The Word is Sacred; Sacred Is The Word: The Indian Manuscript Tradition

by BN Goswamy

The Word is Sacred; Sacred is The Word: The Indian Manuscript Tradition sets out to demonstrate the wealth and diversity of India’s manuscript traditions and to communicate a lasting impression of India as a multifarious and multicultural society that holds knowledge and knowledge systems in high regard. Some one hundred precious manuscripts, books, and related documents introduced in this book span a timescale of almost two millennia of Indian cultural history.

Often elaborately illustrated, the works come from the subcontinent’s most important public and private collections. The project was a presentation of India as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006. An eponymous exhibition had been organized by the National Mission for Manuscripts, New Delhi and the Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt, on the occasion.

The National Mission for Manuscripts was set up by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India, in 2003 to document, conserve and provide access to the vast manuscript wealth of India spread in thousands of public and private repositories across the country and abroad.  It received the Best Book Award, 2007, in Reference Category from the Federation of Indian Publishers.

Table of Contents:

• Preface - Sudha Gopalakrishnan
• Introduction: The Word is Sacred, Sacred is the Word – B.N.Goswamy
• The Catalogue
• From Clay to Copper
• The Making of a Manuscript
• Fields of Learning
• Veneration, Submission, Worship
• Word and Image
• Royal Commands and Plain Records
• Glossary
• Acknowledgements.

About the Author:

B.N.Goswamy, distinguished art historian, is professor emeritus of art history at the Punjab Universtiy, Chandigarh. A leading authority on Indian art, his work covers a wide range of different areas, and is regarded, particularly in the area of Pahiri painting, as having influenced much subsequent thinking. B.N.Goswamy has been responsible for major exhibitions of Indian Art in Paris, San Fransisco, Zurich and San Diego. He has taught as a visiting professor at the universities of Heidelberg, Pennsylvania, California (Berkeley and Los Angeles), Austin (Texas) and Zurich.