[INDOLOGY] Including photographs of original manuscripts with on-line editions

[Harry Spier]

Thank you to Westin Harris and Hartmut Buescher who offlist both pointed me
to Harunaga Isaacson and

 Francesco Sferra's edition of the Sekanirdeśa of Maitreyanātha. To Peter
Pasedach who also offlist pointed

me to Michael Hahn's edition of the Kapphiṇābhyudaya. Matthew Kapstein who
provided a archive.org link

 to Nilratan Sen's facsimile edition of a caryāgitikoṣa manuscript (which
had the manuscript page

 photograph and transcription on the same page). And to Heike Oberlin who
pointed to the on-line

 transcription of the Bhasa projects cārudatta based on multiple
manuscripts (very very impressive!!)

Why I asked the question.  Dominik Wujastyk had suggested as best
practice for transcribing a manuscript.
In transcribing a manuscript it is best practice to transcribe
diplomatically exactly what the MS says.
A second, separate file may be prepared that contains various
normalisations, like ba/va or śa/sa, rma/rmma, etc.
But Phillip Maas pointed out:
Determining “exactly what the MS says” may sometimes be a less
straightforward task than it may seem. Frequently, transcribing requires
interpreting

So it seemed to me (at least for on-line transcriptions ) that the best
solution was to simply include a copy of the manuscript and a normalized
(or non-normalized) transcription of it.  My understanding is that
photographs of 2 dimensional objects can't be copyrighted, so the only
thing preventing this would be contractual obligations (such as with NGMCP
manuscripts).  Presumably any qualified person using the manuscript for an
edition would know the script the manuscript was written in (devanagari,
grantha, Śāradā etc.) so he/she could accept or reject any normalizations
etc.

Thanks,
Harry Spier

On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 1:53 PM Heike Oberlin <
heike.oberlin at uni-tuebingen.de> wrote:

> Dear Harry,
>
> Here is another example, taken from the former Bhāsa project (Tübingen &
> Würzburg) – probably not the latest programming, but it has worked for
> years:
> https://www.bhasa.indologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/rahmen.html
> [For more information refer to my article from 2012: »From Palmleaves to a
> Multimedia Databank – A Note on the ›Bhāsa-Project‹«. In: *Aspects of
> Manuscript Culture in South India*. Ed. by Saraju Rath. Leiden: Brill
> 2012 (Brill’s Indological Library, 40), p. 139-155 and Plates VI-IX.]
>
> Click on „Cārudatta“; there on the blue numbers in square brackets – this
> links the text passage to the respective palm leaf manuscript(s): leaf
> number, recto/verso, line.
> Each work is linked to an overall word-index of the plays entered in the
> database.
>
> More information on programming: Matthias Ahlborn (
> Matthias.Ahlborn at epost.de).
>
> For the book edition (Esposito, Anna Aurelia: *Cārudatta. Ein indisches
> Schauspiel. Kritische Edition und Übersetzung mit einer Studie des Prakrits
> der 'Trivandrum-Dramen'. *Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2004) contact:
> anna.esposito at uni-wuerzburg.de.
>
> Best,
> Heike
>
> --------------------
> *Prof. Dr. Heike Oberlin*
> Dept. of Indology · University of Tuebingen
> Nauklerstr. 35 (room 3.07) · 72074 Tuebingen · Germany
> phone 07071 29-74005 · mobile 0176 20030066 ·
> heike.oberlin at uni-tuebingen.de
> * https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/9974 <https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/9974>*
>
>
>
>
> Am 13.04.2023 um 17:55 schrieb Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info>:
>
> Dear Harry,
>
> Here’s one example. The are several others in Buddhist studies that also
> come to mind.
>
> https://archive.org/details/caryagitikosa
>
> Matthew
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 15:03, Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Dear list members,
> Has anyone included photographs of the original manuscripts with their
> on-line or off-line editions of a sanskrit text, or know if someone has
> done this?
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
>
>
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