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Indian Manuscripts

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INTRODUCTION

Indian literature dates back to the courts of monarchs over 5000 years ago. Back then literature was not in the form of written texts as we know it today, but in the form of oral poetry, song, and verse. Classical Indian lan-guages were warehouses of ancient wisdom that were stocked by folklore imagination. The literature of ancient India was based in inquiry into questions about life, death and nature. Even mathematics, astronomy, cosmology and science were keenly inspected. The act of passing down knowledge took place in the gurukuls (schools) of the monarchs of Indian antiquity and is known as the oral tra-dition.

Gurukul system

Indian Manuscripts


THE ORAL TRADITION

The body of shared knowledge was passed down from generation to generation in an oral tradition that re-mained unbroken for centuries, nay- millennia. In fact until quite recently literature reached its audience through performance and experience, which is how even people who do not know how to read and write are very in-formed about their own culture.

Oral tradition of teachings by Gautama Budha

Indian Manuscripts


THE ORAL TRADITION

In the oral tradition before written language, long texts of histories and ideas were memorised and passed down from mouth to ear. Each text would use a mnemonic system (an auditory learning aid) to help the memoriser remember such a large volume of knowledge. Every gen-eration made their additions to the body of work but no modifications were made to original texts simply because it would mean changing the tune of the song.

Calender in the mnemonic system

Indian Manuscripts


Writing played a very important role in the knowledge based societies of ancient times. Documenting became a necessity as civilised life became more complex. Writ-ing was a convenient way of transmitting information and a reliable means of keeping historical records. The repre-sentation of language in a textual medium dates at around 4000 BC.

THE WRITTEN TRADITION

Valmiki writting Ramayana

Indian Manuscripts


The long texts that were transmitted orally gradually began to be recorded on copper plates, birch, palm leaves, and even paper. The oral tradition continued to be a means of learning the Vedas but has been passed down to us through a large collection of manuscripts.

Sanskrit has no native script because it was spoken in a purely oral society. When it was written the scripts used by regional scribes were used and therefore virtually all major writing systems have been used to create Sanskrit manuscripts. Also, many original Sanskrit texts were trans-lated into many different Indian languages as this tradi-tion of documenting the existing oral tradition was considered essential to propagating knowledge and language.


Devimahatmya manuscript on palm-leaf, in an early Bhujimol script, Bihar or Nepal, 11th century

Indian Manuscripts



One of the oldest bodies of text in the world are the Vedas that were created between 1500 – 500 BC. During that time the language of the street was called Vedic. The Vedas are written in Classical Sanskrit, a complex form of Vedic.

Around the 4th century a grammarian known as Panini wrote a book called Panniyam, which contained 3,959 linguistic rules. This transformed Classical Sanskrit into what is called Modern Sanskrit.

Manuscript illustration of the Battle of Kurukshetra

Indian Manuscripts


THE MANUSCRIPTS OF INDIA

India is said to have the largest collection of manu-scripts in the world scattered all across the country. Indian manuscripts were written in a variety of languages and scripts that have survived till today. These are in the Grantha, Devanagiri, Nandinagiri, and Telegu scripts and multiple languages. The heritage and history of India is well documented in these treasures.

Suryaprajnapati Sutra

Indian Manuscripts



There is a big difference in the way we store information in the digital age and how the people of ancient India did it. Palm leaf was the most common form of paper. The center rib of a palm frond was removed leaving two strips. The strips were pressed flat and trimmed to one size before being smoothed down by sandpaper.

Palm Tree

Indian Manuscripts



Scribes would use a sharp instrument to actually carve the writing into the surface of the leaf. The nearly invisible text was made visible by covering the leaf with a black pigment like carbon black. After the leaf was cleaned, the residue remained in these scratches and made the writing visible.

Prayers on the Palm leaf

Indian Manuscripts



The scribes would delicately write on both side of the strip of palm leaf. These pages were then bound to-gether by a string either at one end of the strip so it could fan out, or read like a book as we do now. The front and back cover of the manuscript would always be a hard material in order for protection. These covers were most often adorned and sometimes even made of precious materials such as ivory.

Indian Manuscripts


ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS

Recording and documenting history and culture was not restricted to the Indian subcontinent. The ancient Egyp-tians were using a similar technique on papyrus and the Mesopotamians as well. During the rise of Christianity around 400 AD, manuscripts began to feature small images and colourful decoration that would illustrate the text. A text with miniature paintings along with illus-trations that framed the text in a box is known as an illuminated manuscript.

15th century manuscript of the De mulieribus claris by Giovanni Boccaccio.

Indian Manuscripts



This tradition came to India by 800 AD. Jain, Hindu and Buddhist traditions of illuminated manuscripts exist in vari-ous parts of India. However it became the dominant style of creating manuscripts during the Mughal period. Akbar the great was by far the biggest patron of illumi-nated manuscripts in India. He had studied painting him-self in his youth and had inherited his father's library of After he moved his capital to Fatepur Sikri he set up a school dedicated to miniature painting under the tute-lage of Persian master artists.

Emperor Jahangir receiving his two sons, an album-painting in gouache on paper

Indian Manuscripts



This style soon spread to the surrounding Hindu courts and the Hindu epics of the Ramayana, Mahabharata, smaller fables and fairy tales began to find themselves in this format in all languages and scripts.

The people of the Indian subcontinent have historically been a culture of knowledge. Thousands of texts and illu-minated manuscripts have survived to this day. It is proof that whether in the midst of war or prosperity, kings and scholars worked to preserve the culture and histories of their people. So the next time you write a note, imagine who might find it years from now.

Illuminated miniature of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Nishan

Indian Manuscripts


PROJECT

There are scores of scripts that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Can you find out which ones are still used today? Hint: You might find more than one language that uses the same script.

Learn how to write your name in 3 different scripts you don't already know.

Write a report about what you read in the style of an illuminated manuscript. Have a small picture in one corner and place your text around it.

Image Source-www.wikipedia.org and the copy right credits are as follow:

Sermon in the Deer Park depicted at Wat Chedi Liem-KayEss-1_ This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0Narada visits Valmiki_ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Valmiki Ramayana_ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Kurukshetra_ This work is in the public domain and also from the Wikimedia Commons and Commons is a freely licensed media file repository.Devimahatmya Sanskrit MS Nepal 11c_ This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Suryaprajnapati Sutra_ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Rigveda MS2097_ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Art hastividyarnava 2_ This file is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Sri Guru Granth Sahib Nishan_ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Moghul.1590-95??_ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.Sanskrit-Pali Faulmann Gesch T10._ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.AsokaKandahar_ This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.t

Indian Manuscripts


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