[INDOLOGY] Request

[Adheesh Sathaye]

Dear Johannes, Dominik, et al, 

It is almost certainly unconnected to the Tibetan case you are investigating, but perhaps the colleague's rather misleading suggestion is harkening to the textual practices of the esoteric Mahānubhāv community (c. 13th-16th C) in Maharashtra, who, in an attempt to secret themselves mostly from orthodox Brahmin scrutiny (and not “infidels” or Muslims), invented a number of ciphers to hide their writings from uninitiated eyes. This was a far more sophisticated system of coding than just illegible numbering. 

for more info, please see Antonio Rigopoulos’s _The Mahanubhavs_ (Firenze, 2005), [introduction available as a PDF here: http://www.fupress.com/archivio/pdf/2317.pdf]
or Raeside’s article on “Sakala lipi” in BSOAS (1970) - https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/613009.pdf

All best wishes,
Adheesh

> On Apr 29, 2016, at 09.51, Johannes Bronkhorst <Johannes.Bronkhorst at unil.ch> wrote:
> 
> Dear friends and colleagues,
> A friend asked me to post the following question:
> 
> From Amy Heller (tibetologist):  I am currently studying a 408 page
> 11th-12th century Tibetan Prajnaparamita from Tholing whose page numbering
> does not conform to the specifics of W Tibetan manuscripts - there are many
> "small" aberrant details , although the numbering is on the whole legible. A
> colleague suggested to me that this is a reflection, perhaps,  of an Indian
> tradition to conceal accurate numbering from the eyes of infidels,
> presumably in vigor in N India, ca 10th-12th c (in Hindu and Buddhist
> circles) to conceal from potential Muslim eyes??  I asked an Indian friend
> (curator in an art museum) who  did not know of this tradition at all, nor
> was I aware of it. Is this spurious or genuine? Feedback would be most
> appreciated, thanks!
> 
> Johannes Bronkhorst
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—
Adheesh Sathaye
University of British Columbia