In this Book
University of California Press
- Receptacle of the Sacred: Illustrated Manuscripts and the Buddhist Book Cult in South Asia
- Book
- 2013
- Published by: University of California Press
- Series: South Asia Across the Disciplines
summary
In considering medieval illustrated Buddhist manuscripts as sacred objects of cultic innovation, Receptacle of the Sacred explores how and why the South Asian Buddhist book-cult has survived for almost two millennia to the present. A book "manuscript" should be understood as a form of sacred space: a temple in microcosm, not only imbued with divine presence but also layered with the memories of many generations of users. Jinah Kim argues that illustrating a manuscript with Buddhist imagery not only empowered it as a three-dimensional sacred object, but also made it a suitable tool for the spiritual transformation of medieval Indian practitioners. Through a detailed historical analysis of Sanskrit colophons on patronage, production, and use of illustrated manuscripts, she suggests that while Buddhism’s disappearance in eastern India was a slow and gradual process, the Buddhist book-cult played an important role in sustaining its identity. In addition, by examining the physical traces left by later Nepalese users and the contemporary ritual use of the book in Nepal, Kim shows how human agency was critical in perpetuating and intensifying the potency of a manuscript as a sacred object throughout time.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title Page, Copyright Page
- pp. i-x
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xiii-xvi
- List of Figures in the Printed Book
- pp. xvii-xxii
- List of Figures and Diagrams Online
- pp. xxiii-xxviii
- Part One: The Book
- Part Two: Text and Image
- Part Three: The People
- 6 Social History of the Buddhist Book Cult
- pp. 213-270
- Epilogue: Invoking a Goddess in a Book
- pp. 271-286
- Bibliography
- pp. 351-366
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520954885
Related ISBN(s)
9780520273863
MARC Record
OCLC
836205978
Pages
432
Launched on MUSE
2013-10-21
Language
English
Open Access
No