South indian incised mss

[Francois.Voegeli at orient.unil.ch]

In answer to my query Reinhold Gruenendahl wrote:

>Dear colleague,
>I don't know whether all members of the list received my message from
>*anonymus*. If so, please let me know. I have not experienced that
>problem before.
>
>As to lemon grass oil, it is the most common - and perhaps the most
>adequate - way of *inking* South Indian palm leaf mss. If you
>enter the well-maintained ms-collections of the south, you
>immediately recognized its pleasant smell.
>
>There is at least one other, cheaper concoction around - I forgot
>what exactly it consists of - the smell of which I would associate
>with a garage rather than a library. Read mss. treated like that for
>a couple of hours, and you will probably feel the intensive wish of
>being somewhere else.
>
>In terms of readability, I cannot see a lot of difference between
>lemon grass oil and the other stuff. As to microfilming, I'm not sure.
>
>This leads me back to my question: Does anyone have suggestions for
>microfilming this type of material? Can the often poor result be
>enhanced by filters, special light or other tricks of the trade?
>
Thank you very much for your prompt answer.
In fact I have never been (for the moment) in a well-maintained
ms-collection of the south but I would further like to know if you or
anybody else on the network have witnessed the whole process of making a
south-indian ms, from incising to inking, and if you could describe it more
precisely or if you know any reference on that matter.
As for the "anonymousness" of your message it could be that you sent it
using the mail function of Netscape with which such things sometimes
happen.

Thank you for everything and best regards.

Francois Voegeli
Fac. des lettres
Section de langues et civilisations orientales
Universite de Lausanne
BFSH 2
CH-1015

Tel.: (41.21) 692-2721
Fax.: (41.21) 692-3045
E-mail: Francois.Voegeli at orient.unil.ch




> From C.Hilton at wellcome.ac.uk 05 96 Feb EST 14:48:00
Date: 05 Feb 96 14:48:00 EST
From: C.Hilton at wellcome.ac.uk
Subject: W. Subhuti
Reply-To: C.Hilton at wellcome.ac.uk
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

My colleague Dominik Wujastyk recently posted a query for me regarding the 
identification of a 19th century Pali scholar and monk: with the help of  
Indology members this figure was identified as Waskaduwe Subhuti.  My thanks 
to those who got in touch with me.

The letter by Subhuti which raised the issue is one of a small group of 
letters (varying in author, date and subject) generated in 19th-century 
Ceylon, which are now in the catalogue of the Wellcome Institute Western 
Manuscripts Department as MS 7140.

Chris Hilton
Wellcome Institute