Palm-leaf manuscript

This palm-leaf manuscript, which is one of the oldest known dated Sanskrit manuscripts from South Asia, transmits Pārameśvaratantra, a scripture of the Shaiva Siddhanta, that thought the worship of Shiva as Pārameśvara. A note in the manuscript states that it was copied in the year 252, which some scholars judge to be of the era established by the Nepalese king Amśuvaran, corresponding to 828 CE. Cambridge University Library
Palm leaf manuscripts of 16th century in Odia script
16th-century Hindu Bhagavata Purana on palm leaf manuscript
A palm leaf Hindu text manuscript (Lontara) from Bali, Indonesia, showing how the manuscripts were tied into a book

Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE.[1] 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.[2] Their use continued until the 19th century when printing presses replaced hand-written manuscripts.[2]

One of the oldest surviving palm leaf manuscripts of a complete treatise is a Sanskrit Shaivism text from the 9th century, discovered in Nepal, and now preserved at the Cambridge University Library.[3] 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.[4][5]

  1. ^ Zhixin Shi; Srirangaraj Setlur; Venu Govindaraju. "Digital Enhancement of Palm Leaf Manuscript Images using Normalization Techniques" (PDF). Amherst, US: SUNY at Buffalo. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2010-06-16. Retrieved 2009-06-23.
  2. ^ a b "10. Literature", The Story of India - Photo Gallery, PBS, Explore the topic, palm-leaf manuscripts, archived from the original on 2013-11-13, retrieved 2013-11-13
  3. ^ Pārameśvaratantra (MS Add.1049.1) with images Archived 2016-03-08 at the Wayback Machine, Puṣkarapārameśvaratantra, University of Cambridge (2015)
  4. ^ Eli Franco (2003). "The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit". Journal of Indian Philosophy. 31 (1/3): 21–31. doi:10.1023/A:1024690001755. JSTOR 23497034. S2CID 169685693.;
    Eli Franco (2005). "Three Notes on the Spitzer Manuscript". Journal of South Asian Studies. 49: 109–111. JSTOR 24007655.
  5. ^ Noriyuki Kudo (2007). "Review: Eli FRANCO (ed.), The Spitzer Manuscript: The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit, 2 vols". Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism: Saṃbhāṣā. 26: 169–173.