Shivaite manuscripts from Pondicherry

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The Institut Français de Pondichéry (IFP)
The École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in Pondicherry

The Shivaite manuscripts of Pondicherry are a collection of manuscripts in the Indian city ​​of Pondicherry (Puducherry). It comprises more than 11,000 manuscripts (mostly palm leaf manuscripts ), most of which contain Shivaite texts. The collection is kept by two French research institutes, the Institut Français de Pondichéry (IFP) and the local branch of the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO). It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005 .

history

The collection in Pondicherry was initiated in 1955 by the Indologist Jean Filliozat , the founding director of the IFP, who was also the director of the EFEO. His motivation was to develop sources for research into the religious and philosophical tradition of Shaiva Siddhanta, which has so far been neglected by science . The manuscripts were mainly compiled under the aegis of Pandit NR Bhatt, an employee of EFEO, from various private collections of temples, priests and monasteries in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu . The focus of the collecting activity was on Shivaite manuscripts, but in many cases entire collections were bought up that also contained other material. If the owners were not ready to hand in their manuscripts, paper transcripts were created. Active collecting ended in the 1990s.

The cataloging of the manuscripts is still in progress. Between 1986 and 2002 four volumes of a descriptive catalog were published, in which 475 of the IFP manuscripts are described. At the same time, work began in 1999 on a database that links the catalog information with digital copies of the manuscripts.

The collection

A page from a palm leaf manuscript by Paninis Ashtadhyayi in Grantha script from the EFEO collection

The largest part of the collection - 8187 palm leaf manuscripts, 360 paper manuscripts and 1144 modern transcripts (copies of palm leaf manuscripts on paper) - is in the IFP. These manuscripts were collected in different parts of Tamil Nadu. In the EFEO 1662 palm leaf manuscripts are kept, all of which come from a single collection from the place Alwarthirunagari in the extreme south of India ( Tirunelveli district ). The texts contained in the manuscripts are in Sanskrit , Tamil and Manipravalam (a mixed language of Tamil and Sanskrit). Most Sanskrit manuscripts use the Grantha script , some also use the Malayalam , Telugu , Nandinagari , Oriya or Tulu script . The paper transcripts are written in Devanagari .

Most of the manuscripts in the IFP collection deal with Shaivism, the current of Hinduism in which the god Shiva plays the most important role. They contain canonical writings ( tantras and agamas ), ritual manuals , as well as religious hymns ( stotras ) and local legends ( mahatmyas ). In particular, the IFP houses the world's largest collection of manuscripts from the religious and philosophical school of Shaiva Siddhanta. A large part of these texts has not yet been published. The smaller collection at EFEO, on the other hand, contains mostly Vishnuit manuscripts, i.e. it belongs to the Hindu tradition, which focuses on the worship of the god Vishnu . Both collections also contain manuscripts of other texts, including the Puranas , the Vedas , the Ramayana , astrological and medical texts, and literary works.

Since palm leaf manuscripts in southern India are generally not very old due to the climatic conditions, the Shivaite manuscripts from Pondicherry are also relatively recent. Most manuscripts contain no or no clearly identifiable date. The oldest of the clearly datable manuscripts date from the late 18th century. Most of the manuscripts were written in the 19th century.

literature

  • Dominic Goodall, Jean-Pierre Muller: The Shaiva Manuscripts of Pondicherry / Les manuscrits shivaïtes de Pondichéry. Institut Français de Pondichéry / École française d'Extrême-Orient, Pondicherry (brochure; undated).
  • Institut Français d'Indologie: Catalog descriptif des manuscrits / Descriptive Catalog of Manuscripts:
    • Vol. 1: Mss. 1-115. Edited by V. Varadachari. Institut Français d'Indologie, Pondichéry 1986.
    • Vol. 2: Mss. 116-275. Edited by V. Varadachari. Institut Français d'Indologie, Pondichéry 1987.
    • Vol. 3: Mss. 276-375. Edited by V. Varadachari. Institut Français d'Indologie, Pondichéry 1987.
    • Vol. 4: Mss. 376-475. Edited by F. Grimal and T. Ganesan. Institut Français d'Indologie, Pondichéry 2002.

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