Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts

April 18, 2018 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Palm-Leaf and Paper Manuscripts

[Posted on 18 April 2018, with updates and corrections.  Among the updates are new images, showing more specimens in the collection.  We thank John Stavrellis, who works toward a Ph.D. in Indology at the University of Bonn, for identifications of the text on some leaves.]

Paper Leaf in Sanskrit with an Ornate Frame for the 4-Line Text. Gold-framed rectangular green border with frieze-like floral designs in dark green pigment. Private Collection. Photography by Mildred Budny.Inspired by some recent communications, as scholars, collectors, and devotees of manuscripts around the world recognize a welcome on our website, we present some fragments from palm-leaf and paper manuscripts which have joined a collection willing to welcome them.  This private collection of many varieties of scripts, texts, languages, formats across the ages and across many cultures — see our Galleries — has generously allowed us to display, study, and publish them, along with discoveries that this collaboration permits.

For some time, I have meant to present these images on a Gallery of one kind or another on our nonprofit website.  In the transition from our first (Drupal) website to the second (WordPress), I encountered so many difficulties regarding any advance with the Galleries and Media, ensuring an inevitably cumbersome transition from one to the other.

That was then.  This is now. Read the rest of this entry →