On burglars and making the links: tradition and the re-use of Indic texts

The article argues that, whereas a great deal of exciting scholarly workhas been done on the ways in which South Asian narratives are told, retold and‘recycled’ across different religious, social and regional contexts, to date little hasbeen written on the way in which philosophical and other commentaries makeuse of earlier material. Indicating how the contributions in this special issue startto redress the balance, it notes the importance of looking at the ways in whichsuch texts are constructed, not least in the light of contemporary issues aboutwhat constitutes originality or plagiarism.