Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa

The Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa (EMCAA) is an ambitious project aiming to fill a long existing gap in manuscript studies. Dealing comprehensively with the diversity of manuscript cultures in Asia and Africa, it will not only describe the state of research in the relevant fields but establish for the first time a reliable foundation for systematic, historical and comparative research in manuscript studies.

EMCAA Background
Manuscripts books written by hand have been one of the most influential manifestations of writing. For thousands of years, manuscripts have had a fundamental influence on many cultures. In the extensive period between the adoption of writing and the invention of mechanical and digital techniques of reproduction in some cases spanning several millennia manuscripts were the most important means of transmitting knowledge in a written form. Such widespread and long-term use gave rise to a great variety of developments regarding the production, function and reception of manuscripts in their respective social and cultural environments, thus resulting in distinct manuscript cultures. In both Asia and Africa, manuscript cultures have furthermore played a significant role in the transmission of knowledge up to the recent past, and some are still alive even today. In order to properly understand Asian and African societies and their histories, it is crucial that the impact of manuscript cultures is taken into account. In the West, scholarly interest in manuscripts has increased significantly over the last decades. This was certainly influenced by the rise of electronic media, which has stimulated historical and systematic inquiry in both the humanities and cultural studies. At the same time, manuscripts were rediscovered in Asia and Africa as part of cultural heritage, and vast quantities of extant manuscripts (conservatively estimated at approximately 10 million) have begun to be catalogued and made accessible. However, for some manuscript cultures there has not even been an introductory survey so far. A work which fills this gap and serves as a foundation for further research is still a desideratum.

EMCAA Aims
With the Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa, an historic and systematic overview will be presented for the first time. It allows for both a comparison with Western European book culture and the introduction of Asian and African manuscript cultures to current discussions in the fields of media, art and literary studies. However, this encyclopaedia is not conceived as a mere summary of existing research, but will in many respects provide a yet non-existing foundation for exactly this type of research. It will serve as a handbook for students of manuscript studies and as a reference tool for experts, who want to broaden their view by comparison with other manuscript cultures. The great variety of manuscript cultures examined will ensure that questionable approaches, e.g. deducing universal laws from European developments, or taking dichotomies such as East vs. West as a starting point, will be put to the test. The Chief and Area Editors were able to engage renowned scholars to act as Sub-Editors for their respective region of expertise, find experts for each lemma and ensure currentness of the contributions. The Advisory Board consists of eminent scholars mainly from European manuscript studies whose expertise will largely benefit the Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa. Furthermore, the Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa will raise awareness of Asian and African manuscripts as cultural heritage. In some regions, colonial administrations and modernist governments had considered manuscripts and the specific culture they represent as archaic and outdated leading to loss and neglect. Knowledge about the significance of manuscripts and their cultural value will enhance the preservation and study of this unique type of artifacts.

EMCAA Content
Volume I: Introduction. Histories of Manuscript Cultures
The first volume of the encyclopaedia introduces the subject and methodological considerations (definitions, etc.) as well as the layout of the work. It also contains an outline of the histories of manuscript cultures and provides a summary of the state of research for each major manuscript culture, including current, local discussions. These macroarticles are accessible to non-specialists and include suggestions for further reading in Western languages.

Volume II: Manuscript Cultures in Comparison

The second volume comprises articles on the systematic categories of production, usage and function and reflexion, e.g. writing support, writing substance, textual and non-textual functions, textual scholarship and knowledge, with sections on each manuscript culture. The contributions are written by specialists for the respective manuscript culture to avoid any over-simplification or neglect of culture-specific characteristics. References to entries are included in Volume III.

Volume III: Dictionary of Manuscript Cultures

The entries in the third volume provide short definitions of key terms and specialist information, but also include important persons, manuscripts and libraries for each manuscript culture. Cross-references to vols. I and II are integrated.

Chief Imam of Borno translating a biography of the Prophet Muhammad (Kitb-al-Shif composed in the 12th century by Q Iy) into Old Kanembu. Maiduguri, Nigeria. Dmitry Bondarev, 2005.

EMCAA Content
Lemmata for Volume II of the Encyclopaedia (sample selection) Category Sub-sections
Writing support Book formats Preparation Writing substance Instruments Producers Writing process Layout Production Embellishment Binding Finalizing Textual functions Non-textual functions Usage and function Distribution Storage Destruction, Recycling, Disposal Textual scholarship Reflexion Knowledge Reading process (reading aloud/silent) Symbolic uses (ritual), Calligraphy Transmission, Book-trade, Borrowing Library, Collection, Catalogue Geniza-like practices Palaeography, Codicology, Philology Canonization, Teaching, Commentaries

Lemmata
Papyrus, Parchment, Paper, Tree bark, Palmleaf, Bamboo Codex, Scroll, Quires Ink, Pigments, Blood Brush, Calamus, Ruler, Penbox Scribe, Copyist, Illuminator, Painter Copying techniques, Marks, Script styles Divisions, Frame, Justification Illumination, Painting Page ordering systems, Catchwords

The above list shows the general layout of volume II of the Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa, from the main categories on the left to the sub-sections and, finally, the individual lemmata on the right. As there are many more topics to be dealt with and not each of them is equally relevant for every manuscript culture, the lemmata included in the above list are a sample selection for the purpose of illustration only.

EMCAA Model Article I

Writing Systems: Tibet

Sam van Schaik, The British Library

Overview
The Tibetan writing system is a syllabic alphabet, created or standardized in the first half of the seventh century based on the Indic Brahmi scripts of that period. The alphabet contains thirty consonants, each of which contains the inherent vowel -a. Vowel modifiers for the sounds -i, -u, -e and -o are written above or below the consonants. In addition, letters may be stacked vertically, and there are special forms for some letters in these stacks. The basic unit is the syllable, and syllables are separated with a small dot called tsheg. Larger semantic units are separated with a vertical stroke called shad. Tibetan is written horizontally from left to right. The Tibetan tradition distinguishes two basic types of Tibetan script, the headed (dbu can) and the headless (dbu med). The first script is characterized by short horizontal lines (the heads ) along the tops of many letters, similar to the serifs of the Latin script, while the second script dispenses with these lines. There are numerous different styles within the headless script, including a simple style for teaching children, ornamental styles for official edicts, and a highly cursive style for handwriting.

Origins and early development

Tibet's historical traditions are almost unanimous in attributing the invention of the Tibetan script to a figure known as Tnmi Sambhota. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether such a person existed let alone whether he really did invent a script. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that Tibetan writing as we know it appeared alongside other cultural innovations during the first rapid expansion of the Tibetan Empire in the first half of the seventh century. Analogues for most Tibetan letters can be found in the North Indian Brahmi scripts known as Late Gupta which flourished from the fifth to seventh centuries. Tibetan letters for sounds not found in Indian languages were generally created by altering existing forms. (Thomas 1951; van Schaik 2011a.) The earliest sources of Tibetan writing available to us are inscriptions carved on stone pillars and rocks (as well as a few cast in metal) dating from the mideighth to mid-ninth centuries. As with other epigraphic scripts, the writing style of the Tibetan rock inscriptions tends to prefer straight lines, and does not extend lines any further than necessary. In a similar fashion to Roman Capitals, the letters are evenly proportioned so that most would fit within the shape

Dunhuang manuscript of a commentary on the Upyapa-tantra from the 10th century written in headless script, IOL Tib J 321. The British Library

EMCAA Model Article I

of a square (though the need to vertically stack Tibetan letters requires a more flexible model). Manuscripts from the same period show the gradual development of this square form. While certain official manuscripts emulate it, many show an increased cursivity, with a reduction in strokes and a curvature of sharp angles. The development of the headless script from the headed script is clearly seen in these manuscripts as a process of cursivization (Gendun Chophel 1983; van Schaik 2011c). In this early period there is a clear correspondence between writing styles and genres of manuscript. For example, different styles can be identified for official documents, Buddhist scriptures, and the personal manuscripts of Buddhist monks. After the fall of the Tibetan empire in the mid-ninth century, these styles were no longer taught, and a number of different calligraphic styles appeared. (van Schaik 2011b.) Some form of ornamentation is seen in the earliest Tibetan manuscripts. The head letter (mgo yig) is a curl which is used to denote the beginning of the recto of a pothi folio in Buddhist / literary texts. It is derived from the Indian manuscript tradition. Other early forms of ornamentation include Buddhist symbols such as the lotus flower, wheel and vajra. In the manuscript tradition (as opposed to the later printed book tradition), ornamental forms of the shad, and small designs composed of circles are sometimes used to mark divisions in the text. (Scherrer-Schaub and Bonami 2002.)

da (da drag) and supporting a (a rten). (Ribur Ngawang Gyatso 1984; Scherrer-Schaub 2002.) Tibetan literature includes classifications and descriptions of different styles of writing (e.g. Bkras lhun dgon 2003). These styles are mainly classified as subdivisions of the headless script. Such styles include the Drutsa ('bru tsha) the Book Form (dpe tshugs), which are mainly found in Buddhist / literary manuscripts, and the Running Script (khyug yig), which is a highly cursive style mainly used in letters and notes. A number of variations on the Running Script are recognized, including the Long Form (tshugs ring), the Short Form (tshugs thung) and the Small Form (tshugs chung). In the modern period, the headed script came to be used primarily in printed books, with the headless script being used in manuscripts. However, this is less true outside of Central Tibet. In Bhutan and Tibetan cultural areas to the East and West, the headed script continued to be used in manuscripts.

Modern palaeographical studies

The palaeographical study of Tibetan writing is still in its infancy. A periodization developed by Cristina Scherrer-Schaub and Georges Bonami using both codicology and palaeographical analysis, divides Tibetan writing styles into three phases: 9501250, 12501430, and 1430 onwards (though the dates are only approximate). The authors used radiocarbon dating on a sample of manuscripts to confirm their hypothesis (Scherrer-Schaub and Bonami 2002). A study of the imperial Tibetan epigraphic writing (which influenced manuscript styles) has been published by Helga Uebach (2010). Studies by Sam van Schaik based on the manuscripts from the Dunhuang cave have identified a number of different writing styles in use during the Tibetan imperial period (seventh to mid-ninth century) and argued that a paradigm shift in Tibetan writing followed the end of the empire (van Schaik 2011a,b,c).

Traditional categories
The Tibetan historical tradition records that the writing system was revised and standardized several times. The most important of these revisions occurred in the year 812/3 and is recorded in an imperial edict. Though this reform, and later ones, were mainly aimed at translation vocabulary, they also seem to have affected orthography, with a number of archaic features in the script gradually disappearing from the early ninth century onward. These include the strong

EMCAA Model Article I

Select Bibliography
Bkras lhun dgon. 2003. Yig rigs gsum ldan gyi gzungs sngags. Lanzhou: Kan su'i mi rigs gyi dpe skrun khang. Gendun Chophel. 1983. The Evolution of U'med from U'chen Script. Tibet Journal 8.1: 5657. Ribur Ngawang Gyatso. 1984. A Short History of Tibetan Script. Tibet Journal 9.2: 2830. Scherrer-Schaub, C.A. 2002. Enacting Words: A Diplomatic Analysis of the Imperial Decrees (bkas bcad) and Their Application in the sGra sbyor bam po gnyis pa Tradition. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 25.12: 263340. Scherrer-Schaub, C.A. and G. Bonani. 2002. Establishing a typology of the old Tibetan manuscripts: a multidisciplinary approach. In Susan Whitfield (ed.), Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries. London: The British Library. 184 215. Thomas, Frederick William. 1951. The Tibetan Alphabet. In Festschrift zur Feier des 200jhrigen Bestehens der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gttingen (II Philologische-historische Klasse), Gttingen. 146165. Uebach, Helga. 2010. Notes on the Palaeography of Old Tibetan Inscriptions: Zhol and bSam yas. In Anne Chayet et al (eds.), Edition, ditions: lcrit au Tibet, volution et devenir. Mnchen: Indus Verlag. 411428. van Schaik, Sam. 2011a. A New Look at the Invention of the Tibetan Script. In Yoshiro Imaeda, Matthew Kapstein and Tsuguhito Takeuchi (eds.), Old Tibetan Documents Monograph Series, vol. III. Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. 4596. van Schaik, Sam. 2011b. Towards a Tibetan Paleography: A Preliminary Typology of Writing Styles in Early Tibet. In Jan-Ulrich Sobisch, Jrg Quenzer and Dmitry Bondarev (eds.), Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field. Berlin: de Gruyter. van Schaik, Sam. 2011c. The Origin of the Headless Style (dbu med) in Tibet. In Nathan Hill (ed.), Tibeto-Burman Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.

EMCAA Model Article II

Book Format: Arabic, Persian and Turkish

Tilman Seidensticker, University of Jena The most common book form in the world of Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts is without doubt the bound codex consisting of several quires. The writing was usually at right angles to the spine. Manuscripts produced in the Maghrib sometimes consisted of unbound loose leaves or quires, while those from subSaharan Africa were predominantly characterised by loose unconnected leaves (Droche 2006: 88f.). Books from the Indian subcontinent were sometimes composed of a single quire of huge amounts of folios or bifolia (ibid.: 69, where a monobible with 280 bifolia in a single gathering is mentioned). The scroll was used for specific purposes such as diplomas or calligraphic copies of the Quran. Another special form was the accordion-fold book (Ar. muraqqa patched ), composed of pieces of cardboard held together by cloth hinges. From c. 1500 onwards, such books were used in Turkey, Iran and India for collections of calligraphy samples or miniature paintings. ing size include the need of being impressive, portability, and, in the case of small books, the legibility of script (if considered necessary). The importance of these factors varied according to the content of the manuscript, the total amount of text to be copied, the purpose of the individual copy, the time and the region. On the whole, the standard size of Arabic, Persian or Turkish Islamic manuscripts is not significantly different from the common size of modern printed books. However, from early times, the Quran, the starting point of the Islamic bookmaking tradition, was produced not only in average-sized volumes, but also in volumes both extremely large and extremely small. One of the best-known examples of a large early Quran is the oblong square in plano parchment codex from the Amr Mosque in Fus (Old Cairo), written in the 8th century, which measures 540 620 mm. It is possible that the pre-Islamic Egyptian tradition of producing large Bibles influenced the emergence of such impressive copies: the 5th-century Codex Alexandrinus measures 316264 mm, and the Codex Sinaiticus is even larger, measuring approximately 400 350 mm. Huge Qurans were created in all periods, but the Mamlk era (12501517) witnessed a particular flourishing in the production of colossal manuscripts, not only in Egypt and Syria, but also elsewhere. The size of the so-called Baysunqur Quran, probably commissioned by Timur around the year 1400 and produced in Central Asia, exceeds all others: it is 177 cm tall and 101 cm wide (Droche/Gladiss 1999: 38 and 42). An extremely small, oblong-shaped copy of the Quran on parchment (Paris, BN Arabe 399) has an estimated date not much later than the Quran of the Amr Mosque mentioned above (towards the end of the 9th century). The leaves measure as little as 42 73 mm. Pre-Islamic models also exist for such small Qurans, in the form of small-scale Bible copies in Greek and Coptic. Miniature Qurans continued to be produced into the 20th century. As Islams holy book, the Quran

Monumental Quran, ascribed to usayn Ibn Al , from Droche 2004: 28, ill. 4.

The size of a book has natural limits based on the maximum size of the writing support, a fact that is particularly evident for parchment manuscripts. The techniques employed for manufacturing paper were another reason for limitations. Other factors determin-

EMCAA Model Article II

is found in large-formatted volumes much more often than any other Islamic book, whether in Arabic, Persian or Turkish. Although extremely large or small copies of other texts are sometimes also found, such texts are usually in smaller formats, and do not show the dimensional extremes of the Quran. A general tendency towards larger leaves, even for non-religious texts, is discernible in the 13th and 14th centuries (Bloom 2001: 52 and 184). With regard to the material format, it is important to note that in the Islamic world (just as in classical antiquity and the early Western medieval period) it was unusual to fold writing material to make quires; instead, bifolia were cut to the desired dimension in advance, then gathered, usually in groups of four or five, and folded in half (Droche 2006: 85). Thus, equivalents of terms like folio, quarto or octavo (the result of one, two or three folds) are not commonly used to designate the bibliographical or library formats of pre-modern periods. Instead, descriptions of format are based on the manner in which the raw bifolia were cut (Arabic qa, cf. Gacek 2001: 117). There is evidence that standardized bifolia sizes existed. The Arab bookseller and bibliographer Ibn al-Nadm, who lived in Baghdad towards the end of the 10th century, mentions Sulaymniyya leaves (containing 20 lines per page) to define a standard unit with regard to the number of words in a certain text. The Egyptian historian al-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) enumerated nine sizes of paper, of which the two largest were the standard, full-sized Baghdadi sheet, measuring one [...] cubit (approximately [...] 73 centimeters) high by one and a half cubits (approximately [...] 110 centimeters) wide, and the reduced Baghdadi sheet ([...] 65 by 98 centimeters). (Bloom 2001: 53) The most common shape for Islamic books in Asia and North Africa was without doubt vertical. The dominance of this shape possibly dates from the beginnings of Islamic book production; in any case, more Qurans written in the ijz script are vertical than oblong. For reasons still unknown, from the middle of the 8th to the 10th century, Qurans were almost exclusively oblong.

But after this time, this shape seems to have gone out of fashion for Qurans, and although oblong copies of other texts existed, even they are quite exceptional. In the Maghrib, square Qurans, as well as other texts of religious importance, are frequently found, although the square shape is neither exclusively reserved for religious books nor limited to that area. A very special Quran shape, found in later periods, is the small octagonal, especially found in Persia and Turkey. Such Qurans were often stored in octagonal boxes or caskets and were purportedly fixed to the shafts of Muslim armies flags for apotropaic purposes; hence they are called Sanjaq (flag ) Qurans. Another special format is the slim oblong book, with the script usually running parallel, although sometimes diagonally, to the spine. Such manuscripts are called Safna (ship ); it is a shape that seems to have been particularly wide-spread in Persia.

Small octagonal Quran from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Ms. orient. Octav 81, fol. 196a).

See also Gacek 2009, s.v. Atlas books (14); Folding of sheets (104-5); Paper (especially Appellations and sizes, 191-3); on the accordion-fold albums Muraa, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., VII: 602-3 (B. W. Robinson).

EMCAA Model Article II

Select Bibliography
Bloom, Jonathan M. 2001. Paper before print. The history and impact of paper in the Islamic world. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Droche, Franois et al. 2006. Islamic codicology. An introduction to the study of manuscripts in Arabic script. London: Al-Furqn Islamic Heritage Foundation. Droche, Franois, and Almut von Gladiss. 1999. Der Prachtkoran im Museum fr Islamische Kunst. Berlin: Museum fr Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preuischer Kulturbesitz. Gacek, Adam. 2001. The Arabic manuscript tradition. A glossary of technical terms and bibliography. Leiden/Boston/Kln: Brill. Gacek, Adam. 2009. Arabic manuscripts. A vademecum for readers. Leiden/Boston: Brill.

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EMCAA Model Article III

Manuscript Layout: Medieval China

Imre Galambos, University of Cambridge

Overview
The layout of medieval Chinese manuscripts can vary enormously according to their type, function, content, time period, etc. Since the surviving material ranges from random notes with no apparent attention to visual presentation to court-sanctioned copies of Buddhist sutras and Daoist scriptures maintaining a highly consistent visual arrangement, it is perhaps more useful to look at this latter group for describing layout features. Although these regular texts constitute only part of the total number of manuscripts that survived from the medieval period, they represent in many ways a basic format emulated or approximated

by many other manuscripts. At the same time, it is important to note that this layout largely pertains to copies of texts in the strict sense of the word, i.e. literary, philosophical or religious compositions, rather than writings of an administrative nature (correspondence, contracts, etc.). Physically, this basic type of manuscripts consists of rectangular sheets of paper joined together into a long continuous surface rolled up into a scroll. This format is thought to have originated in Han and earlier times when texts were written on slips of bamboo and wood, which were tied together with a thread and kept as a roll, albeit a much bulkier one than the paper scroll used later. This was the juan (scroll, roll), originally a codicological unit that was used in later times to signify a unit of text larger than a chapter (pian), usually translated into English as volume or fascicle. For medieval manuscripts, the paper sheets that were glued together were called zhang (sheet), and there are examples where a colophon at the end of a text records how many zhang were used in the production of that particular copy. In the regular layout of copies of canonical texts, each sheet contains 27 or 28 lines of text, with 17 characters per line. There are numerous examples where the copyist realized that he had run out of space at the end of the line and crammed the last few characters together in order to fit them on that line. But other than these impromptu efforts to maintain the standard line length, characters are evenly spaced, more or less occupying a square of equal size. Grid lines are drawn using thinner ink and a type of ruler to determine the boundaries of the text in advance. Generally speaking, there are two horizontal grid lines, one across the top and

Manuscript Or.8210/S.13, an undated copy of the Lotus stra. The illustration shows the end of the manuscript with the end title indicating the number of the juan. The grid lines are also fairly visible, dividing the paper into evenly spaced lines (i.e. columns). The British Library Or.8210/S.13.

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EMCAA Model Article III

the other across the bottom part of the paper, delineating the circa 2.53 cm top and bottom margins. Often vertical grid lines 1.81.9 cm apart are also drawn for each line, ensuring that the text is copied in straight lines. At the same time, the characters are not aligned horizontally, as it became customary in epigraphic material, where characters were commonly written in strict vertical and horizontal alignment. Gridlines are usually observed but there are also contrary cases when the text runs onto the margin. The text runs continuously with very few unfinished lines. While in most cases the logical structure of the text is not reflected in its visual segmentation on the manuscript (i.e. the text in general is not segmented), sometimes a new line is introduced at the beginning of a new logical sequence. While the function of such new lines is apparent, most similar breaks within the text are not marked with a new line and thus this segmentation seems arbitrary from our modern perspective and only partially coincides with our understanding of how the text should be divided. At times a break is expressed not through starting a new line but by inserting a hooklike punctuation mark, signifying that a new section is about to begin. The title of the text is written in a separate line before (shouti) and after (weiti) the text, in full-size characters squeezed tightly together with no space between them. This makes the title stand apart from the rest of the text where characters are evenly spaced. As a general rule, the title of the text and chapter (pian) number is written at the beginning of chapters, whereas the volume (juan) number appears at the end of each volume. Commentaries transmitted as part of the copied text are written inline, using double lines and smaller, typically half-size, characters; thus they do not disrupt the general spatial arrangement. In courtcommissioned sutras, corrections, such as the insertion of characters, deletion or reversal marks, etc., are also done in a small script so that they do not interfere with the visual appearance of the manuscript;

therefore, they are often not immediately visible, unless one actually reads through the text.

Recent scholarship
Research on the layout of medieval Chinese manuscripts is scarce. This is a subject that has primarily been studied by Jean-Pierre Drge, in a number of articles regarding the material aspects of manuscripts (paper, layout, binding, etc). In English, we have Akira Fujiedas general description of the Dunhuang corpus from the perspective of manuscript studies, and in this context layout is also discussed.

Select Bibliography
Drge, Jean-Pierre. 1989. Du rouleau manuscrit au livre imprim. In Roger Laufer (ed.), Le Texte et son inscription. Paris: CNRS. 4348. Drge, Jean-Pierre. 1991. Les bibliothques en Chine au temps des manuscrits. Paris: cole franaise d'ExtrmeOrient. Drge, Jean-Pierre. 1979. Les cahiers des manuscrits de Touen-houang. In Contributions aux tudes sur Touenhouang. Genve/Paris: Droz. 1728. Drge, Jean-Pierre. 1997. La matrialit du texte: Prliminaires une tude de la mise en page du livre chinois. In Viviane Alleton (ed.), Paroles dire, paroles crire: Inde, Chine, Japon. Paris: ditions de l'cole des hautes tudes en sciences sociales. 241252. Fujieda, Akira. 1996. The Tunhuang manuscripts: a general description. Zinbun IX: 132.

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EMCAA Infrastructure
The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC)
The initiation of the Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa in October 2007 was one of the outcomes of a long tradition of manuscript studies in Hamburg, which further led to the founding of the Research Group Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa (20082011). Since its establishment in July 2011, the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) became the new institutional home of the encyclopaedia. The CSMC can be regarded as an extended followup of the Research Group and like its predecessor is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The CSMC consists of around 50 scholars who are working in 21 projects. 17 research projects are focussing on three key aspects of manuscript cultures: paratexts, visual organization and manuscript collections/manuscripts as collections. Three scientific service projects are developing and applying methods of script recovery, material analysis and image processing for manuscript studies. Finally, a service project provides a data repository to ensure sustainability of the project data. The projects cover a wide geographic area, including not only Asian and African but also European manuscript cultures. All three Chief Editors as well as many of the Area- and Sub-Editors of the encyclopaedia are members of the CSMC, which directly benefits work on the Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa. Affiliation with the CSMC not only facilitates incorporation of the state of research but also greatly enhances the encyclopaedia through the extensive infrastructure of the centre as well as its network of international relations. Members affiliated to EMCAA: Alessandro Bausi (Principal investigator) Dmitry Bondarev (Principal investigator) Michael Friedrich (Director, Principal investigator) Volker Grabowsky (Pincipal investigator) Harunaga Isaacson (Principal investigator) Jrg B. Quenzer (Vice-Director, Principal investigator) Tilman Seidensticker (Principal investigator) Kai Vogelsang (Principal investigator) http://www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/

Thai leporello manuscript containing the Phra Malai Kham Luang, a poetic version of a Buddhist legend (dated 1874, Sig.: Cod. orient. 509, Staats- und Universittsbibliothek Hamburg)

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EMCAA Network
The editors of the Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa cooperate with various other research projects and institutions in Hamburg and worldwide:

Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (NGMCP)

The Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (NGMCP) is the successor of the well-known and widely renowned Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP) which thirty-one years after its inception in 1970 was brought to an end in March 2001. A first preliminary title list of the manuscripts prepared under the NGMPP forms the basis of the new project. The main purpose of the project is to produce a descriptive catalogue of a significant part of about 160,000 manuscripts photographed by the NGMPP (it is expected that all manuscripts will be catalogued in the long term). Members affiliated to EMCAA: Harunaga Isaacson (Director)

http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ngmcp/

Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies (COMSt)

The program scheduled for the period from 2009 to 2014 aims at facilitating cross-cultural academic dialogue and active exchange in the field of Oriental manuscript studies focused on the Mediterranean and North African cultural areas. Oriental studies are considerably lagging behind Occidental manuscript studies, where e.g. Greek and Latin philology have reached a high standard. Since some regional and linguistic cultures have been studied more intensely than others in different aspects, an exchange within the framework of Oriental philology will enable Europe-wide development through network activities. The coordination will on the one hand enable a high degree of standardization between the cultural and language areas and on the other hand facilitate the explication of culture-specific methodologies. Members affiliated to EMCAA: Alessandro Bausi (Chair) Jost Gippert (Team leader) Paola Buzi (Team leader) Marilena Maniaci (Team leader)

http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/COMST/

Other Partners: Cultural Heritage of Christian Ethiopia: Salvation, Preservation, Research (Ethio-SPARE)
http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/ethiostudies/ETHIOSPARE/ http://kohd.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/ http://sanskrit.lib.cam.ac.uk/

Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in German Collections (KOHD) Sanskrit Manuscripts Project, Cambridge Tombouctou Manuscripts Project, Cape Town
http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/ http://www.efeo.fr/ 14

cole Franaise d'Extrme-Orient (EFEO)

EMCAA People
Chief Editors: Area Editors:
Michael Friedrich, Harunaga Isaacson, Jrg B. Quenzer Michael Friedrich, Jrg B. Quenzer (East Asia) Harunaga Isaacson, Volker Grabowsky (Central, South and South East Asia) Dmitry Bondarev, Fran ois Droche, Philip Jaggar, Tilman Seidensticker (West Asia and Africa)

Sub-Editors:

East Asia:

William Boltz (University of Washington, Seattle) George Dutton (University of California, Los Angeles) Michael Friedrich (Universitt Hamburg, CSMC) Imre Galambos (University of Cambridge) Beatrix Mecsi (Etvs Lornd University, Budapest) Nathalie Monnet (Bibliothque Nationale de France, Paris) Constantino Moretti (cole Pratique des Hautes tudes, Paris) Jrg B. Quenzer (Universitt Hamburg, CSMC) Kai Vogelsang (Universitt Hamburg, CSMC)

Dominic Goodall (cole Fran aise d'Extrme-Orient, Paris) Volker Grabowsky (Universitt Hamburg, CSMC) Harunaga Isaacson (Universitt Hamburg, CSMC) Ulrich Kratz (Emeritus School of Oriental and African Studies, London) Sam van Schaik (British Library, London) Alessandro Bausi (Universitt Hamburg, CSMC) Dmitry Bondarev (Universitt Hamburg, CSMC) Paola Buzi (Universit di Roma La Sapienza) Fran ois Droche (cole Pratique des Hautes tudes, Paris) Jost Gippert (Goethe-Universitt Frankfurt am Main) Alessandro Gori (Universit degli Studi di Firenze) Philip Jaggar (School of Oriental and African Studies, London) Graziano Krtli (Yale University, New Haven) Tilman Seidensticker (Friedrich-Schiller Universitt Jena, CSMC)

Central, South and South East Asia:

West Asia and Africa:

Board of Advisors:

J.P. Gumbert (Emeritus Universiteit Leiden) Marilena Maniaci (Universit degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale) Jan-Dirk Mller (Emeritus Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt Mnchen) Richard Salomon (University of Washington) Avihai Shivtiel (Emeritus University of Leeds) de Gruyter, Berlin. Articles to be collected in 2013, appearance scheduled for 2015. 15

Publisher:

EMCAA Contact

Address:

Encyclopaedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures Warburgstrae 26 20354 Hamburg Germany EMCAA@uni-hamburg.de

Email:

Cover images copyright (from top left to bottom right): Dmitry Bondarev; Collection Moh'd S. Idris (Photo: Ridder Samsom); National Book Trust, India; Hunan Provincial Museum, PR China; Linda Lane, Seattle (U.S.); bpk/Museum fr Islamische Kunst, SMB/Petra Stning; Hunan Provincial Museum, PR China; Universitt Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut. Typesetting and layout: Thies Staack.