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Of Gods and Books
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. 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 indsipensible for a deeper understanding of the cultural aspects of manuscript transmission in medieval India, and beyond.
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Preface
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1 Manuscripts, Ritual, and the State in Indian Sources
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1.1 Indian Manuscripts in Art and Ritual: The Case of Buddhism
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1.2 Rituals of Power and Knowledge in Brahmanism
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1.3 The ‘Books of Śiva’
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2 The Task of Writing and the Art of Giving
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2.1 The Gift of Knowledge
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2.1.1 The Introductory Procedures
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2.1.2 The Manuscripts
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2.1.3 The Thrones of Worship
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2.1.4 The Scribes
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2.1.5 The Copying
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2.1.6 The Donation
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2.2 The Corrections
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2.3 The Abode of Knowledge
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2.4 On Ritual Readings and Teachers’ Salaries: The Gift of Knowledge and its Social Roots
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2.5 The Books of Knowledge
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3 Manuscripts, Ritual and the Medieval Literature on Dharma
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3.1 Something New, Something Old, Something Borrowed: Law-Digests on the Gift of Manuscripts
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3.2 ‘Vedam non sunt libri’, or: How to Give What You Cannot Have
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4 The Throne of Knowledge: Aspects of the Cult of the Book in Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava Tantric Traditions
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4.1 The Cult of the Book in the Context of Obligatory and Occasional Rites
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4.2 The Installation of the Throne of Knowledge
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4.3 On the Threshold of Modernity: Ritual and Manuscripts in the Sixteenth-Century South India
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5 Appendix 1: The ‘Chapter on the Gift of Knowledge’ (Vidyādānādhyāya), being the second chapter of the Śivadharmottara
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5.1 English Translation
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5.2 Sanskrit Text
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- 6 Appendix 2: Tables of Textual Parallels with Chapters 1, 2 and 12 of the Śivadharmottara
- 7 Table A: Structure of the Chapters on the Gift of Knowledge in the Sanskrit Law-Digests
- References
- Indices
- Endnotes
- 出版地 : 德國
- 語言 : 德文
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