SMC 9
One-Volume Libraries:
Composite and Multiple-Text Manuscripts
Edited by Michael Friedrich and Cosima Schwarke
Manuscripts are traditionally studied for their contents: A “One-Volume Library”, i.e. a multiple-text manuscript, has primarily been examined as a series of individual texts, but that limited our understanding why it was written and what role it might have had in practices and uses. Recent trends in codicology have paved the way for a more comprehensive approach: Manuscripts are unique artefacts which reveal how they were produced and used as physical objects. While multiple-text manuscripts codicologically are to be considered as production units, i.e. they were originally planned and realized in order to carry more than one text, composites consist of formerly independent codicological units and were put together at a later stage with intentions that might be completely different from those of its original parts. Both sub-types of manuscripts are still called “miscellanies”, a term relating to the texts only. The codicological difference is important for reconstructing why and how these manuscripts which in many cases resemble (or contain) a small library were produced and used.
Contributions on the manuscript cultures of China, India, Africa, the Islamic world and European traditions lead not only to the conclusion that “one-volume libraries” have been produced in many manuscript cultures, but allow also for the identification of certain types of uses.
Frontmatter
Contents
Introduction - Manuscripts as Evolving Entities1
by Michael Friedrich and Cosima Schwarke
The Medieval Codex as a Complex Container: The Greek and Latin Traditions27
by Marilena Maniaci
Mravaltavi - A Special Type of Old Georgian Multiple-Text Manuscripts47
by Jost Gippert
From Single-Text to Multiple-Text Manuscripts: Transmission Changes in Coptic
Literary Tradition. Some Case-Studies from the White Monastery Library93
by Paola Buzi
Composite and Multiple-Text Manuscripts: The Ethiopian Evidence111
by Alessandro Bausi
Some Observations on Composite and Multiple-Text Manuscripts in the Islamic
Tradition of the Horn of Africa155
by Alessandro Gori
'One-Volume Libraries' and the Traditions of Learning in Medieval Arabic
Islamic Culture171
by Gerhard Endress
From 'One-Volume-Libraries' to Scrapbooks. Ottoman Multiple-Text and Composite
Manuscripts in the Early Modern Age (1400-1800)233
by Jan Schmidt
Śivadharma Manuscripts from Nepal and the Making of a Śaiva Corpus269
by Florinda De Simini
Manuscripts and Practices: Investigating the Tibetan Chan Compendium
(P. Tib. 116)287
by Sam van Schaik
The Textual Form of Knowledge: Occult Miscellanies in Ancient and Medieval
Chinese Manuscripts, 4th Century BCE to 10th Century CE305
by Donald Harper
Composite Manuscripts in Medieval China: The Case of Scroll P.3720 from Dunhuang355
by Imre Galambos
Index379