[INDOLOGY] A manuscript written in unknown scripts

[Matthew Kapstein]

As I recall, the series has 80 or so volumes and just three copies were printed. There is also supposed to be a complete catalogue of known palm leaf mss in the TAR.

The assumption that the Burmese ms was purchased and brought to Tibet in ancient times is unwarranted. It may have been a gift at the Buddhajayanti in 1956 for all we know, not to mention other possibilities.

Matthew Kapstein
EPHE, Paris

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From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of Jonathan Silk via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2019 1:03:43 PM
To: Shihong Zhao <zhaoshihong11126 at gmail.com>
Cc: Indology <indology at list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] A manuscript written in unknown scripts

No one yet grabbed on to this, at least on this list, but ...

>> my professor found in Lhasa some large volumes of books in which there are many photographs of South Asian manuscripts. These books belong to a big project of an official committee in Lhasa which aims at preserving palm-leaf manuscripts in Tibet. <<

if this means what it seems to say, this means that someone, at least, namely your professor, has (some?) access to the near-legendary volumes produced a few years ago, a set of 61 if memory serves, in which --again, as I recall--excellent color photos were reproduced of palm leaf manuscripts ( those in good condition, and thought to be complete? I am not certain about this, but anyway apparently not paper MSS), and of which only a very small number of sets were produced, those inaccessible even to scholars in the PRC, much less abroad.
**IF** someone now has actual access to these volumes ... well, I dare say it is not a big exaggeration to say that this signals a sea change, and I am far from alone in eagerly panting for access to these photos.
Can you provide any more details?
(In the plates you offered, on 1b-4b the volume itself is visible, and the color of the binding agrees with what I remember from seeing several years ago a CCTV segment on the publication of these volumes, so I would guess that your professor [I am quite eager to know who this is] seems to have held in his/her hands one at least of these very volumes.)

Jonathan Silk


--
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands

copies of my publications may be found at
https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/JASilk


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