Manuscriptology

[This article contains an edition and a translation of the Varṇakramacatuśślokī alias Lakṣmīkāntaśikṣā, a śikṣā text of the Taittirīya school of the Kṛṣṇayajurveda. This edition is based on three manuscripts and a transcription made by Parameswara Aithal involving the principles of textual criticism. In this article a referential comparison between the Lakṣmīkāntaśikṣā (LS) and the Taittirīya Prātiśākhya (TP) is provided. Variant readings and comparable verses are shown in the end-notes.]

The Gaṇeśa episode from the Mahābhārata, widely regarded as a late addition, narrates the mythical circumstances that led to the first written record of the poem: Vyāsa asks Gaṇeśa to write down the whole epic at his dictation. In the past, the episode was claimed to represent an attempt to promote the figure of Gaṇeśa, a god on the rise. Nevertheless, this explanation fails to account for the connection between the god and the act of writing an original work. A closer examination of the episode is therefore needed, with a view to reaching a more satisfactory interpretation. Our assumption is that the passage should be read as a realistic staging of the questions raised by the relationship between author, symbolised by Vyāsa, and scribe, symbolised by Gaṇeśa. In this context, the figure of Gaṇeśa serves to emphasize the relevance of the technology of writing and its professionals.

In the series "Manuscript of the Month" on the website of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (University of Hamburg) this short essay describes a recently identified 402 pp manuscript, written by Sheikh Ali Hemed al-Buhry (1889-1957) and containing a commentary on the first six chapters of the Quran.

Статья посвящена обзору монгольского Ганджура, сборника переводов большого и разнородного корпуса текстов, авторство которых приписывается Будде. В ней приводится описание источников и генезиса этого собрания канонических сочинений, а также изложены некоторые новые данные, позволяющие пересмотреть сложившийся взгляд на структуру и соотношение изданий монгольского Ганджура.

बृहन्महाराष्ट्र प्राच्यविद्या परिषदेचे १४ वे अधिवेशन पुण्यातील डेक्कन कॉलेज अभिमत विद्यापीठात नुकतेच संपन्न झाले. त्यातील निबंधांचे सारांश

The 14th Session of the Brihanmaharashtra Prachyavidya Parishad was held recently in the Deccan College, Deemed University, Pune. This is the book of its Summaries of Papers

This study investigates the Mongolian manuscript Kanjur preserved at the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The manuscript previously belonged to the Chesan Buddhist monastery of Central Transbaikalia and was brought to the Buruchkom, a first academic institute of the Republic of Buryat-Mongolia (Ulan-Ude) by the eminent Buryat writer Khotsa Namsaraev. The manuscript is an almost complete copy of the Ligdan Khan’s Kanjur presumably made in the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century in Beijing. The article presents a description, analysis and brief catalogue of Ulan-Ude manuscript Kanjur.

Traditional manuscript heritage of Sri Lanka completely consists from palm leaf
manuscripts with exception of some documents written on metal plaques. Both tangible
and intangible segments of the palm leaf manuscripts heritage in the island have been
deteriorated rapidly due to number of environmental and anthropogenic factors including
those associated with tourism. Manuscripts are stolen from repositories and sometimes
deformed to sell tourists as antiques and aesthetic objects. Thousands of Sri Lankan palm
leaf manuscripts have become properties of foreign collections and tourism has played a
major role in this terrible circumstances.
In contrast to that phenomenon, tourism can be identified as a main potential source to
utilize for preservation of palm leaf manuscript heritage in Sri Lanka with its intangible
and tangible components. Positive relationship between tourism and palm leaf manuscript
heritage which is generated using concepts of craft tourism, cultural tourism, creative
tourism and living museums will provide economic benefits, new employment
opportunities and strengthen the national identity in tourism market while safeguarding the
manuscript heritage.

Background. It is well established that handwriting fluency constrains writing quality by limiting resources for higher order processes such as planning and reviewing. According to the ‘simple view of writing’ then slow keyboarding speed should hinder
the quality of keyboarded essay compositions in the same way that slow handwriting hinders handwritten essay compositions. Given a lack of touch-typing instruction in UK schools it was hypothesized that children’s written compositions produced via the keyboard would be worse than produced by hand.
Aims. To extend the work of Christensen (2004) and Rogers and Case-Smith (2002) by examining the relationship between handwriting fluency and keyboarding fluency throughout the primary school and studying the link between word-processed
compositional quality and keyboarding fluency.
Samples and methods. The handwriting fluency and keyboarding fluency of 300 children in primary school were measured. Year 5 and year 6 children completed a measure of compositional quality by hand and by keyboard.
Results and comment. There was a high correlation between handwriting and keyboarding speed and handwriting speed was consistently faster than keyboarding speed across all ages. Only a small minority of children in years 5 and 6 had faster keyboarding than handwriting speed. Results showed that children’s compositional quality was superior in the handwritten scripts as opposed to the keyboarded scripts. Keyboarded scripts were up to 2 years behind handwritten scripts in development. Writing by keyboard does not necessarily lead to improvements in script quality, compared with handwritten scripts. Explicit keyboarding instruction (touch-typing) is needed to develop keyboarding fluency and unlock the full potential of the word processor for children’s writing.

वेदादारभ्य समग्रसाहित्यसमुदायस्य सुरक्षार्थं वित्तकोषाणामिव शब्दकोशानामपि रक्षाकरणार्थं उद्यमकर्तव्यम्। नानार्थक-पर्यायवाचिकोशग्रन्थः श्रीमता सुजनभट्टेन प्रतिभाशालिना कवीश्वरेण निरमायि शब्दलिङ्गार्थचन्द्रिकाकोशः सम्प्रति लोके प्रचारशैथिल्येन अकालमृत्युम्  उपयाति इत्यहमस्य रक्षणे परिकरं बध्नामि। अयं ग्रन्थस्तु शोधकार्यरूपेण प्रकाशितः। मातृकागारे केवलम् मातृकारूपेण स्थितानां बहुमूल्यग्रन्थानां परिप्रकाशार्थं तथा शब्दकोशानामपि रक्षाकरणार्थं मया उपलब्धमातृकाणाम् आधारेण शोधपत्रम् लिखितः।

Even if we discountenance the Egyptian hieroglyphics because of its crudeness, a dominant view in Western discursive tradition that Africa was a ‘Dark Continent’ with no documentary historical sources before Colonialism has been proven to be false. The advent of Islam, hence of literacy and numeracy in Arabic to West Africa from as early as the 10th-century further underpins the argument in favour of a deep root in historical antiquity of the use of Arabic by natives in official, personal, local, trans-local, and transnational interactions and narratives. My paper will explore the thematic and generic spectrum covered by this tradition in Nigeria as representative for West Africa. Moreover, evidence of the use of Arabic-based scripts going back to the 16th/17thC for local West African languages, for example, Fulfulde, Wolof, Hausa, Yoruba, Kanembu abound, and the ingenuity of the natives in adapting the Arabic script for such local phonemes or graphemes for which there are no corresponding Arabic equivalents has been quite remarkable. Apart from the use of Arabic-based script in the popularization of religious texts, historical documentation, utilitarian purposes, among others, it has become a medium for personal and cultural narratives. For example, in writing (auto)biographies, prison accounts, short stories, political pamphleteering, commercial advertisements, and proselytism. My presentation, using diachronic and synchronic tools, will examine some of the processes involved in the evolution and standardization (if any) of this medium of local and transnational exchange of ideas within and across the Sudanic African society.

The article presents a description and textological analysis of a single manuscript folio of the Mongolian Kanjur preserved in the Berlin State Library. The folio is written in gold on a black and blue background and reveals a striking similarity to the Golden Kanjur in the library of the Academy of Social Sciences of Inner Mongolia and the “golden” Kanjur fragments kept in manuscript collections around the world. It contains a fragment of the Mongolian translation of the Bhadrakalpika-sūtra that differs from the subsequent copies of the Ligdan’s Kanjur.

This study investigates the Mongolian manuscript Kanjur preserved at the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The manuscript previously belonged to the Chesan Buddhist monastery of Central Transbaikalia and was brought to the Buruchkom, a first academic institute of the Republic of Buryat-Mongolia (Ulan-Ude) by the eminent Buryat writer Khotsa Namsaraev. The manuscript is an almost complete copy of the Ligdan Khan’s Kanjur presumably made in the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century in Beijing. The article presents a description, analysis and brief catalogue of Ulan-Ude manuscript Kanjur.

One of the Sino-Arabic manuscripts of the Huasi Menhuan in Linxia, Gansu, includes a license that the Arab Sufi Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAqīla al-Makkī (d. 1150/1737) issued to Ma Laichi 马来迟 Abū al-Futūḥ al-Ṣīnī (1681–1766). The ijāza authorized Ma Laichi to propagate Islam in China through the interpretation of the Naqshbandiyya order. The Arabic manuscript confirms the claim of the transmission of spiritual knowledge from ʿAqīla to Laichi as is implied by the inclusion of their names among the authorities mentioned in various liturgical texts of the Ṭarīqa al-Huasi. This article offers a short discussion of the ijāza and considers other Sufi texts reported to have been transmitted by ʿAqīla to his Chinese disciple. In addition to trying to identify the contents of the textual transmission, this article aims to show that the study of Sino-Arabic manuscript culture can deepen our understanding of Chinese Sufism.