Does a catalogue describe works or manuscripts?
Almost all catalogues of Indian MSS describe works. .... ..... [this] also leads to the suppression of non-work materials such as marginalia, glosses, scribal verses and so on.
A recent example of how important this "marginalia etc." (in this case annotations) can be , so also the importance of noting it in a catalog record.
A while ago I was sent the etext of
śrīvidyanityapaddhati by
Sahib Kaul for uploading to the Muktabodha digital library. Because at that time there was discussion going on about whether etexts should be diplomatic transcriptions, I checked it against the actual manuscript in
archive.org.
This manuscript is full of mantras with the tantric preamble of ṛṣiḥ, chandas, devatā, bijaṁ, śaktiḥ , kīlakaṁ and viniyogaḥ. But what is unusual is that where these mantra preambles occur there are annotations in red ink.
ṛṣiḥ has annotation śi, chandas has annotation mu,
devatā has annotation sa, bijaṁ has annotation gu,
śaktiḥ has annotation mā , kīlakaṁ has annotation nā,
viniyogaḥ has annotation sa.
For over 25 years I had been trying to find out any information about why so many mantras had this preamble of ṛṣiḥ, chandas, devatā, bijaṁ, śaktiḥ , kīlakaṁ and viniyogaḥ and had asked that question in various forms on this list and other places.
But because this manuscript had these annotations I finally got an answer to what this preamble to mantras was. When I asked what these annotations were on the BVP list, a Hindu ritualist answered and in part he said:
I believe these marks are showing the locations for the ṛṣyādi-nyāsa. The six placements are for the ṛṣi, the cchanda, the devatā, the bīja, the śakti and a namaskāra (shown on the viniyoga). Thus, the "śi" on "ṛṣi" means "śirasi" (on the head), indicating the placement of the fingers/hand when performing the viniyoga rite. Similarly, the "cchanda" is to be placed on "mu" (="mukhe", on the mouth). The "devatā" is to be placed on the "hṛ" (="hṛdi", on the heart). This character is tricky, because it looks very much like a sa/sā. But if you look at p. 93 of the PDF (you have cited this in your email), there is a "hṛdayāya namaḥ" two lines below the annotation which can establish that it is possibly a "hṛ" and not a "sa". The "bīja" is to be placed on "gu" (="guhye", in the genitals) and the "śakti" is to be placed on the "pā" (="pādayoḥ", on the two feet). Finally, at the pronouncing of "viniyoga", the ritualist touches all of his body parts and thus, the notation is "sa" with a special dot, which is "sarvāṇge".
So because a manuscript had annotations, after 25 years I was finally able to get an answer to why so many mantras in texts had this preamble of ṛṣiḥ, chandas, devatā, bijaṁ, śaktiḥ , kīlakaṁ and viniyogaḥ. Its the description of a nyāsa to be performed before the mantra is recited.
Harry Spier