Manuscript glosses

[Stefan Baums]

Dear Stephen,

two more things come to mind re scribbling in margins: (1) the
earlier part of the British Library Saṅgītisūtra commentary (BL
15) has punctuation marks added above the line in a way that
suggests the text was at first written without and then somebody
(maybe the original scribe, maybe his supervisor or such) added
them in this way. In the latter part of the manuscript, they are
in line and clearly made with the same pen as the main text while
writing that. (2) In my verse commentary (BL 7, 9, 13, 18) marks
are added in the right margin wherever a new section begins in the
text. These section endings were already marked within the text,
and from small glitches it seems that the margin marks were added
as a bit of customization by a later user to make navigating the
text easier.

In general, we believe that some Gāndhārī manuscript finds were
deposits of worn‐out manuscripts (the BL collection and maybe the
Bajaur collection) while others (especially the Senior collection)
have a fresh and almost unused appearance that might(!) indicate
they were specifically made for some unknown ritual activity and
deposited as part of it.

All best,
Stefan

-- 
Stefan Baums
Asian Languages and Literature
University of Washington