[INDOLOGY] Ms colopon from Nepal, need help (Justin Fifield)

[C.A. Formigatti]

Dear Justin,

Maybe it's not interesting for you anymore, but I believe that the only 
correct interpretation is the following:

khacara = 9
śara = 5
yaṇa = ayana = 2 (sun has two courses)
Therefore -- 952 NS

The reason is simple. Scribes of Nepalese manuscripts very often do not 
distinguish between the nasals na and ṇa, so you can easily disregard 
this as a minor error due to the mother tongue of the scribe (it is an 
aural error, so to say). On the other hand, it is unlikely for a scribe 
well versed in any form of Nepālākṣarā to exchange a ma for a ṇa from 
the visual point of view. (I would avoid to use Newari, as it is the 
name of the language, but I know this is our choice for the Cambridge 
Digital Catalogue and not all colleagues agree with us.) Moreover, the 
use of avagraha is sparse in Nepalese manuscripts, and you should read 
the passage as though it would be nepālavarṣe 'yanaśarakhacare, i.e. 
ayana°.

Finally, I do not think that it is possible to date manuscripts 
paleographically down to the decade, without having seen a very large 
number of manuscripts and after having been able to identify a 
scriptorium (something which takes a lot of time and effort). Many other 
features besides the script should be taken into account. From what I 
can see in the image of the one folio, all codicological and 
paleographical features of the manuscript point toward the 19th century, 
therefore you should not doubt about the veracity of the date provided 
in the colophon (I mean that you can rule out the possibility that the 
scribe wrote the manuscript at a later date, say at the beginning of the 
20th century, copying the colophon with the old date from the 
antigraph).

I have seen several Nepalese manuscripts written in the second half of 
the 19th century, many of which were prepared by the same scribes on 
behalf of Daniel Wright precisely to be sent to Cambridge (one example 
is this one: 
http://sanskrit.lib.cam.ac.uk/the-very-first-leaves-in-the-collections). 
Similarly, there are numerous "colonial" manuscripts scattered all 
across European collections that were written in the 1870s and following 
years in Vārāṇasī, all by the same scribe (or scribes) on behalf of R. 
T. H. Griffith again for the purpose of sending them to European 
libraries and scholars (for instance, this one: 
http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-00876/1). This examples are meant 
to stress again that it is difficult to date a manuscript 
paleographically without taking other aspects into account.

I hope this is useful to you!

Best wishes,

Camillo Formigatti