[INDOLOGY] Question about Nepalese manuscripts

[Samuel Grimes]

Harry,
To reiterate Charles' reply: there are a variety of nepālākṣara types.
Pracalit is most commonly used in the modern period, and nearly all paper
manuscripts were written in Pracalit. This is a simple, unadorned script,
that strongly resembles modern devanāragarī.

>From roughly 1250 to the early modern period (~1700) Bhujimol is used. Its
telltale sign is that the vowel "e" following a consonant is marked with a
squiggle or flourish that resembles a winged creature (i.e. bhujimol=fly
wings). Bhujimol is most commonly on palm leaf manuscripts. A version of
Bhujimol may also be found on many bilingual manuscripts produced in Tibet,
with Sanskrit in the bhujimol approximate, and the Tibetan translation in a
Tibetic script.

Prior to the use of Bhujimol, and alongside it until about 1350, a script
was used in Nepal that strongly resembles the East Indic script of medieval
Bengal and Bihar. This script does not have an official name, and could be
labelled "Nepalese," with qualification. It does not have the telltale fly
wings of bhujimol, instead marking "e" following a consonant, a curved line
resembling a parenthesis ( is placed in front of the consonant, For
example, te is (त. After a point, all bhujimol manuscripts are a hybrid
with this script, the vowel e optionally marked with a squiggle or with a (
.

Rañjanā is a strictly calligraphic script, and has never been used to
record texts in handwritten manuscripts. It appears in manuscripts when an
ornate script is called for (e.g. titles, mantras, names of deities drawn
in the manuscript) and is frequently found on metal and art works in Nepal
and beyond (e.g. Tibet, China).

There is currently a strong movement among Newar youth, spread through
social media outlets, to learn and preserve all these scripts, but rañjanā
in particular.

Hope that helps, and does not confuse.
Sam Grimes


On Sat, Dec 7, 2024 at 5:25 PM Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Thank you Charles,
> You wrote:
>
>>
>> There are a good number of Nepalese scripts that have been used
>> throughout the centuries, *so Nepālākṣarā can mean any one of them *like
>> Rañjana, Bhujimol, etc. The most commonly used one in the past few
>> centuries is Pracalit, which is indeed sometimes called Newari Script, but
>> I suppose all the others might also be called as such by some. Yes, like
>> all Brāhmī derived scripts, Nepalese scripts are generally written without
>> the breaks between words that one finds in Roman script, for example.
>>
> Based on your comment *"**so Nepālākṣarā can mean any one of them *" I'm
> surprised that the  Cambridge university catalogue entries for some NGMCP
> manuscripts lists the script only as .Nepālākṣarā,
> See links below.  Two manuscripts from 19th century and one from 14-15th
> century.
> See:
> https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-01386/1
> https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-01164-00002/1
> https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-02248/1
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
>
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