Indic Manuscript Cultures through the Ages: Material, Textual, and Historical Investigations

Description

This collection of essays explores the history of the book in pre-modern South Asia looking at the production, circulation, fruition and preservation of manuscripts in different areas and across time. Edited by the team of the Cambridge-based Sanskrit Manuscripts Project and including contributions of the researchers who collaborated with it, it covers a wide range of topics related to South Asian manuscript culture: from the material dimension (palaeography, layout, decoration) and the complicated interactions of manuscripts with printing in late medieval Tibet and in modern Tamil Nadu, to reading, writing, editing and educational practices, from manuscripts as sources for the study of religious, literary and intellectual traditions, to the creation of collections in medieval India and Cambodia (one major centre of the so-called Sanskrit cosmopolis), and the formation of the Cambridge collections in the colonial period. The contributions reflect the variety of idioms, literary genres, religious movements, and social actors (intellectuals, scribes, patrons) of ancient South Asia, as well as the variety of approaches, interests and specialisms of the authors, and their impassionate engagement with manuscripts. Contents Preface Collections Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library: Three Centuries of History and Preservation The Cambridge Jain Manuscripts: Provenances, Highlights, Colophons A Tentative History of the Sanskrit Grammatical Traditions in Nepal through the Manuscript Collections What Information can be Gleaned from Cambodian Inscriptions about Practices Relating to the Transmission of Sanskrit Literature? Codicology (from Orality to Print) Tamil Satellite Stanzas: Genres and Distribution Teaching and Learning Sanskrit through Tamil Pre-modern Sanskrit Authors, Editors and Readers The Poetic and Prosodic Aspect of the Page. Forms and Graphic Artifices of Early Indic Buddhist Manuscripts in a Historical Perspective Typology of Drawn Frames in 16th Century Mang yul Gung thang Xylographs The Other Way Round: From Print to Manuscript Palaeography The Dating of the Cambridge Bodhisattvabhūmi Manuscript Add.1702 On Some Markers Used in a Grantha Manuscript of the Ṛgveda Padapāṭha Belonging to the Cambridge University Library (Or.2366) Textual Criticism A Fragment of the Vajrāmṛtamahātantra: A Critical Edition of the Leaves Contained in Cambridge University Library Or.158.1 Mahā-Daṇḍadhāraṇī-Śītavatī: A Buddhist Apotropaic Scripture Minor Vajrayāna Texts IV. A Sanskrit fragment of the Rigyarallitantra When Lachmann’s Method Meets the Dharma of Śiva. Common Errors, Scribal Interventions, and the Transmission of the Śivadharma Corpus Cultural Studies Vivid Images, Not Opaque Words Umā and Śiva’s Playful Talks in Detail (Lalitavistara): On the Production of Śaiva Works and their Manuscripts in Medieval Nepal Subantaratnākara: An Unknown Text of Subhūticandra The Cāndravyākaraṇapañjikā: An Important Tool for the Study of the Moggallānavuttivivaraṇapañcikā Towards a Critical Edition of Śaṅkara’s ‘Longer’ Aitareyopaniṣadbhāṣya: a Preliminary Report based on two Cambridge Manuscripts List of Contributors Index of Persons