A Study of the Manuscripts of the Woolner Collection, Lahore

The project aims to make a major, but largely inaccessible and little studied collection of Sanskrit manuscripts (mss.), the A.C. Woolner Collection of the Punjab University Library (PUL), Lahore, Pakistan, accessible again to the scholarly world and to conduct focussed research on the Collection in a cooperative project involving PUL, Geumgang University (GGU), Nonsan, Korea, and the University of Vienna (Institute for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies [ISTB]). The basic task of the gradual digitization and digital cataloguing of the Sanskrit mss. will fall to PUL and GGU, and will be done in scholarly and technical col-laboration and coordination with ISTB, where the main research component of the project will be located. It will consist of three major Parts: (1) the analysis and evaluation of the philoso-phical manuscripts of the Collection (1,266 mss.), which will result in the establishment of a descriptive digital catalogue following international standards and highlighting the importance of the individual mss., and a connected sophisticated, prosopographically oriented data base presenting all information that can be extracted from the initial passages and colophons of the mss.; (2) a detailed study of (a) the history of the Collection in the wider context of the flourishing Sanskritic culture of pre-partition Lahore and the cultural- intellectual history of this city of celebrated multi-traditional learning, culture and intercultural exchange during the rele-vant period (ca. 1880-1947), (b) with special emphasis on the history of its philosophical mss.; (3) in-depth philological work on some selected mss., with an initial focus on a ms. of the Natyashastra (NS), the foundational work on ancient Indian histrionics. Research conducted in Parts (2a) and (2b) will rely on the analyses and research on the data gathered in Part (1) and on extensive archival work in South Asia, especially in Lahore itself. For Part (3), a textually focussed study of the fifth chapter of the NS, which deals with the ritual preliminaries of a theatrical performance, will be made on the basis of a comparative critical edition of this chapter utilizing the ms. of the Collection and a number of recently available mss. from Nepal. The project will in this way throw light on the little explored Sanskritic culture of the Punjab and its treasures, which have been virtually inaccessible for more than half a century, with an emphasis on the Brahminical cultural and philosophical component, and contribute to our knowledge of the recent cultural history of the region exemplified by a specific institutional history and aspects of the cultural-intellectual history related to it. The results of Parts (1) and (2) will be presented inter alia in an innovative, visual manner made possible by cooperation with the sub-project "Cultural History Information System" of the FWF National Research Network "Cultural History of the Western Himalaya from the 8th Century" (NFN S9808).

The project aims to make a major, but largely inaccessible and little studied collection of Sanskrit manuscripts (mss.), the A.C. Woolner Collection of the Punjab University Library (PUL), Lahore, Pakistan, accessible again to the scholarly world and to conduct focussed research on the Collection in a cooperative project involving PUL, Geumgang University (GGU), Nonsan, Korea, and the University of Vienna (Institute for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies [ISTB]). The basic task of the gradual digitization and digital cataloguing of the Sanskrit mss. will fall to PUL and GGU, and will be done in scholarly and technical collaboration and coordination with ISTB, where the main research component of the project will be located. It will consist of three major Parts: (1) the analysis and evaluation of the philosophical manuscripts of the Collection (1,266 mss.), which will result in the establishment of a descriptive digital catalogue following international standards and highlighting the importance of the individual mss., and a connected sophisticated, prosopographically oriented data base presenting all information that can be extracted from the initial passages and colophons of the mss.; (2) a detailed study of (a) the history of the Collection in the wider context of the flourishing Sanskritic culture of pre-partition Lahore and the cultural- intellectual history of this city of celebrated multi-traditional learning, culture and intercultural exchange during the relevant period (ca. 1880-1947), (b) with special emphasis on the history of its philosophical mss.; (3) in-depth philological work on some selected mss., with an initial focus on a ms. of the Natyashastra (NS), the foundational work on ancient Indian histrionics. Research conducted in Parts (2a) and (2b) will rely on the analyses and research on the data gathered in Part (1) and on extensive archival work in South Asia, especially in Lahore itself. For Part (3), a textually focussed study of the fifth chapter of the NS, which deals with the ritual preliminaries of a theatrical performance, will be made on the basis of a comparative critical edition of this chapter utilizing the ms. of the Collection and a number of recently available mss. from Nepal. The project will in this way throw light on the little explored Sanskritic culture of the Punjab and its treasures, which have been virtually inaccessible for more than half a century, with an emphasis on the Brahminical cultural and philosophical component, and contribute to our knowledge of the recent cultural history of the region exemplified by a specific institutional history and aspects of the cultural-intellectual history related to it. The results of Parts (1) and (2) will be presented inter alia in an innovative, visual manner made possible by cooperation with the sub-project "Cultural History Information System" of the FWF National Research Network "Cultural History of the Western Himalaya from the 8th Century" (NFN S9808).