From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls: New Approaches to the Study of Asian Manuscript Traditions

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Justin Thomas McDaniel Lynn Ransom

From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls

New Approaches to the Study of Asian Manuscript Traditions

Justin Thomas McDaniel, Lynn Ransom

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English

University of Pennsylvania Press
03 November 2015

Library & information sciences; Pulp & paper technology

While European manuscripts have been the subject of numerous historical, philological, and art historical studies over the past three decades, the study of the material culture of Asian (Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Taoist, and the like) manuscript traditions remains a relatively unexplored field. But Asian manuscripts, as the contributors to From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls demonstrate, contain much more than the semantic meaning of the words they reproduce. The ten essays collected here look closely at a wide variety of manuscript traditions with a special focus on both their history and the ways in they can be studied through digital technology to make the cataloguing, comparative analysis, and aesthetic appreciation of them more accessible to scholars and students.

Each essay examines ways in which hand-produced texts-from ancient to early modern Thai, Pali, Chinese, Central Asian, Sanskrit, and Arabic manuscript traditions-shape both meaning and interpretation, and to a larger extent, the cultural norms that define their use. Together, the essays explore topics such as the best current practices for preservation and cataloging, the value of collaboration among scholars who work on different aspects of codicological, paleographic, orthographic, and material culture studies, and the use of these material objects for religious, political, cultural and pedagogical purposes. From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls explores issues relating to the complex relationships between text and image and between the spoken and the written word, and among the overlapping realms of religion, science, and society.

Contributors: Angela S. Chiu, Alexandra Green, Justin Thomas McDaniel, Kim Plofker, Lynn Ransom, Peter Scharf, Daniel Sou, Ori Tavor, Sergei Tourkin, Sinead Ward, Susan Whitfield, Hiram Woodward.

Edited by: Justin Thomas McDaniel, Lynn Ransom
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 794g
ISBN: 9780812247367
ISBN 10: 0812247361
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 03 November 2015
Audience: College/higher education , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Preface —Lynn Ransom Introduction —Justin Thomas McDaniel PART I. THE ART OF THE BOOK Chapter 1. The Characteristics of Elephants: A Thai Manuscript and Its Context —Hiram Woodward Chapter 2. Representations of Space and Place in a Burmese Cosmology Manuscript at the British Museum —Alexandra Green Chapter 3. Stories Steeped in Gold: Narrative Scenes of the Decorative Kammavaca Manuscripts of Burma —Sinead Ward PART II. INSCRIBING RELIGIOUS PRACTICE AND BELIEF Chapter 4. Drawn to an ""Extremely Loathsome"" Place: The Buddha and the Power of the Northern Thai Landscape —Angela S. Chiu Chapter 5. Shifting Modes of Religiosity: Remapping Early Chinese Religion in Light of Recently Excavated Manuscripts —Ori Tavor Chapter 6. Living with Ghosts and Deities in the Qin 秦 State: Methods of Exorcism from ""Jie 詰 "" in the Shuihudi 睡虎地 Manuscript —Daniel Sou PART III. TECHNOLOGIES OF WRITING Chapter 7. Spoken Text and Written Symbol: The Use of Layout and Notation in Sanskrit Scientific Manuscripts —Kim Plofker Chapter 8. Abbreviations in Medieval Astronomical and Astrological Manuscripts Written in Arabic Script —Sergei Tourkin Chapter 9. Creating a Codicology of Central Asian Manuscripts —Susan Whitfield Chapter 10. Providing Access to Manuscripts in the Digital Age —Peter M. Scharf Notes Contributors Index"

Justin Thomas McDaniel is Professor of Buddhist Studies and Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Lynn Ransom is Curator at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania Libraries.