Printing Religion in South Asia
A Symposium for the 51st Annual Conference on South Asia
University of Wisconsin–Madison
October 18, 2023
Co-convened by
Megan Eaton Robb and Pranav Prakash
A Symposium for the 51st Annual Conference on South Asia
University of Wisconsin–Madison
October 18, 2023
Co-convened by
Megan Eaton Robb and Pranav Prakash
Anannya Bohidar
Hindu Śastra, Sexual Science or Pornography?: A Study of Printed Sex Books in the Tamil Public Sphere (1900-1940s)
Hindu Śastra, Sexual Science or Pornography?: A Study of Printed Sex Books in the Tamil Public Sphere (1900-1940s)
My paper studies early twentieth-century printed Tamil sexual texts, a genre popularly known as kokkōkam in South India. The term kokkōkam as a genre emerged after the name of a sixteenth-century Tamil sexual text, Kokkōkam or Ativīrarāmapāṇṭiya Kokkōkam, attributed to the Pandian king, Ativīrarāma Pāṇṭiyaṉ (r. 1564–1604 C.E.). This work was a rendition of the Sanskrit sexual text Ratirahasyam popularly known as the Koka Śastra (c. 700-1200 C.E.), written by a medieval poet Kokkoka. By the turn of the century, Kokkōkam garnered so much attention that it became the ur-text for later printed works on sex, sexual science, and didactic and pornographic literature. Eventually, the term kokkōkam became an umbrella term for printed sexual texts in Tamil. These popular sexual texts were often partial and condensed translations, commentaries, annotated, and cited versions of European sexual science and traditional knowledge. And this role was carried by the publisher or bookseller or the indistinct category of the editor that emerged with the introduction of modern print. I trace how, using vernacular language and print technology, the publishers of these ‘remixed’ kokkōkam-s certified their works by introducing prefaces (mukavurai) and introductory remarks (pīdikai) in the books. The publishers used these sections to establish the historical context and views on contemporary socio-sexual and religious reforms. By focusing on these sections introduced by the publishers in the ‘remixed’ kokkōkam-s, I investigate how print technology helped in negotiating the ‘Hindu’ origins of the ur-text within the ‘modern-western-scientific’ genre of sexual science, vernacular eugenics, and pornography.
Rushnae Kabir
Witnessing Love in the Milād Ritual: Devotion, Orality, and Emotion in the Milādnāma
Witnessing Love in the Milād Ritual: Devotion, Orality, and Emotion in the Milādnāma
The intersection of print, orality, and performance is closely witnessed in the popular Islamic ritual of Milād. As a celebration of the Prophet Muḥammad’s birth, the ritual involves the recitation of devotional poetry and prose narratives in his praise. Chapbooks carrying such poems and narratives (milādnāmah) have beenpublished from the mid-eighteenth century onwards and have come to occupy an important place in the observance of the ritual. They act as both an aid and a means for its reproduction. Yet, the true meaning of the words they carry is only activated through a public, performative context. Therefore, a study of these chapbooks must be situated in, and incorporate a study of, the Milād’s ritual performance.
My paper argues that embodied knowledge and socialization are crucial determinants of how ritual book objects are consumed. It begins by providing a brief survey of various milādnāmah from the late-eighteenth and early-twentieth centuries, while paying particular attention to their material features. It then provides a closer reading of two milādnāmahs from the early twentieth century, Milād nāmah aur Rasūl Bītī (Khwāja Ḥasan Niẓāmī, Delhi: Jāmiʿah Hamdard, 1918) and an early edition of the extremely popular Aslī Milād-i Akbar (Muḥammad Akbar Wārs̱ī, Delhi: Nāz Publishing House, 1918).
These two texts, published in the same year, went on to gain very different levels of popularity and circulation. They also emerged from different intellectual traditions. Placing these texts in conversation with each other, the paper explores the relationship of orality, memory and print. Within this context, it also goes on to explore the role of emotion in religious practice, arguing that emotion is both embedded in the text and activated in practice
My paper argues that embodied knowledge and socialization are crucial determinants of how ritual book objects are consumed. It begins by providing a brief survey of various milādnāmah from the late-eighteenth and early-twentieth centuries, while paying particular attention to their material features. It then provides a closer reading of two milādnāmahs from the early twentieth century, Milād nāmah aur Rasūl Bītī (Khwāja Ḥasan Niẓāmī, Delhi: Jāmiʿah Hamdard, 1918) and an early edition of the extremely popular Aslī Milād-i Akbar (Muḥammad Akbar Wārs̱ī, Delhi: Nāz Publishing House, 1918).
These two texts, published in the same year, went on to gain very different levels of popularity and circulation. They also emerged from different intellectual traditions. Placing these texts in conversation with each other, the paper explores the relationship of orality, memory and print. Within this context, it also goes on to explore the role of emotion in religious practice, arguing that emotion is both embedded in the text and activated in practice
Alexandra Kaloyanides
The Power of the Book in Nineteenth-Century Burma
The Power of the Book in Nineteenth-Century Burma
This presentation explores powerful books from nineteenth-century Burma. With attention to the material qualities of Buddhist and Christian books, as well as of books that challenge those categories, I argue that books acted as inanimate guides for understanding immaterial powers as well as animate forces in the material world during this period of dramatic political change. In particular, I focus on books created by and circulated through the American Baptist mission to Burma during the Konbaung kingdom, the country’s last Buddhist dynasty. These books include Christian tracts featuring newly formed scripts for minority communities as well as highly adorned Buddhist ritual manuals. I show how the prominent place the object of the book had in both Baptist and Buddhist communities led to conversion and resistance. Furthermore, I draw on new research into Burma’s natural resources—especially rubies, lacquer, teak, and gold—to consider the way the land’s extraordinary commodities shaped its powerful religious book cultures
Sharmeen Mehri
New Ways of Reading: Printing the Khordeh Avesta in Colonial India
New Ways of Reading: Printing the Khordeh Avesta in Colonial India
This paper discusses the impact of Parsi publishing presses on the extensive religious texts of Zoroastrians. The translations of the Khordeh Avesta and the various Avestan texts into Gujarati had a reasonable impact upon the community in South Asia. Parsis entered the printing industry in the eighteenth century, bringing to prominence printing and publishing of newspaper presses as well. In particular, Behramjee Jeejeebhoy, a Zoroastrian priest, brought about the casting of the Gujarati type in 1796 at the Courier Press. He printed and published the Khordeh Avesta in 1798 from which various editions of the prayer book were read and owned by Zoroastrians around South Asia. The transmission of prayers from Avesta into Gujarati script morphed concepts as well as changed the understanding of various Avestan prayers, especially when comparing minor differences from one copy to another. In addition to working with the changes within the prayers, this paper examines the social use of the Khordeh Avesta, especially its impact upon the various communities of Parsis and Iranian Zoroastrians that resided in cities of Mumbai and Karachi. The printing of this prayer book gave new life and circulation to the understanding of an ancient religion and language that changed the way Zoroastrians practice their religion to this day.
Shobna Nijhawan
At the margins of the Hindi periodical: Marketing Religious publications
At the margins of the Hindi periodical: Marketing Religious publications
In this presentation, I turn to the literal margins of the Hindi periodical and look at advertisements placed by small and large publishers of Hindi religious texts and images in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Was marketing religious publications any different than marketing other types of books or goods and services? Did the advertisements of religious publications integrate into a certain Hindi literary and Hindu nationalist narrative of the time? Treating the extensive unpaginated pages of the Hindi socio-literary and political periodical Sudha (1927-1941s) with its numerous advertisements as an archive, I focus on one type of advertisements, i.e. religious books available on the print market at the time. Embedding this exploration in the question of the transformation of religious communities by print technologies, I suggest that religious books were promoted as educational and religious (sometimes also devotional) material artefacts as much as they were marketed as print commodities.
The purposes of advertising lay in enticing the readers of periodicals to purchase goods and services. For books, including religious works this meant that they had to be presented as suitable and own-worthy. Arguably, the advertisement section offers itself for a statement about ways print technologies “alter the religious views, practices and identities of South Asian peoples” (quoted from the call for papers). More than just widening readers’ horizons in a manner that was in line with the overall objective of many publishers and periodicals of the time, i.e. the creation of subject citizens of a nation-to-be, advertisements of religious publications seem to also have been embedded in a Hindu-nationalist narrative.
The purposes of advertising lay in enticing the readers of periodicals to purchase goods and services. For books, including religious works this meant that they had to be presented as suitable and own-worthy. Arguably, the advertisement section offers itself for a statement about ways print technologies “alter the religious views, practices and identities of South Asian peoples” (quoted from the call for papers). More than just widening readers’ horizons in a manner that was in line with the overall objective of many publishers and periodicals of the time, i.e. the creation of subject citizens of a nation-to-be, advertisements of religious publications seem to also have been embedded in a Hindu-nationalist narrative.
Pranav Prakash
Unorthodox Printing: A Brief History of Maithili Chapbooks in Colonial South Asia
Unorthodox Printing: A Brief History of Maithili Chapbooks in Colonial South Asia
My research explores the rich archive of Maithili chapbooks that were printed between the 1850s and the 1950s. To elaborate upon my arguments regarding the shifting role of printing presses in shaping the religious worldview of Maithili communities, I have identified six chapbooks as case studies: namely, (i) Sudāmā-carit of Harinandan Dās (1840–?), (ii) Mithilā Nāṭak (1901) of Bṛj Bihārī Lāl Maṇḍal, (iii) Nirdayī Sāsū (1914) and (iv) Punarvivāh (1914-25) of Janārdan Jhā ‘Jansīdan’ (1872–1951), (v) Sumati (1918) of Munshī Rāsbihārī Lāl Dās (1872–1940), and (vi) Vividha Bhajanāvalī (1948) of Paṇḍit Rāmjī Chaudhurī (1878–1952). These chapbooks encompass a diversity of literary genres and styles: from upanyāsa (novella) to nāṭaka (play) to bhajanāvalī (songbook). They circulated among Maithili communities scattered over a vast region of South Asia—from the Nīlācal hills in Assam to the Terāī lowlands in Nepal to the Arāvalī range in Rajasthan. Most printing presses that published Maithili chapbooks during the colonial rule were short-lived, and new editions of chapbooks were rarely commissioned. Three out of six chapbooks included in this study were edited and published a second time. Based on an appraisal of their material features, textual concerns and reception history, I argue that Maithili chapbooks served as a new media where traditional and modernist voices competed for legitimacy and where critiques of caste and gender could be expressed in a way that was—more often than not—muted in manuscript and oral cultures. Furthermore, my research shows that although the production and circulation of Maithili chapbooks fluctuated throughout the last two centuries, the radically transformative potential of Maithili chapbooks, as a codicological genre, was quite firmly entrenched in Maithil communities.
Megan Eaton Robb
The Imperial Constellation of Newspapers
The Imperial Constellation of Newspapers
In 1888, Matba’ Akhtar Press in Lucknow published Akhtar Shāhanshāhī, or Imperial Constellation, which was a list and description of periodicals being published at that time in the United Provinces. The author of the list was Syed Muhammad Ashraf, the General Secretary of the Anjuman ‘Imī and proprietor of Akhbār Akhtar Hind. While the cataloguing of the collection in Raza Rampur Library describes the collection as a Savānih ‘Umrī Akhbārāt or biography of newspapers, the formatting of the collection is more reminiscent of a tazkirah. The formatting of the account made the book appear much like a tazkirah for newspapers, despite the fact that many of the periodicals that were being described were not at all religious in nature. This presentation will think about the formatting of tazkirahs in the age of print, and consider how this format was potentially re-purposed to create an account of periodicals that in some ways was symmetrical to colonial digests of periodicals with their descriptions. I will compare and contrast the formatting and tone of accounts of Akhtar Shāhanshāhī with the Vernacular Newspaper Reports of that year; with six other tazkirahs published in the 1880s; and with six other Savānih ‘Umrī’s or biographies of the 1880s. I will also evaluate the language, formatting, decoration, and structure in comparison with six printed tazkirah volumes also published in the 1880s in Lucknow. Finally, I will evaluate whether volumes like Akhtar Shāhanshāhī can be considered as establishing journalism as a farz or duty for Urdu speakers in the South Asian subcontinent, and the extent to which this duty was inflected with religious import.
Rick Weiss
Early Tamil Hindu print culture: revolutionary or merely reproductive?
Early Tamil Hindu print culture: revolutionary or merely reproductive?
This paper examines aspects of the shift from manuscript to print in South Asia in the first half of the nineteenth century. In particular, I ask: What new elements did printed religious books offer readers that manuscripts did not? My source material will be Tamil sectarian Hindu printed books from the 1830s to the 1850s. I will focus on elements that editors introduced in these printed editions, such as prose introductions, commentaries, and indexes, in order to test the adage, succinctly rephrased by Stuart Blackburn, that “print did not produce new books, only more old books” (Blackburn, Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India, 1). Indeed, most early Hindu books in Tamil, and in other vernacular languages as well, were publications of texts previously circulating in manuscript form. This fact has led some scholars to argue that the early proliferation of print in South Asia was a technological revolution, one that did not, however, significantly transform literary or religious cultures. I will test this argument through a close examination of the formats and forms of early Tamil sectarian printed books.
Materials Texts in Post-Print South Asia: Approached to the "History of the Book"
A Symposium for the 49th Annual Conference on South Asia
University of Wisconsin–Madison
October 21, 2021
Co-convened by
Megan Eaton Robb and Pranav Prakash
A Symposium for the 49th Annual Conference on South Asia
University of Wisconsin–Madison
October 21, 2021
Co-convened by
Megan Eaton Robb and Pranav Prakash
JOHN E. CORT
To Print or Not to Print? Jain Debates on the Ethics of Printing in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
To Print or Not to Print? Jain Debates on the Ethics of Printing in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
The Jains adopted print technology relatively late in comparison with other religious communities in South Asia. In part this was due to where most Jains lived in the nineteenth-century: areas in Gujarat, Rajasthan, the Punjab, and Karnataka did not adopt the printing press until later in the century in comparison to Calcutta and Madras, for example. But geography alone does not go very far toward explaining why Jains came late to printing, since there were also significant Jain populations in locations such as Bombay and the major cities of the North Western Provinces, and, for that matter, Calcutta as well, where printing was fairly widespread. At a time when a city like Calcutta had a thriving printing industry, Jains throughout India were still producing significant quantities of hand-copied poṭhīs. The earliest known example of a Jain text printed by Jains (in contrast to Orientalist scholars) comes from 1850. This is a lithographed edition of the Sādhuvandan of Banārsīdās, published in Agra at the Masdar ul Navādar Press by Hakīm Javāharlāl Muhattā for a Jain layman named Seṭh Hamīrmall. We have scattered evidence of books published during the next quarter century in Ahmedabad, Banaras, Bombay and Calcutta. But not until the early decades of the twentieth century do we find a more widespread adoption of print technology, and even then there was still significant ideological resistance to the adoption of the new technology.
The materials for a fully adequate book history of the Jains are still not available, and given the fate of early printed materials in the subcontinent, may never be available. This paper therefore advances only a beginning of a book history of the Jains, and that too only among the Digambar and Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains. It addresses neither the Śvetāmbar Sthānakvāsī nor the Śvetāmbar Terāpanthī Jains. I look at three case studies of the resistance to print, and the overcoming of that resistance on the part of leading “reformist” Jains, both laity and mendicants.
One case study looks at the role of the charismatic mendicant leaders Ācārya Vijay Ānandsūri (better known as Ātmārām; 1837-1896), Ācārya Dharmsūri (1868-1922) and Ācārya Sāgarānandsūri (1874-1949) in overcoming resistance to allowing non-Jains even to study Jain manuscripts in the Jain libraries, much less printing editions of these texts. These efforts were in part driven by a reformist agenda of ensuring that Jain mendicants were better educated, and in part by the realization that prohibiting the study and printing of texts by non-Jains was responsible for the many misrepresentations of Jain history and doctrine on the part of Orientalist scholarship. In response to this, Jain mendicants and laity increasingly worked with Orientalist scholars to better understand Jainism, arranged for the scholars to borrow Jain texts, and initiated the editing (oftentimes rigorously critical) of Jain texts for publication.
A second case study investigates the role of the Bombay-based Digambar publisher, scholar and translator Nāthūrām Premī (1881-1960) in publishing editions of Jain texts in the early years of the twentieth century, in the face of widespread conservative perceptions that the printing process itself was impure and violent, and that allowing anyone to read a Jain text was a moral karmic fault. Premī established the first Digambar printing house, which sold at reduced prices editions of Digambar texts to libraries all over the world. He was also an active journalist, who campaigned for modernizing reforms within Digambar society.
The third case study is closely related to the work of Premī. It involves the printing starting in 1939 of one of the most important Digambar texts, the Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama, on the basis of a single manuscript from ca. 1400 in a Jain library at Mudbidri. Several decades earlier Digambar businessmen from the Deccan and North India overcame resistance to the manuscript even being copied, and then as two copies of it were being made they arranged for a third copy to be smuggled out, edited by the scholar Hīrālāl Jain, and published in Sholapur.
With these three case studies I plan to show some of the reasons—social, ritual, intellectual—that the printing of Jain texts encountered such persistent resistance on the part of Jains for three-quarters of a century, as well as the arguments in favor of printing advanced by the “reformers.” I hope the paper can serve as an invitation to scholars to dig deeper into the book history of the Jains, as there is clearly much about this history of which we remain ignorant. I hope it also can help to highlight some of the broader issues at play in both the adoption of and resistance to the technology of print, especially but not exclusively in relation to sacred texts or “scriptures,” in South Asian book history.
The materials for a fully adequate book history of the Jains are still not available, and given the fate of early printed materials in the subcontinent, may never be available. This paper therefore advances only a beginning of a book history of the Jains, and that too only among the Digambar and Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains. It addresses neither the Śvetāmbar Sthānakvāsī nor the Śvetāmbar Terāpanthī Jains. I look at three case studies of the resistance to print, and the overcoming of that resistance on the part of leading “reformist” Jains, both laity and mendicants.
One case study looks at the role of the charismatic mendicant leaders Ācārya Vijay Ānandsūri (better known as Ātmārām; 1837-1896), Ācārya Dharmsūri (1868-1922) and Ācārya Sāgarānandsūri (1874-1949) in overcoming resistance to allowing non-Jains even to study Jain manuscripts in the Jain libraries, much less printing editions of these texts. These efforts were in part driven by a reformist agenda of ensuring that Jain mendicants were better educated, and in part by the realization that prohibiting the study and printing of texts by non-Jains was responsible for the many misrepresentations of Jain history and doctrine on the part of Orientalist scholarship. In response to this, Jain mendicants and laity increasingly worked with Orientalist scholars to better understand Jainism, arranged for the scholars to borrow Jain texts, and initiated the editing (oftentimes rigorously critical) of Jain texts for publication.
A second case study investigates the role of the Bombay-based Digambar publisher, scholar and translator Nāthūrām Premī (1881-1960) in publishing editions of Jain texts in the early years of the twentieth century, in the face of widespread conservative perceptions that the printing process itself was impure and violent, and that allowing anyone to read a Jain text was a moral karmic fault. Premī established the first Digambar printing house, which sold at reduced prices editions of Digambar texts to libraries all over the world. He was also an active journalist, who campaigned for modernizing reforms within Digambar society.
The third case study is closely related to the work of Premī. It involves the printing starting in 1939 of one of the most important Digambar texts, the Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama, on the basis of a single manuscript from ca. 1400 in a Jain library at Mudbidri. Several decades earlier Digambar businessmen from the Deccan and North India overcame resistance to the manuscript even being copied, and then as two copies of it were being made they arranged for a third copy to be smuggled out, edited by the scholar Hīrālāl Jain, and published in Sholapur.
With these three case studies I plan to show some of the reasons—social, ritual, intellectual—that the printing of Jain texts encountered such persistent resistance on the part of Jains for three-quarters of a century, as well as the arguments in favor of printing advanced by the “reformers.” I hope the paper can serve as an invitation to scholars to dig deeper into the book history of the Jains, as there is clearly much about this history of which we remain ignorant. I hope it also can help to highlight some of the broader issues at play in both the adoption of and resistance to the technology of print, especially but not exclusively in relation to sacred texts or “scriptures,” in South Asian book history.
CHARLOTTE GILES
Textiles as Texts: Chikankari Kaarigars in Lucknow
Textiles as Texts: Chikankari Kaarigars in Lucknow
Textiles are texts to be read. Albeit not necessarily pictorial or including words, as we understand them, they are a part of the material cultures of texts in South Asia. The position they hold in society has changed considerably over time, particularly with the advent of mechanized forms of production; and yet, their ability to convey meaning, however changed that may be, has not receded. The focus of this paper is on embroidered textiles of Lucknow, particularly chikankari, and the histories of production and purpose that may be gleaned from their materiality. Karigars (artisans) are central to this research, as are their own practices and histories of “reading” and “writing” their embroidered textiles. The materiality of textiles as text, in this case at least, is closely tied with relationships between karigars, families, and communities. Behind the technology of print and text (and textile) are these connections between karigars. What else may be communicated through these items because of the materiality of their premise? Does this change if they produced by hand versus machine? This paper attempts to play with the amorphous terms of “text” and “textile” by drawing connections between the two and the larger theme of this workshop.
AMY HOLMES-TAGCHUNGDARPA
Working Texts: Agency and Materiality in Buddhist Book Ritual Traditions in the Himalayas
Working Texts: Agency and Materiality in Buddhist Book Ritual Traditions in the Himalayas
In many parts of the Himalayas, there are rich ritual traditions focused on engagement with, and propitiation of, books. Buddhist communities will invite lamas, ritual specialists, and monastics to their homes for periodic performances of Buddhist text recitation. These ritual traditions are important as an opportunity for laypeople to engage in meritorious activity through their sponsorship of expert readers, who are sought after for their speed, accuracy and knowledge of the texts that are often parts of the classical Tibetan language Buddhist canon (Tibetan: bka' 'gyur and bstan 'gyur). Some reading specialists travel in groups, sponsored for their ability as a group to complete the reading in short amounts of time around the busy schedules of patrons. During annual circumambulation rituals, parts of the canon are taken out from monastic institutions and carried by Buddhist communities around their homes and fields. These processions bless and benefit not only the humans, not nonhuman residents of the region. And the canon remains powerful even when it takes different form. Parts of the canon can be folded or rolled up and inserted into statues and other material objects that are known as sacred supports (Tibetan: rten), and the presence of the text is part of what renders the object as consecrated and awakened.
In all of these book-centered rituals, agency is complex, as these books are not inanimate objects, but are transformed into active, powerful agents worthy of respect and care within human communities. The materiality of these books may be diverse in their format; some are older blockprints that belong to the patron and have been passed down through families; some are new word processed-copies that have been purchased from Buddhist stores or given to families by international Buddhist organizations in Bodh Gaya; some are borrowed from neighbors and friends. But no matter their appearance, the presence of letters and texts associated with the Buddha render these books as efficacious. In this paper, I will draw on textual and ethnographic research into books to consider how these rituals facilitate relationality between nonhuman and human agents, and how their materiality impacts the motives and meanings behind ritual interactions, and the work of texts, between humans and textual agents.
In all of these book-centered rituals, agency is complex, as these books are not inanimate objects, but are transformed into active, powerful agents worthy of respect and care within human communities. The materiality of these books may be diverse in their format; some are older blockprints that belong to the patron and have been passed down through families; some are new word processed-copies that have been purchased from Buddhist stores or given to families by international Buddhist organizations in Bodh Gaya; some are borrowed from neighbors and friends. But no matter their appearance, the presence of letters and texts associated with the Buddha render these books as efficacious. In this paper, I will draw on textual and ethnographic research into books to consider how these rituals facilitate relationality between nonhuman and human agents, and how their materiality impacts the motives and meanings behind ritual interactions, and the work of texts, between humans and textual agents.
YASMEEN KHAN
A conservator’s observations on the material evidence of 19th century North Indian bookbindings
A conservator’s observations on the material evidence of 19th century North Indian bookbindings
Having the tools to deconstruct the history of a manuscript prior to treatment is vital for a conservator. An assessment of the condition of a binding starts from the cover inwards to the pages, text, and thread, and yet, simultaneously, the conservator reverses those steps to understand the creative process that resulted in the bound volume. How and where was the paper manufactured, prepared for writing, inscribed or printed, sewn, bound, used, repaired, resewn and rebound are questions that should be answered in order to provide a rationale for a treatment approach? I will delve into the bound structure and material characteristics of four bound copies of Mīr Ḥasan’s Siḥr al-Bayān at the Library of Congress as evidence of changes in bookbinding, taste, readership, markets and use in 19th century Northern India.
REBECCA MANRING
Does Critically Editing Really Help?
Does Critically Editing Really Help?
Was “the rise of the print” really tantamount to the “demise of manuscripts” in Bengal? No. It’s certainly true that manuscripts of many texts have been collected, properly stored, catalogued, published, microfilmed, digitized, and/or critically edited. Many more, however, remain unexamined by scholarly eyes.
One such example is the corpus of Śītalā-maṅgalas, pre-modern Bengali compositions treating the tales of the goddess Śītalā and how she persuaded various segments of the human and nonhuman worlds to worship her. Editors of the twice-yearly publication Daśadiśi recently undertook the publication of three previously unpublished and seven previously published Śītalā-maṅgalas by various authors, along with several scholarly articles in both Bengali and English, and some relevant colour photos.
Since early in the pandemic shutdown a group of Middle Bengali scholars has been Zoom-ing weekly to read Harideva’s text, included in the volume. The editors chose to reproduce that text yathā dṛṣṭaṃ tathā likhitaṃ - just as they found it in their manuscript exemplar. The resulting published version has been both frustrating and enlightening to read as we discover scribal idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies and learn about the paleography of the time. How does this text compare with a carefully critically edited publication of, for example, Rūparāma Cakravarttī’s Dharma-maṅgala as prepared by Sukumar Sen and Pañcānan Maṇḍal, or more recently, Akṣayakumāra Kayāla? What is gained, and just as important, what is lost along the way?
One such example is the corpus of Śītalā-maṅgalas, pre-modern Bengali compositions treating the tales of the goddess Śītalā and how she persuaded various segments of the human and nonhuman worlds to worship her. Editors of the twice-yearly publication Daśadiśi recently undertook the publication of three previously unpublished and seven previously published Śītalā-maṅgalas by various authors, along with several scholarly articles in both Bengali and English, and some relevant colour photos.
Since early in the pandemic shutdown a group of Middle Bengali scholars has been Zoom-ing weekly to read Harideva’s text, included in the volume. The editors chose to reproduce that text yathā dṛṣṭaṃ tathā likhitaṃ - just as they found it in their manuscript exemplar. The resulting published version has been both frustrating and enlightening to read as we discover scribal idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies and learn about the paleography of the time. How does this text compare with a carefully critically edited publication of, for example, Rūparāma Cakravarttī’s Dharma-maṅgala as prepared by Sukumar Sen and Pañcānan Maṇḍal, or more recently, Akṣayakumāra Kayāla? What is gained, and just as important, what is lost along the way?
Christine Marrewa-Karwoski
Illuminating the Tradition: Notes on Wellcome Library's Hindi MS 371
Illuminating the Tradition: Notes on Wellcome Library's Hindi MS 371
Wellcome Library’s Hindi MS 371, the earliest known illustrated codex of Nath, Siddha, and Sant teachings, has proved to be a puzzle for scholars who study early-modern Hindavi manuscripts. Originally mistakenly labeled and sold to the library as an “Ancient Buddhist Priests Ms. Book,” it is, in reality, a 1715 CE composite manuscript that includes not only Sant and Nath homiletics and poetry, but also vamśāvalīs (genealogies) and historical records concerning different Rajasthani clans. Unfortunately the 256 folios included in this granth were bound and laminated in an incorrect order, requiring meticulous research to reassemble the pages in a meaningful and comprehensible way. Having begun this, it has become clear that a majority of this manuscript, transcribed by Tiwari Gokul in the Dadupanthi center of Narayana, is largely dedicated to the sayings of various yogis associated with the Nath sampradāy. In addition to the sabadī of Gorakh, Gokul includes the teachings and illustrations of over twenty other siddhas and yogis, such as sabadīs of Siddha Nagarjun, Cauranginath, Gopichand, Bharthari, and Garibnath. In fact out of the thirty-one illuminations in this manuscript an astounding twenty-three are images depicting Nath yogis and siddhas. Examining the first section of the manuscript, in particular, I am interested in exploring how, why, and for whom this rare illuminated text may have been produced. Who might have been the audience for this book? What can this manuscript tell us about the production of Hindavi pothis in early-eighteenth century Rajasthan?
Pranav Prakash
The Emergence of Colophons in South Asian Scribal Cultures
The Emergence of Colophons in South Asian Scribal Cultures
In my presentation, I will examine the diverse ways in which colophons have been conceptualized and theorized in the study of South Asian manuscripts. Previous scholarship has viewed Indic colophons primarily as appendages that are useful only insofar as they shed light on the authorship of literary works inscribed in the main body of the manuscript. Against this backdrop, I argue that Indic colophons should be viewed as material and visual spaces where scribal communities grappled with their social standing, authority and creativity while continually renegotiating their relationships with authors, patrons, owners and readers. These processes of renegotiation had a direct impact on how the physical bodies of manuscripts were inscribed, altered and memorialized during their variable lifespans.
Ronit Ricci
Sharing A Space: Malay Manuscripts, Books And newspapers in colonial Ceylon
Sharing A Space: Malay Manuscripts, Books And newspapers in colonial Ceylon
Histories of the book have tended to draw a sharp distinction between handwritten manuscripts and print media as if the latter replaced the former quickly and completely. In many cases change was much more gradual, came in fits and starts, and remained a work in progress, at least for some time. In my paper I examine the case study of Malay writing in late 19th century Ceylon. The Malays formed a small ethnic, linguistic and religious minority in British Ceylon, their ancestors having been sent there as political exiles, convicts, servants and soldiers from across the Indonesian Archipelago, beginning in the late 17th century. The paper focuses on the figure of Baba Ounus Saldin (1832-1906), a man who stood at the crossroads of manuscript culture, the book printing business and newspaper editing and publishing. His efforts and achievements in these fields allow for an exploration of how different - at times overlapping, competing or complementing - writing technologies continued to be employed within a shared space.
Megan Robb
Writing With Feeling: Emotions and Calligraphy in South asia
Writing With Feeling: Emotions and Calligraphy in South asia
This paper reviews different genres of texts that deal with Urdu and Persian calligraphic training, reception and reproduction in South Asia, with an eye to reflecting on the presence or absence of the emotions. In the process it becomes clear that between the 17th and the 20th centuries texts discussing calligraphy reflected changing attitudes to usūl or principles of calligraphy among calligraphers and historians of nastaliq calligraphy in South Asia. Debates and interpretations of usūl strongly imply a range of roles for the emotions in training and reception of calligraphy. This paper is particularly interested in the presence of two emotions in literature on calligraphy and its reprinting: shauq (desire, yearning, affection) and afsos (regret). This article also attempts to trace attitudes to usūl, shauq, and afsos across a few specific texts that are exemplars of their respective genres: a rehnumah or handbook, a sarguzisht or narrative history, and an adab al-mashq or ethical handbook of calligraphy practice. This paper supplements these readings with an analysis of how calligraphy appeared in a range of 20th century periodicals, highlighting the previously underestimated role that calligraphers continued to play in the aesthetic vision of these texts.
Graham Shaw
The Unexpected Dynamics of Christian Text Transmission in Colonial South Asia
The Unexpected Dynamics of Christian Text Transmission in Colonial South Asia
This paper discusses the various modes of textual transmission employed by Protestant missionaries in South Asia as a key component of their conversion project. Examples are drawn from the activities of various missions, from the German Pietists at Tranquebar in the early eighteenth century to their British and American counterparts spread throughout the subcontinent and Burma by the mid-nineteenth century. Before (and even in some cases after) acquiring printing presses, individual missions resorted to having Christian texts copied by Indian scribes onto palm-leaves in the indigenous manuscript tradition of the region. They also tapped into well-established modes of oral transmission, such as regular routines of community listening, itinerant professional reciters, annual cycles of public religious performance, and a memorization-based educational system. The transmission of ideology was as much dependent on materialities as upon the attractiveness of the message. Print was not a straightforward choice: it presented as many obstacles as it did advantages, not least legibility, an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ visual aesthetic, Indian fears of ritual pollution from paper or ink, and suspicions of magical powers of 'automatic conversion' vested in the Christian book.
Nur Sobers-Khan
Mass-Producing the Cosmos: Visuality and divination from Manuscript to Lithograph in 19th century South Asia
Mass-Producing the Cosmos: Visuality and divination from Manuscript to Lithograph in 19th century South Asia
Scholarship on illustrated lithographs produced in 19th-century South Asia and their connection to the manuscript tradition is still in its infancy. While art historical research into illustrated lithographs in Qajar Iran has been firmly established by the work of Ulrich Marzolph, the images produced in lithographs in related genres in British India have yet to be studied in detail. My paper explores the genealogy of Tilsimat-i Aja’ib (Talismans of Wonder) texts, a genre that features elements of cosmology and divination, in Urdu lithographs of the 19th and early 20th century in the British Library’s collections, examining the illustrative programs in these texts and positing a continuity with the Persian Aja’ib al-Makhluqat (Wonders of Creation) manuscript tradition. In addition to working toward establishing a basis for the empirical study of this genre of Urdu lithographs, my paper examines the social use of these texts beyond reading, such as practices of bibliomancy and divination, to create new audiences and spheres of meaning as mass-produced cosmological images were able to circulate more widely. Although cosmological imagery enjoyed a certain continuity from manuscript to lithography production, it was accompanied by a semiotic shift that imbued new meaning to images in the mass-produced and widely circulated lithographs. This shift complicates the question of the role that printing technologies played in the ‘disenchantment’ brought about by colonial modernity and the supposed epistemic rupture that cultures of Islamic knowledge production underwent as a result; if anything, lithograph production gave new life and circulation to forms of premodern knowledge that evaded reformist intellectual trends and the disenchantment these trends are claimed to have brought about.
A. R. Venkatchalapathy
From Manuscript to Print Culture in Colonial Tamilnadu: The editorial Lives of C. W. Damodaran Pillai and U. v. Swaminatha iyer
From Manuscript to Print Culture in Colonial Tamilnadu: The editorial Lives of C. W. Damodaran Pillai and U. v. Swaminatha iyer
Dating from its beginnings in the mid sixteenth century to its efflorescence in the eighteenth century in Tranquebar, the history of the Tamil book is the longest and, arguably, one of the deepest in South Asian literary cultures. In the second half of the nineteenth century, print was foundational to what has been called the ‘rediscovery’ of Tamil classical literature. The passage from manuscript to print cultures is exemplified in this unearthing of a corpus of ancient literary texts and their conversion into print artefacts. This transition was marked by the evolution of new intellectual protocols and intense competition, cooperation and collaboration among scholars.
This paper explores the passage from manuscript to print culture in colonial Tamilnadu based on an ongoing project of the multivolume publication of the correspondence of U.V. Swaminatha Iyer (1855–1942). The correspondence consisting of over 3,000 letters received from over 400 correspondents – comprising fellow scholars, editors, teachers, students, scribes, patrons – illuminates this passage in rich detail. I this paper I will especially draw on the letters written by C.W. Damodaram Pillai (1832–1901). Between them, Damodaram Pillai and Swaminatha Iyer, edited and published nearly all the major ancient literary Tamil works. By scouring the libraries of religious monasteries, and the private collections of traditional scholars all over the Tamil country, they retrieved texts often known only by their names. New to an emerging print culture, they adopted new methods of editorial evaluation and textual criticism to arrive at reliable texts and published them, even as they were strongly rooted in an earlier manuscript culture.
This paper explores the passage from manuscript to print culture in colonial Tamilnadu based on an ongoing project of the multivolume publication of the correspondence of U.V. Swaminatha Iyer (1855–1942). The correspondence consisting of over 3,000 letters received from over 400 correspondents – comprising fellow scholars, editors, teachers, students, scribes, patrons – illuminates this passage in rich detail. I this paper I will especially draw on the letters written by C.W. Damodaram Pillai (1832–1901). Between them, Damodaram Pillai and Swaminatha Iyer, edited and published nearly all the major ancient literary Tamil works. By scouring the libraries of religious monasteries, and the private collections of traditional scholars all over the Tamil country, they retrieved texts often known only by their names. New to an emerging print culture, they adopted new methods of editorial evaluation and textual criticism to arrive at reliable texts and published them, even as they were strongly rooted in an earlier manuscript culture.