Thank you, Nagaraj, Timothy, and Péter-Dániel. The floral aspect certainly is curious, and does indeed bring to mind a final 'blossoming', and the decorative fleurons found at the end of some manuscripts. 

The reference Bhattacharya's article eventually led me to Radhakanta Deva's Śabdakalpadruma, which is the earliest lexicographical entry for the term I have so far been able to find. So this usage is at least datable to the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century.

The search continues...

Best and thanks,
Tyler



On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 8:54 AM, Péter-Dániel Szántó <peter.daniel.szanto@gmail.com> wrote:
Fleuron, surely?

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Nagaraj Paturi via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Now when I see that word origin for colophon has got to do with the peak of a hill, I began to think that those who coined pushpikaa had a bud,  the tip of a stem in mind and probably they thought that this, a bud,  the tip of a stem  indicates, like peak of a hill,  the end /conclusion. 



On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 6:48 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com> wrote:
To use such an emblem seems to be an influence of western manuscripts. 

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 6:38 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com> wrote:
It can possibly refer to the design /art work used in the manuscripts as a colophon.

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 3:45 AM, Tyler Williams via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Dear colleagues,

Is anyone aware of a publication that addresses the etymology or use of the term puṣpikā/puṣpakā as a closing formula of a text or manuscript? This meaning is not attested in pre-modern North Indian vernaculars, and appears to enter Hindi in the twentieth century via Sanskrit lexicography (i.e. Syamsundardas, author of the Hindī Śabda Sāgara, appears to have copied his entry for puspikā from Monier-Williams's dictionary). I've checked a few sources on codicology that use the term, but they give no information on the term itself.

With thanks,

Tyler Williams
University of Chicago

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--
Nagaraj Paturi
 
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
 
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
 
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
 
(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
 
 
 



--
Nagaraj Paturi
 
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
 
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
 
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
 
(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
 
 
 



--
Nagaraj Paturi
 
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
 
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
 
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
 
(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
 
 
 

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