Knowledge resides in books: Writing as Means of Salvation in Hindu Medieval Sources

In this lecture, Dr Florinda De Simini will examine the practice of book donations with a specific focus on its impact on the process of creating and legitimating religious traditions.

Sanskrit texts and epigraphs witness the importance attributed to the transcription and donation of manuscripts as religious act since the Early Middle Ages. Books were copied, venerated and donated to temples or other recipients during ceremonies whose procedures are explained in detail by the prescriptive texts. The fulfilment of all the required instructions in the performance of book donations was believed to grant all participants in the rite high mundane and ultramundane rewards, which eventually enabled them to attain liberation.

Florinda De Simini, University l’Orientale, Naples, is Gonda Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden.