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64-495: The Bower Manuscript is a collection of seven fragmentary Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit treatises found buried in a Buddhist memorial stupa near Kucha , northwestern China . Written in early Gupta script (late Brahmi script) on birch bark , it is variously dated in 5th to early 6th century. The Bower manuscript includes the oldest dated fragments of an Indian medical text, the Navanitaka . The seven treatises included in

128-588: A few Prakrit words. The manuscript is mostly in the Shloka verse style – a Vedic anuṣṭubh poetic meter (exceptions are found in Part I of the collection). The Bower Manuscript is written in the Gupta script – a type of late Brahmi script . Part I has 5 leaves, and the incomplete treatise ends abruptly. It is a fragment of a treatise on garlic, it medicinal properties and recipes, its use for eye diseases. It opens with

192-503: A flowery description of the Himalayas, where a group of rishis reside, interested in the names and properties of medicinal plants. It mentions Hindu sages such as Ātreya , Hārīta , Parāśara , Bhela , Garga , Śāmbavya, Suśruta , Vasiṣṭha , Karāla, and Kāpya . Suśruta, whose curiosity is aroused by a particular plant, approaches muni Kāśirāja, enquiring about the nature of this plant. Kāśīrāja, granting his request, tells him about

256-454: A hole about the middle of the left side, for the passage of the binding string. The undamaged leaves of the Bower manuscript are numbered on the left edge of the reverse side, a tradition found in ancient pothi manuscripts in north India, in contrast to the historic south Indian tradition of numbering the obverse side in manuscripts. This suggests that the Bower manuscript scribes were trained in

320-441: A huge " cottage loaf " near the "Ming–oi" Buddhist monastery ruins, 16 miles from Kucha near the banks of a river. Waterhouse mentioned that the Bower manuscript had 56 leaves (the edition now preserved at Bodleian Library has 51 leaves). He reported that the Bower manuscript was bound with two wooden boards on either end and a string running through a hole. He had sought the help of Babu Sarat Chandra Das and Lama Phuntshog to decipher

384-511: A large number of manuscripts on Hindu philosophy , poetry , grammar , and other subjects were written, multiplied, and preserved inside the temples. Archaeological and epigraphical evidence indicates the existence of libraries called Sarasvati-bhandara , dated possibly to the early 12th century and employing librarians, attached to Hindu temples. Palm-leaf manuscripts were also preserved inside Jain temples and in Buddhist monasteries. With

448-583: A large proportion of these words; in Edgerton's view, this seems to prove that most of them belong to the special vocabulary of the protocanonical Buddhist Prakrit. Not all Buddhist use of Sanskrit is in a hybrid form. Some translated works, such as by the Sarvāstivādin school, were completed in classical Sanskrit. There were also later works composed directly in Sanskrit and written in a simpler style than

512-799: A late period, belong to a continuous and broadly unitary linguistic tradition. The language of these works is separate from the tradition of Brahmanical Sanskrit, and goes back ultimately to a semi-Sanskritized form of the protocanonical Prakrit. The peculiar Buddhist vocabulary of BHS is evidence that BHS is subordinate to a separate linguistic tradition quite separate from standard Sanskrit (Edgerton finds other indications as well). The Buddhist Brahmanical writers who used standard Brahmanical Sanskrit were small in number. This group seems to have been made up of converts who received Brahmanical training in their youth before converting to Buddhism, such as Asvaghosa . Many Sanskrit words, or particular uses of Sanskrit words, are recorded only from Buddhist works. Pāli shares

576-509: A person. Both these parts are a small select portion of the actual Mayuri text, and tiny compared to the much larger dharani compilations. Part VI is complete, written on better quality birch and is the most well preserved treatise in the Bower manuscript. According to Watanabe, the verses of these treatises as found in folio 49 to 54 of the Bower manuscript completely correspond to those found in Mahamayurividya-rajni verses of

640-474: A reader of a Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit text "will rarely encounter forms or expressions which are definitely ungrammatical, or at least more ungrammatical than, say, the Sanskrit of the epics, which also violates the strict rules of Pāṇini. Yet every paragraph will contain words and turns of expression which, while formally unobjectionable ... would never be used by any non-Buddhist writer." Edgerton holds that nearly all Buddhist works in Sanskrit, at least until

704-565: A salutation addressed to the Tathāgatas , contains, as stated by the scribe, the Navanītaka text ( lit. "cream" text), a standard manual (siddhasaṃkarṣa). Then it states its intention to provide 16 chapters of prescriptions (but the surviving fragment only provides 14, ending abruptly). According to G.J. Meulenbeld, "an important peculiarity of the Bower MS consists of its varying attitude towards

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768-515: A short treatise on 14 prescription formulary in a manner similar to Part II. It consists of 72 shlokas . It is a fragment whose contents correspond to chapters one to three of the Part II. Parts IV and V contain two short manuals of Pāśaka kevalī , or cubomancy, i.e., the art of foretelling a person's future by means of the cast of dice, a ritualistic practice found in Tibetan manuscripts. Part IV

832-651: Is a Sanskrit Shaivism text from the 9th century, discovered in Nepal , and now preserved at the Cambridge University Library . The Spitzer Manuscript is a collection of palm leaf fragments found in Kizil Caves , China. They are dated to about the 2nd century CE and related to Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit. The text in palm leaf manuscripts was inscribed with a knife pen on rectangular cut and cured palm leaf sheets; colourings were then applied to

896-487: Is a Tamil grammar book named Tolkāppiyam , written around the 3rd century BCE. A global digitalization project led by the Tamil Heritage Foundation collects, preserves, digitizes, and makes ancient palm-leaf manuscript documents available to users via the internet. In Indonesia, the palm-leaf manuscript is called lontar . The Indonesian word is the modern form of Old Javanese rontal . It

960-438: Is a scholar known for his work on Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit and Pali. His works mainly focus on understanding early Buddhist texts and their development comparing Pali, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Prakrit languages. According to K. R. Norman , Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit could also be considered a form of pali. However, Franklin Edgerton states that Pāli is in essence a Prakrit . In many places where BHS differs from Sanskrit it

1024-482: Is almost complete, while the manual constituting Part V is markedly more fragmentary and defective. The dice is stated to be a group of three dice, each with four faces ( tetrahedron ) numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4. When cast, it would yield one of 64 possible casts, of which 60 combinations are listed in Part IV (the missing 4 may be scribal error or lost; but those 4 are mentioned in later verses). Hoernle mentioned that Part V

1088-500: Is also found in the ancient Indian text called the Caraka Samhita . Treatises I to III are the medical treatises of the collection and contain 1,323 verses and some prose. The metrical writing suggests that the scribe of the three medical treatises was well versed in Sanskrit composition. The scribe of divination and incantation sections (Treatises IV-VII) was not conversant with classical Sanskrit, made grammatical errors and used

1152-572: Is closer to, or identical with, Pāli . Most extant BHS works were originally written in BHS, rather than being reworkings or translations of already existing works in Pāli or other languages. However, earlier works, mostly from the Mahāsāṃghika school, use a form of "mixed Sanskrit" in which the original Prakrit has been incompletely Sanskritised, with the phonetic forms being changed to the Sanskrit versions, but

1216-498: Is composed of two Old Javanese words, namely ron "leaf" and tal " Borassus flabellifer , palmyra palm". Due to the shape of the Palmyra palm's leaves, which are spread like a fan, these trees are also known as "fan trees". The leaves of the rontal tree have always been used for many purposes, such as for the making of plaited mats, palm sugar wrappers, water scoops, ornaments, ritual tools, and writing material. Today,

1280-400: Is derived from the word pesa. In the 17th century, decorated palm leaf manuscripts called kammavācā or kammawasa (ကမ္မဝါစာ) emerged. The earliest such manuscript dates to 1683. These decorated manuscripts include ornamental motifs and are inscribed with ink on lacquered palm leaves gilded with gold leaf. Kammavaca manuscripts are written using a tamarind-seed typeface similar to

1344-589: Is named after Hamilton Bower – a British Lieutenant who bought the manuscript in March 1890 while on a mission to chase an assassin who was charged with hacking Andrew Dalgleish to death. The fragmentary manuscript was analyzed, edited, translated, and published by Calcutta -based Rudolf Hoernle . The Bower Manuscript is preserved in the collections of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Bower Manuscript

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1408-465: Is named after its accidental purchaser Hamilton Bower , a British Army Lieutenant. The story begins with the brutal murder of Andrew Dalgliesh, a Scotsman camping in the Karakoram mountains, north of Kashmir . He was hacked to death inside his tent by an Afghan named Dad Mahomed. The British government wanted to bring Mahomed to justice, and therefore sent Hamilton Bower with some troops to go after

1472-576: Is similar to other Sanskrit manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, and like it, these parts of the Bower manuscript may be one of the several recensions of a more ancient common source on divinatory work. These are traditionally attributed to the ancient sage Garga , but maybe an influence of the Greek oracle tradition during the post- Alexander the Great period. Parts VI and VII contain two different portions of

1536-763: The Nagarakretagama , and the Kakawin Sutasoma , which were discovered on the neighboring islands of Bali and Lombok . This suggested that the tradition of preserving, copying, and rewriting palm-leaf manuscripts continued for centuries. Other palm-leaf manuscripts include Sundanese language works: the Carita Parahyangan , the Sanghyang Siksakandang Karesian , and the Bujangga Manik . In Myanmar,

1600-792: The Cambodian Civil War while new supports such as codex books or digital media took over. Since then, conservation efforts have been made in pagodas such as at Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh. Palm leaf manuscripts of Odisha include scriptures, pictures of Devadasi , and various mudras of the Kama Sutra . Some of the early discoveries of Odia palm leaf manuscripts include writings like Smaradipika , Ratimanjari , Pancasayaka, and Anangaranga in both Odia and Sanskrit . The State Museum of Odisha at Bhubaneswar houses 40,000 palm leaf manuscripts. Most of them are written in

1664-526: The Chinese Tripitaka , in particular to the 705 CE translation by I-tsing, the 746–771 CE translation by Amoghavajra, and the 516 CE translation by Sanghapala. Their shared source may be Pali verses in the Mora Jataka , with interpolations by Mahayana Buddhists of that era. These parts of the Bower manuscript also contain the name Yashomitra, likely the votary or the influential person for whom

1728-635: The Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE. Their use began in South Asia and spread to other regions, as texts on dried and smoke-treated palm leaves of the Palmyra or talipot palm . Their use continued until the 19th century when printing presses replaced hand-written manuscripts. One of the oldest surviving palm leaf manuscripts of a complete treatise

1792-543: The vasanta tilaka , trishtubh and arya , while the verses thereafter are in the shloka style. The verses credit the knowledge to past sages. Verse 9, for example, attributes the knowledge to Susruta , who received it from the sage king of Kashi . Part II abruptly ends on the 33rd folio of the Bower manuscript. It is voluminous, relative to the other six treatises, and contains medical prescriptions sections on powder, medicated ghee (clarified butter), oil, elixirs, aphrodisiacs, decoctions, dyes and ointments. It opens with

1856-413: The Buddhist teachings that it records, and to study the development of Indo-Aryan languages. Compared to Pāli and Classical Sanskrit, comparatively little study has been made of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, in part because of the fewer available writings, and in part because of the view of some scholars that BHS is not distinct enough from Sanskrit to comprise a separate linguistic category. Edgerton writes that

1920-582: The Introduction appeared in 1912. The 'Bower Manuscript' is a collation of seven treatise manuscripts, compiled into a larger group and another a smaller one. The larger manuscript is a fragmentary convolute of six treatises (Part I, II, III, IV, V and VII), which are separately paginated, with each leaf approximately 29 square inches (11.5 inch x 2.5 inch). Part VI is written on smaller folio leaves, both in length and breadth, with each leaf approximately 18 square inches (9 inch x 2 inch). The larger group and

1984-672: The Odia script, though the language is Sanskrit. The oldest manuscript here belongs to the 14th century but the text can be dated to the 2nd century. In 1997 The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation ( UNESCO ) recognised the Tamil Medical Manuscript Collection as part of the Memory of the World Register . A very good example of the usage of palm leaf manuscripts to store history

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2048-625: The art of writing in rontal still survives in Bali , performed by Balinese Brahmin as a sacred duty to rewrite Hindu texts . Many old manuscripts dated from ancient Java , Indonesia , were written on rontal palm-leaf manuscripts. Manuscripts dated from the 14th to 15th century during the Majapahit period. Some were found even earlier, like the Arjunawiwaha , the Smaradahana ,

2112-454: The central India to Andhra Pradesh, for similar reasons. The writer of part IV appears to have the style of someone used to "writing with a brush", and therefore may have been a local native or a Buddhist monk who came from interior China. The text consists of seven separate and different treatises, of which first three are on medicine, next two on divination, and last two on magical incantations. The three medicinal treatises contain content that

2176-492: The classical literature, as well as works of kavya in the ornate classical style such as the Buddhacarita . The terms "Buddhist Hybrid Chinese" and "Buddhist Hybrid English" have been used to describe peculiar styles of language used in translations of Buddhist texts. Palm leaf manuscript Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves . Palm leaves were used as writing materials in

2240-454: The collection three on Ayurvedic medicine , two on divination by dice, and two on incantations ( Dharani ) against snake bites. The collection had at least four scribes, of which three were likely Buddhists because the second, the sixth and the seventh treatises open by invoking the Buddha and other Buddhist deities. Two invoke Shiva , Vishnu , Devi , and other Hindu deities. The discovery of

2304-448: The cycle of copying from palm leaves mostly came to an end. Many governments are making efforts to preserve what is left of their palm-leaf documents. The round and cursive design of the letters of many Brahmic scripts such as Devanagari , Nandinagari , Kannada , Telugu , Lontara , Javanese , Balinese , Odia , Burmese , Tamil , Khmer , and so forth, may be an adaptation to the use of palm leaves, as angular letters could tear

2368-404: The document had to be copied onto new sets of dried palm leaves. The oldest surviving palm leaf Indian manuscripts have been found in colder, drier climates such as in parts of Nepal , Tibet , and central Asia , the source of 1st-millennium CE manuscripts. The individual sheets of palm leaves were called Patra or Parna in Sanskrit (Pali/Prakrit: Panna ), and the medium when ready to write

2432-541: The first decipherment two months later, at the meeting of the Society in April 1891, with evidence that it was "the oldest Indian written book that is known to exist". Between 1893 and 1897 Hoernle published a complete edition of the text, featuring an annotated English translation and illustrated facsimile plates. A Sanskrit Index was published in 1908, and a revised translation of the medical portions (I, II, and III) in 1909;

2496-411: The grammar of Prakrit being retained. For instance, Prakrit bhikkhussa , the possessive singular of bhikkhu (monk, cognate with Sanskrit bhikṣu ) is converted not to bhikṣoḥ as in Sanskrit but mechanically changed to bhikṣusya . The term owes its usage and definition largely to the scholarship of Franklin Edgerton. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is primarily studied in the modern world in order to study

2560-454: The handwriting and fonts prevalent in the inscriptions discovered in India from that era, Hoernle suggested the first scribe who wrote Parts I through III likely grew up and came from Kashmir or Udyana (North India) to Kucha (China) because his writing shows early Sarada script influences. Part VI, and possibly V and VII were written by scribe(s) who may have come to China from a region that is now

2624-541: The killer, states Wujastyk. Mahomed learned about the effort and escaped. Bower, in the chase, followed Mahomed through the Himalayan valleys into the Takla Makan desert. Bower arrived near Kucha ( Xinjiang ) in early March 1890 and set his camp. On the night of 2 or 3 March, a man came to his tent and offered to sell him old manuscripts and artifacts that his treasure hunters had found. Bower bought them. Bower took

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2688-506: The leaves apart. Palm-leaf manuscripts or sleuk rith as they are known in the Khmer language , can be found in Cambodia since Angkorian times as can be seen from at least one bas-relief on the walls of Angkor Wat . While they were of major importance until the 20th century, French archeologist Olivier de Bernon estimated that about 90% of all the sleuk rith were lost in the turmoil of

2752-602: The legacy of the Bower manuscript which in part inspired Rudolf Hornle to seek funds from the then Government of India to finance the first 1900–1901 expedition of Marc Aurel Stein . Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Prior to Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit teachings used to be generally recorded in the Pali language . Pali language was common at the time of the Buddha . His teachings were apparently first found in Pali language written by Theravada buddhist. Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit became

2816-431: The manuscript "must fall somewhere within that period [470 and 530 CE], that is, about 500 CE." Winand M. Callewaert dates it to c. 450 CE. According to a 1986 analysis by Lore Sander, the Bower manuscript is best dated between 500 and 550 CE. The fragmentary treatises are copies of much older Indian texts authored by unknown scholars. These treatises were prepared by scribes, buried in a stupa built at some point to honor

2880-602: The manuscript in remote China near Central Asian region is considered evidence of the spread and sharing of ideas in ancient times between India, China and Central Asia. It also contains excerpts of the Bhela Samhita , a medical text whose damaged manuscript is in Tanjavur , Tamil Nadu. The medical fragments of the Bower manuscript have much in common with other ancient Sanskrit medical treatises such as those by Caraka , Ravigupta, Vagbhata and Kashyapa . The manuscript

2944-494: The manuscript was prepared. According to Hoernle, Yashomitra may well have been a Buddhist monk of great repute, the one for whom the stupa was built, and in whose memory the manuscript was prepared and buried in the stupa mound. The discovery of the Bower Manuscript, its antiquity, and its decipherment by Hoernle triggered "enormous excitement" in the 1890s, states Wujastyk. Famous explorers were commissioned by some of

3008-615: The manuscript, reproduced in the form of heliogravures in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Immediately after his return to India in February 1891, Hoernle began to study the manuscript. He found that the manuscript leaves were jumbled out of sequence, but had the page numbers marked on the left. After re-arranging them, he concluded that it was an abridged collection of several different treatises. He presented

3072-500: The manuscript. Neither was able to read the script and said it must be "very ancient", according to Waterhouse. The Waterhouse report was reprinted in Bombay Gazette , where Hoernle learned about it and became very eager to study it. After the meeting, in parallel, some attempts were made to decipher the manuscript, but they proved unsuccessful. German Indologist Georg Buhler succeeded in reading and translating two leaves of

3136-495: The manuscripts with him when he returned to Simla and forwarded it to Colonel James Waterhouse , the then President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal . Waterhouse reported the manuscript at the monthly meeting of the Society on 5 November 1890, whose proceedings were widely distributed. At the meeting, he stated that Bower visited the site where the manuscript was found, and referred to the stupa as something that looked like

3200-491: The memory of a Buddhist monk or some other regional influential person. Hoernle distinguished four scribes, based on their handwriting, subtle font and style differences. One scribe wrote Parts I, II and III; second wrote Part IV; third wrote Parts V and VII; while a fourth wrote Part VI. He added that there may have been more than four scribes, because Part VI has some scribal differences, while V and VII too seems cursive and careless work of possibly more than one person. Based on

3264-468: The north Indian tradition. The seven parts of the manuscript are written in an essentially identical script, the Gupta script (late Brahmi) found in north, northwest and western regions of ancient India. Early attempts to date the text placed it around 5th-century, largely on palaeographic grounds. Hoernle determined that the manuscript belonged to the 4th or 5th–century because the script used matched with dated inscriptions and other texts of that period in

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3328-498: The north and northwest India. He also compared the style and script for numerals – particularly zero and position value – and the page numbering style in the manuscript with those found in Indian inscriptions and manuscripts. By combining such evidence with palaeographic evidence therein, he concluded that the Bower manuscript could not be dated in or after the second half of the 6th century. Hoernle remarked that at least some treatises of

3392-401: The number of the doṣas [humours]. In many instances, it accepts the traditional number of three, vāta, pitta, and kapha, but in a smaller number of passages it also appears to accept blood (rakta) as a doṣa." Part III consists of 4 leaves and also ends abruptly on the obverse side of the folio (Part IV starts on reverse). It starts with the symbol Om as usual with the other treatises, and is

3456-595: The oldest surviving Sanskrit manuscripts on palm leaves is of the Parameshvaratantra , a Shaiva Siddhanta text of Hinduism . It is from the 9th century, and dated to about 828 CE. The discovered palm-leaf collection also includes a few parts of another text, the Jñānārṇavamahātantra, currently held by the University of Cambridge. With the introduction of printing in the early 19th century,

3520-474: The origin of the plant, which proves to be garlic (Sanskrit laśuna ), its properties and uses. The section on garlic consists of 43 verses in poetic meter. This section also mentions the ancient Indian tradition of "garlic festival", as well as a mention of sage Sushruta in Benares ( Varanasi ). This is the part where the initial 43 verses are in eighteen different, uncommon meters ( Sanskrit prosody ) such as

3584-506: The palm-leaf manuscript is called pesa (ပေစာ). In the pre-colonial era, along with folding-book manuscripts , pesa was a primary medium of transcribing texts, including religious scriptures, and administrative and juridical records. The use of pesa dates back to 12th century Bagan , but the majority of existent pesa date to the 1700-1800s. Key historical sources, including Burmese chronicles , were first originally recorded using pesa . The Burmese word for "literature", sape (စာပေ)

3648-487: The pre-eminent language for literature and philosophy in India. Buddhist monks developed this language they used to it while remaining under the influence of a linguistic tradition stemming from the proto-canonical Prakrit of the early oral tradition. While there are widely differing theories regarding the relationship of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit to Pali , but it is certain that Pāli is much closer to Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit than any other languages in india . Norman K.

3712-527: The same text, the Mahāmāyurī , Vidyārājñī, a Buddhist dhāraṇī -genre incantations text. The Mayuri text, in later centuries, became a part of the Pancha-raksha magical incantations group – one of the highly popular dharani sets in Buddhist communities in and outside India. Part VI of the Bower manuscript contains charms against cobra bite, while Part VII is for protecting against other evils befalling

3776-608: The smaller set likely came from different trees or region. The scribes wrote on both sides of the leaves but did not use both sides when the leaf was very thin. These seven constituent manuscripts are numbered as Parts I to VII in Hoernle's edition. The Bower manuscript, as discovered, had 56 birch bark leaves, cut into oblong palmyra shape (rectangular strips with rounded corners). This is the form commonly found in numerous ancient and medieval Indian manuscript books ( pothī ). The pages are bound in Indian style, with each leaf containing

3840-481: The spread of Indian culture to Southeast Asian countries like as Indonesia , Cambodia , Thailand , Laos , and the Philippines , these nations also became home to large collections. Palm-leaf manuscripts called Lontar in dedicated stone libraries have been discovered by archaeologists at Hindu temples in Bali (Indonesia) and in 10th century Cambodian temples such as Angkor Wat and Banteay Srei . One of

3904-963: The style used in Burmese stone inscriptions. Palm-leaf manuscripts continued to be produced in the country well into the 20th century. The Universities' Central Library in Yangon houses the country's largest collection of traditional manuscripts, including 15,000 pesa . In February 2013, the Pali Text Society , Sendai University , and the University of Toronto , along with local partners, began an ongoing initiative to digitise and catalogue Myanmar's palm-leaf manuscripts, including collections from U Pho Thi Library in Thaton , and Bagaya Monastery in Inwa. The digitised manuscripts are available at

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3968-419: The surface and wiped off, leaving the ink in the incised grooves. Typically, each sheet had a hole through which a string could pass, and using these holes, the sheets were bound together like a book by tying them together with a string. Such palm leaf texts typically had a lifespan of between a few decades and roughly 600 years before they started to rot due to moisture, insect activity, mould, and fragility. Thus

4032-495: The world's major powers of the era – such as Britain, Germany, Japan, France, Russia – to go on a Central Asia and Xinjiang expedition. They were to seek manuscripts and other ancient treasures. These expeditions yielded major discoveries such as the Dunhuang manuscripts , as well as famous forgeries such as those of Islam Akhun , in the decades that followed. The European Union-funded International Dunhuang Project has continued

4096-613: Was called Tada-patra (or Tala-patra , Tali , Tadi ). The famous 5th-century CE Indian manuscript called the Bower Manuscript discovered in Chinese Turkestan , was written on birch-bark sheets shaped in the form of treated palm leaves. Hindu temples often served as centers where ancient manuscripts were routinely used for learning and where the texts were copied when they wore out. In South India, temples and associated mutts served custodial functions, and

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