SMC 8
Of Gods and Books:
Ritual and Knowledge Transmission in the
Manuscript Cultures of Premodern India
By Florinda De Simini
India has been the homeland of diverse manuscript traditions that do not cease to impress scholars for their imposing size and complexity. Nevertheless, many topics concerning the study of Indian manuscript cultures still remain to receive systematic examination. “Of Gods and Books” pays attention to one of these topics – the use of manuscripts as ritualistic tools. The topic of the ritualistic use of manuscripts as objects of worship and ritual donation, a transversal one in Indian texts, is analysed through the lens of history and seen in its connections with the ideology of power and the vital quest for monarchical patronage in early medieval India. Literary sources deal quite extensively with rituals principally focused on manuscripts, whose worship, donation and preservation are duly prescribed. Around these activities, a specific category of ritual gift is created, which finds attestations in pre-tantric, as well as in smārta and tantric, literature, and whose practice is also variously reflected in epigraphical documents. De Simini offers a first systematic study of the textual evidence on the topic of the worship and donation of knowledge. She gives account of possible implications for the relationships between religion and power. The book is indispensable for a deeper understanding of the cultural aspects of manuscript transmission in medieval India, and beyond.
Frontmatter
Contents
PrefaceVII
1 Manuscripts, Ritual, and the State in Indian Sources1
1.1 Indian Manuscripts in Art and Ritual: The Case of Buddhism2
1.2 Rituals of Power and Knowledge in Brahmanism23
1.3 The 'Books of Śiva'46
2 The Task of Writing and the Art of Giving83
2.1 The Gift of Knowledge 83
2.1.1 The Introductory Procedures 84
2.1.2 The Manuscripts 86
2.1.3 The Thrones of Worship 93
2.1.4 The Scribes 96
2.1.5 The Copying 102
2.1.6 The Donation 114
2.2 The Corrections 128
2.3 The Abode of Knowledge 140
2.4 On Ritual Readings and Teachers' Salaries: The Gift of Knowledge and its Social Roots 156
2.5 The Books of Knowledge 197
3 Manuscripts, Ritual and the Medieval Literature on Dharma227
3.1 Something New, Something Old, Something Borrowed: Law-Digests on the Gift of Manuscripts 247
3.2 'Vedam non sunt libri', or: How to Give What You Cannot Have290
4 The Throne of Knowledge:
Aspects of the Cult of the Book in Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava Tantric Traditions 317
4.1 The Cult of the Book in the Context of Obligatory and Occasional Rites 331
4.2 The Installation of the Throne of Knowledge 339
4.3 On the Threshold of Modernity: Ritual and Manuscripts in the Sixteenth-Century South India 352
5 Appendix 1: The ‘Chapter on the Gift of Knowledge’ (Vidyādānādhyāya),
being the second chapter of the Śivadharmottara 373
5.1 English Translation 374
5.2 Sanskrit Text 392
6 Appendix 2: Tables of Textual Parallels with Chapters 1, 2 and 12
of the Śivadharmottara407
7 Table A: Structure of the Chapters on the Gift of Knowledge in the
Sanskrit Law-Digests435
References443
Index of Authors471
Index of Works473