Papers presented at the National Seminar on Palm-leaf and other Manuscripts in Indian languages, held on 11-13 January, 1995 at Pondicherry University.

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

Script and writing were among the most important inventions in human history, and until the invention of printing, the handwritten book was the primary medium of literary and cultural transmission. Although the study of manuscripts is already quite advanced for many regions of the world, no unified discipline of ‘manuscript studies’ has yet evolved which is capable of treating handwritten books from East Asia, India and the Islamic world equally alongside the European manuscript tradition. This book, which aims to begin the interdisciplinary dialogue needed to arrive at a truly systematic and comparative approach to manuscript cultures worldwide, brings together papers by leading researchers concerned with material, philological and cultural aspects of different manuscript traditions.

Reproduction of a portion of an Oriya manuscript of the Bhāgabata illustrated by Brajanātha Baḍajenā, 1730-1795?; with text by his son Ghanaśyām, 18th cent.; critically edited with introduction and paraphrase.

Epigraphy and NumismaticsDescriptionVolume IV, Epigraphy and Numismatics: The Volume contains 34 articles in which there are 23 articles on Epigraphy and 11 articles on Numismatics. The epigraphy section covers studies on almost all the dynasties ruled over the Indian sub-continent and through valuable light on Political, social, economic, religious and other aspects of Indian history. The second section of the book covers important aspects of Coinage found from various regions of India right from the pre-Mauryan times to late medieval times. These articles shed light on the coinage on a Pan Indian context right from the Punch marked coins, Satavahana, Roman, Kshatrapa, Pandyas and Sultanate and also symbols on the coins which opens new vistas in the Numismatics study.This volume serves as a valuable source book for the students, research scholars and teachers as well in the fields. This volume also highlights the love and affection of Prof. P. Chenna Reddy enjoys in the intellectual world. The felicitation Volume is brought out in a series of 12 independent books covering a total of 460 articles. Every volume contains two sections. The first section contains the biographical sketch of Prof.P.Chenna Reddy, his achievements and contribution to archaeology, history and Society. The second section of each volume is subject specific.

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.

This Book Is On The Drawings In The Palmleaf Manuscripts Of Orissa Drawn By The Scribes-Artists Who; Had No Family Background Of Art, No Training From Any Teacher.These Drawings Are Not Drawn By Pen Or Pencil But Etched By The Help Of An Iron Needle Called Style On Dry Palmleaves.They Are Based On The Text Of The Manuscripts And The Artists Have Shown Their Individuality In Their Drawings. They Are Successful In Expressing Their Feelings Through A Few Lines, Which They Have Drawn Spontaneously, But Precisely Within A Limited Space Of One To Two Inches (Which Is The Breadth Of The Palmleaf).

This book provides a general survey of all the inscriptional material in the Sanskrit, Prakrit, and modern Indo-Aryan languages, including donative, dedicatory, panegyric, ritual, and literary texts carved on stone, metal, and other materials. This material comprises many thousands of documents dating from a range of more than two millennia, found in India and the neighboring nations of South Asia, as well as in many parts of Southeast, central, and East Asia. The inscriptions are written, for the most part, in the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and their many varieties and derivatives. Inscriptional materials are of particular importance for the study of the Indian world, constituting the most detailed and accurate historical and chronological data for nearly all aspects of traditional Indian culture in ancient and medieval times. Richard Salomon surveys the entire corpus of Indo-Aryan inscriptions in terms of their contents, languages, scripts, and historical and cultural significance. He presents this material in such a way as to make it useful not only to Indologists but also non-specialists, including persons working in other aspects of Indian or South Asian studies, as well as scholars of epigraphy and ancient history and culture in other regions of the world.