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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.

Manuscripts --- Manuscripts, Indic --- Manuscripts, Sanskrit --- Cambridge manuscript collections. --- Indian Manuscript Culture. --- Indien. --- Manuskript. --- Sanskrit. --- South Asia. --- Südasien. --- History.

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This volume, the outcome of a seminar organized at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, marks an important advancement in the study of South Indian Sanskrit manuscripts which are predominantly on palm leaf and rarely older than three to four centuries. Nevertheless, they continued a manuscript culture for around two millennia and had a profound impact on traditions of knowledge and culture. After an introductory essay (by J.E.M. Houben and S. Rath) addressing theoretical and historical issues of text transmission in manuscripts and in India’s remarkably strong oral memory culture, it contains twelve contributions dealing with South Indian manuscript collections in India and Europe (mainly of Vedic and Sanskrit texts) and with problems related to the scripts, the dating of manuscripts and India's literary and intellectual history. Contributors include: G. Colas, A.A. Esposito, M. Fujii, C. Galewicz, J.E.M. Houben, H. Moser, P. Perumal, K. Plofker, S. Rath, S.R. Sarma, D. Wujastyk, K.G. Zysk

Manuscripts, Indic --- Manuscripts, Sanskrit --- Palm-leaf manuscripts --- Indic literature --- ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES / General --- East Indian literature --- Indian literature (East Indian) --- Indo-Aryan literature --- Indic manuscripts --- Indo-Aryan manuscripts --- Sanskrit manuscripts --- Manuscripts, Palm-leaf --- Manuscripts --- History --- Collectors and collecting

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In considering medieval illustrated Buddhist manuscripts as sacred objects of cultic innovation, Receptacle of the Sacred explores how and why the South Asian Buddhist book-cult has survived for almost two millennia to the present. A book "manuscript" should be understood as a form of sacred space: a temple in microcosm, not only imbued with divine presence but also layered with the memories of many generations of users. Jinah Kim argues that illustrating a manuscript with Buddhist imagery not only empowered it as a three-dimensional sacred object, but also made it a suitable tool for the spiritual transformation of medieval Indian practitioners. Through a detailed historical analysis of Sanskrit colophons on patronage, production, and use of illustrated manuscripts, she suggests that while Buddhism's disappearance in eastern India was a slow and gradual process, the Buddhist book-cult played an important role in sustaining its identity. In addition, by examining the physical traces left by later Nepalese users and the contemporary ritual use of the book in Nepal, Kim shows how human agency was critical in perpetuating and intensifying the potency of a manuscript as a sacred object throughout time.

Buddhism --- Manuscripts, Sanskrit --- Books --- Buddhist illumination of books and manuscripts --- Sanskrit manuscripts --- Illumination of books and manuscripts, Buddhist --- Illumination of books and manuscripts --- Buddha and Buddhism --- Lamaism --- Ris-med (Lamaism) --- Religions --- Rituals --- History. --- Religious aspects --- Buddhism. --- ancient art. --- anthropology. --- art. --- artists. --- asian. --- beauty. --- buddhism. --- buddhist imagery. --- buddhist manuscripts. --- buddhist temples. --- buddhist. --- cultic innovation. --- cultural history. --- divine presence. --- eastern india. --- engaging. --- historical analysis. --- historical. --- illustrated manuscripts. --- indian practitioners. --- medieval illustrated buddhist manuscripts. --- paintings. --- patronage. --- religion. --- religious texts. --- religious. --- sacred objects. --- sacred space. --- social science. --- south asian buddhist book cult. --- spiritual transformation.