NETamil, the EPHE, and the CSMC present the following workshop

Transcription

1 NETamil, the EPHE, and the CSMC present the following workshop The Syntax of South, Southeast and Central Asian Colophons: A First Step Towards a Comparative and Historical Study of Manuscripts in the Poṭhi Format First Day, October 11, October at the CSMC in Hamburg 10.15h-10.45h Nalini Balbir, Giovanni Ciotti, and Martin Delhey Welcoming and Introductory Remarks Chair: Giovanni Ciotti 10.45h-11.30h 11.30h-11.45h 11.45h-12.30h 12.30h-14.30h Stefan Baums (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Ludwig Maximilians Universität München) Colophons and Related Phenomena in Manuscripts and Inscriptions of the Indian Northwest Nalini Balbir (EPHE, Paris) Colophons in Jain palmleaf and paper manuscripts from Medieval Western India Lunch break Chair: Nalini Balbir 14.30h-15.15h 15.15h-16.00h 16.00h-16.45h Martin Delhey (CSMC, University of Hamburg) Colophons in Buddhist Palm-leaf Manuscripts from Eastern India and Nepal between c and 1200 CE Thibaut d Hubert (University of Chicago) Language and script in the colophons of the manuscripts of eastern Bengal

2 16.45h-17.30h Georges-Jean Pinault (EPHE, PSL, Paris) Colophons in Tocharian manuscripts, and comparison with manuscripts in other Buddhist languages of Central Asia 19.00h dinner (restaurant Balutschi, Grindelallee 31) Second Day, October 12, 2018 Chair: Eva Wilden 10.00h-10.45h 10.45h-11.30h 11.30h-12.00h 12.00h-12.45h 12.45h-14.00h Giovanni Ciotti (University of Hamburg) Marco Franceschini (Uniersità di Bologna) Some Aspects of the Modular Structure of Colophons in Manuscripts Written in Tamil and Tamilian Grantha Scripts R. Sathyanarayanan (EFEO, Pondicherry) Paratextual elements found in Telugu manuscripts Heike Oberlin (University of Tübingen) The Syntax of Colophons in Palm Leaf Manuscripts in Malayalam Script Lunch break Chair: Arlo Griffiths (EFEO, Paris) 14.00h-14.45h 14.45h-15.30h 15.30h-16.15h 16.15h-17.00h 17.00h-17.45h 17.45h-18.30h Volker Grabowky (University of Hamburg) In Praise of the Buddha: The Grammar and Functions of Colophons in Lao Manuscripts Peera Panarut (CSMC, University of Hamburg) May It Please Your Majesty: Structure and Function of Colophons in the Siamese Royal Manuscripts of the 19th Century Javier Schnake (EPHE, Paris) Khom script manuscripts from Central Thailand and Cambodia: Colophons with variable geometry? Andrea Acri (EPHE, Paris) Colophons in the Indic palm-leaf manuscript traditions of Java and Bali (16th 20th century) Yukiyo Kasai (ERC-Project BuddhistRoad, Ruhr Universität Bochum) Old Uyghur Buddhist Colophons and Their Characteristics in Central Asian Tradition

3 Third Day, October 13, 2018 Chair: Martin Delhey 10.00h-10.45h 10.45h-11.30h 11.30h-12.00h 12.00h-12.45h Dorji Wangchuk (University of Hamburg) The Syntax of Tibetan Colophons: An Overview Orna Almogi (University of Hamburg) Once Again on the Authenticity of Colophons in Tibetan Canonical and Para-canonical Collections Round table Discussants: Arlo Griffiths, Eva Wilden, et alii. The Syntax of South, Southeast and Central Asian Colophons: A First Step Towards a Comparative and Historical Study of Manuscripts in the Poṭhi Format 11th-13th October 2018 Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (University of Hamburg) Arguably, in the broad field of manuscriptology, the study of colophons is of paramount importance. Accordingly, there are many academic events and publications devoted to aspects of this particular topic, but hardly ever have specialists on South and Southeast Asian and, at least partly, also Central Asian manuscripts gathered to discuss these materials in a comparative way. It is true that a high variety of languages, scripts, and cultures characterizes and differentiates the geographical areas mentioned above. However, it is possible to define a common ground on the basis of clear historical connections, for instance, the widespread use of a particular manuscript format, namely, the oblong poṭhi format, which in Tibet, South India and mainland Southeast Asia has even been more or less exclusively used until modern times. Noteworthy is also the pivotal role of Buddhism in the spread of Indian-type manuscript cultures beyond the confines of the South Asian subcontinent. The expression syntax of colophons in the title of this workshop refers to the questions of which basic elements can be distinguished in colophons (e.g. dates, names of scribes, places of copying, scribal maxims and other formulaic expressions in the case of scribal colophons) and in which order they are arranged. We also include formulas which signify that the text or one of its sections is completed (in this case, one may use labels such as sub-colophon or chapter colophon ). Worthwhile are also attempts to distinguish and characterize heterogeneous colophons in the end of manuscripts or xylographs, in particular colophons of different actors involved in text production and transmission, and examinations of their arrangement, interplay and degrees of authenticity. One further interesting aspect of the study of colophons is linguistic differences that occur between the language of the copied text and that of its colophon(s) the latter are often less standardised than the former,for instance because of influence of vernaculars and varying levels of education of scribes or other authors of colophons. We also welcome side glances on relevant textual materials found in inscriptions, which can be compared with what we find in colophons. We invite presentations that can offer an overview on the formulation and composition of colophons, highlighting their most typical features in a way that allows comparisons with manuscripts produced in the various sub-domains of the Indic cultural sphere.

4 Titles and Abstracts Colophons and Related Phenomena in Manuscripts and Inscriptions of the Indian Northwest Stefan Baums (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Ludwig Maximilians Universität München) The earliest preserved manuscripts of South Asia hail from Buddhist monasteries in the region of Greater Gandhāra (modern Pakistan and Afghanistan). They date from between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE and are written on birch bark scrolls in Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script. From the fourth century onwards until the end of the first millennium, the Buddhist manuscript culture of the region continued in the medium of palm leaf pothis in Sanskrit language and various forms of the Brāhmī script. The major findspots include Swat, Bajaur and Hadda for the earlier period, and Gilgit and Bamiyan for the later, with continuous exports of manuscripts along the Silk Road stimulating local manuscript production in Central Asia. We currently know three colophons from Gāndhārī scrolls (where they were attached to the very top or bottom of a scroll and thus usually lost): one from the Khotan Dharmapada, one from a commentary on early Buddhist verses, and one from a Prajñāpāramitā manuscript. The first part of the present paper will introduce them, compare their syntax, and compare them with related text types in the corpus of Gāndhārī donative and dedicatory inscriptions. The second part of the paper will trace the development of Buddhist manuscript colophons in the Indian Northwest into the Sanskrit period and, for the case of Gilgit in particular, again draw comparisons with epigraphic types. Finally, for both periods in question, consideration will be given to intermediate colophon like text elements at the ends of chapters, and the palaeographic and linguistic peculiarities of colophons and other paratext compared to the main text of a manuscript. Colophons in Jain palmleaf and paper manuscripts from Medieval Western India Nalini Balbir (EPHE, Paris) Even if manuscripts produced among Jain Śvetāmbaras in Gujarat and Rajasthan from the 12th c. onward do not systematically end with a colophon, a large number of them do offer ample material for an exploration which I have been trying to develop in recent years. The topics that can be addressed are, for instance: the language of the colophons (scholarly Sanskrit in verse-praśastis versus hybridity as the scribe may use his primary vernacular language different from that of the text copied); the social backgrounds of the scribes; the purpose of copying; the intended readership; the connections with related literary genres, such as inscriptions, especially in cases where the colophons record names of full families keen on displaying their piety through manuscriptcommissioning as they do for images-commissioning in inscriptions. This agenda will be carried out through examples belonging to different periods. The colophons of palm-leaf manuscripts, in particular, show a clear desire to emphasize the importance of manuscript culture, a fact which had become obvious at the peak of paper manuscript production.

5 Colophons in Buddhist Palm-leaf Manuscripts from Eastern India and Nepal between c and 1200 CE Martin Delhey (CSMC, University of Hamburg) The paper will try to give an overview of the types and syntax of colophons in the manuscripts specified in the title. For various reasons, this overview cannot claim to be based on the complete set of extant such manuscripts. Instead, the talk will offer a full examination of various significant groups within the total of surviving manuscripts. One of these groups will consist of the manuscripts recently identified by the presenter and Harunaga Isaacson as hailing certainly, probably or possibly from the monastery of Vikramaśīla. Further groups will be specified in the beginning of the talk. If necessary, occasionally additional phenomena met with in manuscripts not belonging to these selections will be taken into consideration. Language and script in the colophons of the manuscripts of eastern Bengal Thibaut d Hubert (University of Chicago) Bengal was home to manuscript traditions characterized by the various combinations of writing material, format, script, and language. This diversity is particularly striking in the later period (c. 18th-19th AD) in eastern Bengal, which is the region that I propose to focus on in my contribution. I will first provide a general overview of the manuscript traditions in Bengal and some comments on the typology of colophons based on recent studies by Bengali scholars. I will then turn to the specific case of the use of various languages (Bengali, Sanskrit, and Persian) and scripts (Bengali, Sylhet Nagari, nasta liq) in the paratext of vernacular texts and in colophons in particular. We will observe the link between the choice of a given language or script and the religious obedience and professional activity of the copyist, the recourse to formulas, and the use of the space provided by the paratext to record a variety of biographical data and other information that shed light on the sociology of reading during a period of deep changes brought about by print culture and the standardization of vernacular education. Colophons in Tocharian manuscripts, and comparison with manuscripts in other Buddhist languages of Central Asia Georges-Jean Pinault (EPHE, PSL, Paris) Colophons are rarely preserved in Tocharian manuscripts, since the final leaves of the manuscripts have been often destroyed or lost. Nevertheless, the remaining instances have some interesting features and can give the basis for a description and comparison with colophons in other Buddhist manuscripts from Central Asia. A particular instance is offered by the colophons of the chapters of the drama about Maitreyasamiti in Tocharian A, which can be compared by the parallel colophons in the Old Uyghur text Maitrisimit nom bitig, which is translated from Tocharian. In addition to the name of author and translator, these colophons contain the name and number of the chapter, etc. Several colophons have been transmitted with a text containing the names of the donors who have sponsored the copy of the manuscript. This mention is of course accompanied by wishes and words of praise. A special type, which was certainly quite significant for the readers of the text, was the practice of writing the colophon in verse. This fact is probably related to the general development of praise poetry in Tocharian.

6 Some Aspects of the Modular Structure of Colophons in Manuscripts Written in Tamil and Tamilian Grantha Scripts Giovanni Ciotti (University of Hamburg) and Marco Franceschini (University of Bologna) Over the last four years, within the frame of the NETamil Project, we have been carrying out a research on the colophons found in manuscripts written in Tamil and Tamilian Grantha scripts. The first outcomes of our research were presented in a long article published in 2016, which was based on 45 colophons. Since then we have collected and examined a great deal of new material: the number of colophons in our database is now well above 700. This presentation aims to outline the main modules that most commonly appear in the colophons of our database. The first module is that concerning dates. We will present a comprehensive statistical summary of the abundant material we have collected and analysed. The overview will also touch upon a topic which is rarely investigated, i.e. wrong dates or rather: dates which have no correspondence in the Gregorian calendar because one of their calendrical elements is wrong. This will give us the opportunity to shed some light on what seems to be a peculiar and somewhat ambiguous use which is made in these dates of the names of the lunar months, a use which, to our knowledge, has never been noticed before. The second module concerns the people mentioned in colophons. These are mainly scribes and recipients of the manuscripts. Along with their names, one can find mention of their nicknames, families, their alleged place of residence or origin, etc. We will show the rather formulaic way in which all of this information is generally presented, and outline a few notable exceptions. Paratextual elements found in Telugu manuscripts R. Sathyanarayanan (EFEO, Pondicherry) India s rich repository of knowledge has been passed down for generations through oral and written traditions through a variety of writing materials such as stones, copper-plates, birch bark, palmleaves, parchments and paper. Palm-leaf manuscripts form an invaluable part of India s documented heritage. Written in different Indian languages, these manuscripts are scattered all over the country in monasteries, temples, libraries, museums, with individuals and in several private collections. The palm-leaves were used as a convenient writing material. The long, thin palm-leaves prescribed the format and size of the material which was often bound together through holes in the centre of the folios. While comparing with other writing materials used for writing, the palm-leaves occupy an important place in preserving the Sanskrit and regional languages literature in India. Apart from the primarily written text in the palm-leaf manuscripts, we find some paratextual statements in the manuscripts. The paratextual elements such as invocations, floating verses that do not belong to the transmitted material, mnemonic passages and the statements of ownership and authorships that we may call colophons they are sometimes versified colophon or the colophon in prose etc. Such written statements, even though they do not belong to the text which the manuscript is produced to transmit, are helpful to scholars for understanding better about the text and the history of its transmission. I'll make an effort to examine the paratextual elements found in the Telugu and Sanskrit manuscripts written in Telugu script found in South India.

7 The Syntax of Colophons in Palm Leaf Manuscripts in Malayalam Script Heike Oberlin (University of Tübingen) This presentation tries to summarize and highlight the most typical features in formulation and composition of colophons as well as sub-colophons or chapter colophons occurring in palm leaf manuscripts written in Malayalam script, mainly dealing with Sanskrit theatre and its performance in Kerala. The objects of study either contain the text of the play (in Sanskrit and various Prakrit dialects), or stage manuals (in Malayalam, with Sanskrit quotes), or additional collections of texts (mainly verses in Sanskrit, intermixed with Malayalam). Interesting in this context is the fusion of the languages Sanskrit and Malayalam, especially when it comes to the colophons: Which language is used to denote which kind of information? Which particulars are given in which way for which kind of text or compilation? Which formulas and special signs are used to denote that the text as a whole or one of its sections is completed? As a special sample a colophon that provides remarkably detailed information, especially about the time and place of its completion, will be analysed item by item. In Praise of the Buddha: The Grammar and Functions of Colophons in Lao Manuscripts Volker Grabowky (University of Hamburg) Manuscripts in the Lao cultural domain which includes also large parts of northeastern Thailand are mostly inscribed with a stylus on palm-leaf sheets of rectangular shape varying in length. The vast majority of Lao manuscripts contain religious texts written in a regional variant of the Dhamma script that has been widely used in the upper and middle Mekong river basins since the fifteenth century. Colophons show up either at the end of the text from which it is visually separated by a blank line or by the use of smaller-sized letters, or they appear on the recto side of an additional folio. In most cases they contain valuable information about the exact date and even daytime when the scribe completed the writing of his manuscript, the names of the scribes and donors (i.e. sponsors) and sometimes even the places where the writing took place and the professional and social background of scribes and sponsors. Based on three corpora of palm-leaf manuscripts from monastic repositories in the ancient Lao capital of Luang Prabang, this presentation seeks to sharpen our understanding of the cooperation between scribes and donors/ but also among different donors in the making of manuscripts. Special attention is given to the structure and contents as well as the language of the colophons which follow certain patterns of a Buddhist colophon that seem to have remained rather stable over the centuries, notwithstanding differences in length and occasional idiosyncrasies with regard to the donor s or scribe s personal wishes for a favorable rebirth resulting from the his or her meritorious deed. Frequently appearing formulaic expressions and special terms in the Lao vernacular as well as in Pali are analysed in a diachronic perspective. May It Please Your Majesty: Structure and Function of Colophons in the Siamese Royal Manuscripts of the 19th Century Peera Panarut (CSMC, University of Hamburg) Colophons found either at the beginning of Siamese manuscripts, sometimes also called prefaces, or, more rarely, at their end reveal a great deal of information about the history of both manuscripts and texts. This means dates, names of scribes or donors, as well as the places where the manuscripts were crafted such as, for instances, royal palaces and monasteries.

8 This study focuses mainly on the cases of the manuscripts belonging to the royal collection of the royal palace of Bangkok from the late 18th to the 19th centuries, since they provide colophons that are better structured than those from minor palaces or monasteries. These colophons provide information about the date of production of the manuscripts, the names or titles of the royal scribes, proofreaders or illustrators, etc. The use of the royal language, i.e. royal pronouns and phrases such as May it please your majesty, are commonly found in the royal colophons, indicating that they were meant for the King. Furthermore, these colophons of the royal scribes do not only reveal the fact that the manuscripts originated from the royal palace, but also cast light on the organization within the Royal Scribes' Department, which played one of the most important roles in the royal court, but for the documentation of which very little information survives. In some cases, the colophons also reflect the various tasks of the royal scribes other than copying texts, in addition to the cooperation with the other departments of the royal court. Khom script manuscripts from Central Thailand and Cambodia: Colophons with variable geometry? Javier Schnake (EPHE, Paris) Buddhist traditions from Southeast Asia (actual Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia) make use of Pali as their sacred language. Although sharing a common religious literature, they use different scripts to transcribe it as this trans-regional language does not possess a proper syllabary. Each tradition adapted its own syllabary to Indic language and its phonetic peculiarities, but they also developed through time their own savoir-faire in terms of producing manuscripts, providing distinctly arranging for the features of their colophons. Based on the survey of different Pali manuscripts catalogues, this work aims to clarify the organization and syntax of colophons as they appear in codices written in khom script from Central Thailand and Cambodia. If we compare with other Buddhist Pali traditions, the copyists have used the colophon in a very practical way: data further refer to the formal aspects of the manuscript copy, rather than the circumstances that led to the elaboration of the copy itself; moreover, the location within the manuscripts of colophons related information is not clearly defined. Colophons in the Indic palm-leaf manuscript traditions of Java and Bali (16th 20th century) Andrea Acri (EPHE, Paris) In his monumental work on Old Javanese literature, P.J. Zoetmulder dedicated a single page to manuscript colophons, noting that this field has still to be explored (1974: 47). To this day, the systematic study of colophons in Indic palm-leaf manuscripts from Java and Bali is still in its infancy. My presentation will describe select emblematic cases of colophons found in Old Javanese manuscripts from Java and Bali produced from the 16th to the 20th century. My survey will lay the basis for a study of the salient and modular features of the colophons of manuscripts stemming from the two regions, and for their comparison with colophons from manuscripts from different regions of the wider Indic world.

9 Old Uyghur Buddhist Colophons and Their Characteristics in Central Asian Tradition Yukiyo Kasai (ERC-Project BuddhistRoad, Ruhr Universität Bochum) After their conversion to Buddhism in Eastern Tianshan ( 天山 ) area in Central Asia, the Uyghurs, a Turkic speaking tribe, produced a considerable amount of Buddhist texts in their language, Old Uyghur. Only a small part of those materials came down to us by chance, but it is still enough to tell us the rich Buddhist culture of the Uyghurs. The colophons can be counted as one of those sources which inform us the real activities of the Uyghur Buddhists. It is known that most of the Old Uyghur donors colophons were written following the same formula, which was established under the influence of at least two different types of Chinese Buddhist texts. In this context, a close relationship with Chinese Buddhism in Dunhuang, a Buddhist center in North-West China probably played a significant role. The date of the Old Uyghur Buddhist colophons stretches from 10th to 14th century, and during this period, the Uyghurs experienced various changes. Especially because of the establishment of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, the Uyghurs came into the contacts with different ethnic groups for many of which Buddhism was a dominant religion. Those changes are partly reflected in colophons, too. In my talk, the establishment and the changes of the formula and the contents of Old Uyghur colophons are presented and discussed in comparison with colophons in other Central Asian languages. The Syntax of Tibetan Colophons: An Overview Dorji Wangchuk (University of Hamburg) Tibetologists have long recognized the usefulness of colophons in studying the Tibetan textual tradition. Nonetheless, to my knowledge, a systematic study of Tibetan colophons still remains a desideratum. In this presentation, an attempt will be made to discuss some points pertinent to Tibetan colophons. I intend to (1) define the term colophon in the Tibetan context, and discuss (2) the Tibetan general and specific terms for colophon, (3) the various types of Tibetan colophons, (4) the colophon s structures, features, and contents, and (5) whether colophons can be found in all literary genres of Tibetan literature. Once Again on the Authenticity of Colophons in Tibetan Canonical and Para-canonical Collections Orna Almogi (University of Hamburg) I have already touched upon the issue of authenticity of colophons in the Tibetan Canon and the para-canonical Collection of Ancient Tantras in previous publications by focusing on several examples of specific author/authorship colophons as well as translator/translation colophons. In the present paper I wish to touch upon the topic of authenticity of colophons in broader terms at the backdrops of their importance, and in fact their role, as shaper of certain realities on the ground that is, realities concerning issues such as scripturalization, canonization, sectarian rivalries, and social status and prestige and their impact on the history of the transmission of the pertinent works. This will be done by examining and comparing a number of colophons, various catalogues, and other historical sources.