This collection of essays explores the history of the book in pre-modern South Asia looking at
the production circulation fruition and preservation of manuscripts in different areas and
across time. Edited by the team of the Cambridge-based Sanskrit Manuscripts Project and
including contributions of the researchers who collaborated with it it covers a wide range of
topics related to South Asian manuscript culture: from the material dimension (palaeography
layout decoration) and the complicated interactions of manuscripts with printing in late
medieval Tibet and in modern Tamil Nadu to reading writing editing and educational practices
from manuscripts as sources for the study of religious literary and intellectual traditions
to the creation of collections in medieval India and Cambodia (one major centre of the
so-called Sanskrit cosmopolis) and the formation of the Cambridge collections in the colonial
period. The contributions reflect the variety of idioms literary genres religious movements
and social actors (intellectuals scribes patrons) of ancient South Asia as well as the
variety of approaches interests and specialisms of the authors and their impassionate
engagement with manuscripts.
