized discussions of all major legal topics, codified and elaborated through centuries of scholastic commentary and compilation. 1Datable, locatable evide…
Toward a History of Documents in Medieval India: The Encounter of Scholasticism and Regional Law in the Smṛticandrikā
APERENNIAL CHALLENGE in the study of law in medieval India concerns the encounter of scholastic legal discourse and local and regional practices of law. Composed over a period of roughly two thousand years, the notoriously ahistorical Sanskrit textual corpus called dharmaśāstra contains systematized discussions of all major legal topics, codified and elaborated through centuries of scholastic commentary and compilation. Datable, locatable evidenc…
Responsa in Hindu Law: Consultation and Lawmaking in Medieval India
The practice of legal consultation, especially petitions for legal opinions or responsa , has never been seriously investigated or even noticed in the Hindu law tradition. Practices of legal inquiry and response are well known in other legal traditions—for example, ius respondendi in Roman law, she’elot u-teshuvot in Jewish law, futyā in Islamic law, and consilia sapientis in Canon law. Following the expectations set up by such comparisons, I arg…
Three Principles for an Asian Humanities: Care First . . . Learn From . . . Connect Histories
In order to express what is uniquely accomplished in the field, Asian studies should be reconceived as Asian humanities and should adhere to three principles: care first, learn from, and connect histories. A review of the history and criticisms of Asian studies as a field calls for a positive theoretical articulation of what the best scholarship in Asian studies does and has done. The principles advocated here are not exclusive to Asian studies a…
Legal Consciousness in Medieval Indian Narratives
In this essay, we make a case for reading narratives from the great story collections of medieval India as evidence of legal consciousness. We attempt to redirect the largely empirical approach of legal consciousness studies toward the literary and historical analysis of Sanskrit texts. In so doing, we move beyond a legal history of India that focuses too narrowly on the texts of Sanskrit jurisprudence. We conclude that such analysis provides ins…
A Search for Multiple Equilibria in Urban Industrial Structure
Theories featuring multiple equilibria are widespread across economics. Yet little empirical work has asked if multiple equilibria are features of real economies. We examine this in the context of the Allied bombing of Japanese cities and industries in World War II. We develop a new empirical test for multiple equilibria and apply it to data for 114 Japanese cities in eight manufacturing industries. The data provide no support for the existence o…
Hinduism as a Legal Tradition
The role of law in Hinduism and the value of law as a category of Hindu studies have been underestimated. After making an initial case for the connection of dharma and law in the treatises on religious and legal duty known as Dharmaśāstra, this essay examines the role of dharma as law in other Hindu texts in order to show the possible hori-zons of understanding yielded by an incorporation of law into Hindu studies. Dharmaśāstra, it is argued, sho…
Intermediate Realms of Law: Corporate Groups and Rulers in Medieval India
The laws of corporate groups such as merchants, traders, religious specialists, soldiers, etc. are examined on the basis of both the normative Hindu legal texts and epigraphical sources from various parts of India. Other recent studies arguing that medieval India experienced an increasing integration of polity and society over larger core areas are corroborated from the perspective of law and legal institutions. Methodological and theoretical pro…
Occupation, Class, and Social Networks in Urban China
China's class structure is changing dramatically in the wake of post-1978 market-oriented economic reforms. The creation of a mixed “market-socialist” economy has eroded the institutional bases of a cadre-dominated social hierarchy and created conditions for a new pattern of social stratification. Although conditions remain dynamic, results of a 1998 urban survey that measured strength and diversity of social ties among 400 households in four of …
Being Hindu or being human: A reappraisal of the puruṣārthas
Dharma In Practice: Ācāra And Authority In Medieval Dharmaśāstra
India and South Asia: A Short History
Occupation, Class, and Social Networks in Urban China
China's class structure is changing dramatically in the wake of post-1978 market-oriented economic reforms. The creation of a mixed “market-socialist” economy has eroded the institutional bases of a cadre-dominated social hierarchy and created conditions for a new pattern of social stratification. Although conditions remain dynamic, results of a 1998 urban survey that measured strength and diversity of social ties among 400 households in four of …
How Segregated Is Urban Consumption
We provide measures of ethnic and racial segregation in urban consumption. Using Yelp reviews, we estimate how spatial and social frictions influence restaurant visits within New York City. Transit time plays a first-order role in consumption choices, so consumption segregation partly reflects residential segregation. Social frictions also affect restaurant choices: individuals are less likely to visit venues in neighborhoods demographically diff…
Cities, lights, and skills in developing economies
Three Principles for an Asian Humanities: Care First . . . Learn From . . . Connect Histories
In order to express what is uniquely accomplished in the field, Asian studies should be reconceived as Asian humanities and should adhere to three principles: care first, learn from, and connect histories. A review of the history and criticisms of Asian studies as a field calls for a positive theoretical articulation of what the best scholarship in Asian studies does and has done. The principles advocated here are not exclusive to Asian studies a…
Intermediate Realms of Law: Corporate Groups and Rulers in Medieval India
The laws of corporate groups such as merchants, traders, religious specialists, soldiers, etc. are examined on the basis of both the normative Hindu legal texts and epigraphical sources from various parts of India. Other recent studies arguing that medieval India experienced an increasing integration of polity and society over larger core areas are corroborated from the perspective of law and legal institutions. Methodological and theoretical pro…
Dharma In Practice: Ācāra And Authority In Medieval Dharmaśāstra
Hinduism as a Legal Tradition
The role of law in Hinduism and the value of law as a category of Hindu studies have been underestimated. After making an initial case for the connection of dharma and law in the treatises on religious and legal duty known as Dharmaśāstra, this essay examines the role of dharma as law in other Hindu texts in order to show the possible hori-zons of understanding yielded by an incorporation of law into Hindu studies. Dharmaśāstra, it is argued, sho…
Recovering the Indigenous Legal Traditions of India: Classical Hindu Law in Practice in Late Medieval Kerala
Critical Evidence on Comparative Advantage? North‐North Trade in a Multilateral World
There are two principal theories of why countries trade: comparative advantage and increasing returns to scale. Which is most important in practice? The large volume of intra-OECD trade is frequently cited as critical evidence on this question. It is argued that comparative advantage, unlike scale economies, is incapable of accounting for the large volume of trade between seemingly similar economies. This is a theoretical claim. In this paper, th…
Seeing through the law: A debate on caste in medieval Dharmasastra
It is well known that the legal texts of the Hindu tradition known as Dharmaśāstra vigorously defend caste and social hierarchy. Studies of the nature of caste in this textual tradition, however, have overlooked the important argument that legal texts and categories define and determine caste status. This article examines two major commentaries of the Dharmaśāstra tradition from medieval India and shows how they fit into a wider philosophical deb…
Slaves and slavery in the Smṛticandrikā
This article contains both a study and a translation of the laws relating to slavery found in the thirteenth-century Hindu law digest called the Smṛticandrikā. By focusing on a single text, we can clearly see the ideology of slavery in the view of one important author of medieval India. First, slaves formed one end of a categorical continuum of workers, all of whom laboured for the benefit of others as they were denied legal autonomy. While not e…
Being Hindu or being human: A reappraisal of the puruṣārthas
Ecosophy: The Seduction of Sophia
Bagworm Moths of the Western Hemisphere (Lepidoptera: (Psychidae)
A Revision of the Moths of the Subfamily Prodoxinae (Lepidoptera: (Incurvariidae)
A Revision of the American Moths of the Family Carposinidae (Lepidoptera: (Carposinidae)
The Distinctive Features of Wantoat Phonemes
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
Wantoat Paragraph Structure
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
Ecosophy: The Seduction of Sophia
Critical Evidence on Comparative Advantage? North‐North Trade in a Multilateral World
There are two principal theories of why countries trade: comparative advantage and increasing returns to scale. Which is most important in practice? The large volume of intra-OECD trade is frequently cited as critical evidence on this question. It is argued that comparative advantage, unlike scale economies, is incapable of accounting for the large volume of trade between seemingly similar economies. This is a theoretical claim. In this paper, th…
The Monotrysian Heteroneura
Recovering the Indigenous Legal Traditions of India: Classical Hindu Law in Practice in Late Medieval Kerala
Bones, Bombs, and Break Points: The Geography of Economic Activity
We consider the distribution of economic activity within a country in light of three leading theories—increasing returns, random growth, and locational fundamentals. To do so, we examine the distribution of regional population in Japan from the Stone Age to the modern era. We also consider the Allied bombing of Japanese cities in WWII as a shock to relative city sizes. Our results support a hybrid theory in which locational fundamentals establish…
India and South Asia: A Short History
Being Hindu or being human: A reappraisal of the puruṣārthas
Dharma In Practice: Ācāra And Authority In Medieval Dharmaśāstra
Intermediate Realms of Law: Corporate Groups and Rulers in Medieval India
The laws of corporate groups such as merchants, traders, religious specialists, soldiers, etc. are examined on the basis of both the normative Hindu legal texts and epigraphical sources from various parts of India. Other recent studies arguing that medieval India experienced an increasing integration of polity and society over larger core areas are corroborated from the perspective of law and legal institutions. Methodological and theoretical pro…
Occupation, Class, and Social Networks in Urban China
China's class structure is changing dramatically in the wake of post-1978 market-oriented economic reforms. The creation of a mixed “market-socialist” economy has eroded the institutional bases of a cadre-dominated social hierarchy and created conditions for a new pattern of social stratification. Although conditions remain dynamic, results of a 1998 urban survey that measured strength and diversity of social ties among 400 households in four of …
Hinduism as a Legal Tradition
The role of law in Hinduism and the value of law as a category of Hindu studies have been underestimated. After making an initial case for the connection of dharma and law in the treatises on religious and legal duty known as Dharmaśāstra, this essay examines the role of dharma as law in other Hindu texts in order to show the possible hori-zons of understanding yielded by an incorporation of law into Hindu studies. Dharmaśāstra, it is argued, sho…
A Search for Multiple Equilibria in Urban Industrial Structure
Theories featuring multiple equilibria are widespread across economics. Yet little empirical work has asked if multiple equilibria are features of real economies. We examine this in the context of the Allied bombing of Japanese cities and industries in World War II. We develop a new empirical test for multiple equilibria and apply it to data for 114 Japanese cities in eight manufacturing industries. The data provide no support for the existence o…
Legal Consciousness in Medieval Indian Narratives
In this essay, we make a case for reading narratives from the great story collections of medieval India as evidence of legal consciousness. We attempt to redirect the largely empirical approach of legal consciousness studies toward the literary and historical analysis of Sanskrit texts. In so doing, we move beyond a legal history of India that focuses too narrowly on the texts of Sanskrit jurisprudence. We conclude that such analysis provides ins…
Responsa in Hindu Law: Consultation and Lawmaking in Medieval India
The practice of legal consultation, especially petitions for legal opinions or responsa , has never been seriously investigated or even noticed in the Hindu law tradition. Practices of legal inquiry and response are well known in other legal traditions—for example, ius respondendi in Roman law, she’elot u-teshuvot in Jewish law, futyā in Islamic law, and consilia sapientis in Canon law. Following the expectations set up by such comparisons, I arg…
Three Principles for an Asian Humanities: Care First . . . Learn From . . . Connect Histories
In order to express what is uniquely accomplished in the field, Asian studies should be reconceived as Asian humanities and should adhere to three principles: care first, learn from, and connect histories. A review of the history and criticisms of Asian studies as a field calls for a positive theoretical articulation of what the best scholarship in Asian studies does and has done. The principles advocated here are not exclusive to Asian studies a…
Toward a History of Documents in Medieval India: The Encounter of Scholasticism and Regional Law in the Smṛticandrikā
a Perennial challenGe in the study of law in medieval India concerns the encounter of scholastic legal discourse and local and regional practices of law.Composed over a period of roughly two thousand years, the notoriously ahistori cal Sanskrit textual corpus called dharmaśāstra contains systematized discussions of all major legal topics, codified and elaborated through centuries of scholastic commentary and compilation. 1Datable, locatable evide…
Toward a History of Documents in Medieval India: The Encounter of Scholasticism and Regional Law in the Smṛticandrikā
APERENNIAL CHALLENGE in the study of law in medieval India concerns the encounter of scholastic legal discourse and local and regional practices of law. Composed over a period of roughly two thousand years, the notoriously ahistorical Sanskrit textual corpus called dharmaśāstra contains systematized discussions of all major legal topics, codified and elaborated through centuries of scholastic commentary and compilation. Datable, locatable evidenc…
The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law
The foundation of Hindu law is the voluminous textual tradition called Dharmaśāstra, the expert tradition on dharma . This book seeks to delineate the historical development of Dharmaśāstra, even though the tradition presented dharma as timeless and ahistorical. The volume establishes the importance of law for the history and study of Hinduism by providing interpretive descriptions of all the major topics of Hindu dharma according to this traditi…
Toward a History of Documents in Medieval India: The Encounter of Scholasticism and Regional Law in the Smrticandrikā
How Segregated Is Urban Consumption
We provide measures of ethnic and racial segregation in urban consumption. Using Yelp reviews, we estimate how spatial and social frictions influence restaurant visits within New York City. Transit time plays a first-order role in consumption choices, so consumption segregation partly reflects residential segregation. Social frictions also affect restaurant choices: individuals are less likely to visit venues in neighborhoods demographically diff…
Philosophy (20 works) · History (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Religious studies (9 works) · Hinduism (8 works) · Buddhism (7 works) · Geography (7 works)