P.S. Tibetan communities had been block printing this type of 'book' for quite some time before lithography arrived in South Asia; xylography began to flourish in Tibet in the 15th century (see Michela Clemente, "From Manuscript to Block Printing: In the Search of Stylistic Models for the Identification of Tibetan Xylographs," Rivista degli studi orientali Nuova Serie 84 no. 1/4 (2011), 51-66.)
Dear Harry,
This format was fairly common in the nineteenth century, especially after the introduction of lithography made it possible to recreate the 'look' of a manuscript page. Ulrike Stark has written a bit on this (see Empire of Books) as has Graham Shaw ("The Introduction of Lithography and its Impact on Book Design in India"). Shaw characterizes lithography as making possible the "mass production" of manuscripts. I think there are some other things to be said about that but certainly some communities did see lithography as a way to mass produce copies of sectarian works in the form with which they were familiar.
All best,
Tyler
Dear list members,
Attached is a picture from the on-line guided lessons for Maurer's "The Sanskrit Language". It shows a book with text oriented in the book 90 degrees different from the normal orientation in most western books. I've seen this orienttion in some small devanagari chanting books. I'm curious how common this orientation is, if it is only used for chanting books or if it is a feature of certain publishers or any other information.
Thanks,
Harry Spier
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