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68-506: According to Hindu scriptures including the Ramayana , the divine bow Pinaka of the god Shiva was given to King Devarata Janaka of Mithila for its safe-keeping. Pinaka was received by Shreedhwaja Janaka in legacy. It was said that the bow was so powerful that no one was able to uplift it. Once, princess Sita had lifted this bow in her childhood. When the King Janaka saw Sita uplifting

136-659: A defined area. The earliest are dated to the latter half of the 1st millennium BCE. The Dharma-shastras (law books), derivatives of the Dharma-sutras . Other examples were bhautikashastra "physics", rasayanashastra "chemistry", jīvashastra "biology", vastushastra "architectural science", shilpashastra "science of sculpture", arthashastra "economics" and nītishastra "political science". It also includes Tantras and Agama literature. The Puranas, which mean "history" or "old", are Sanskrit texts which were composed between 3rd century BCE and 1000 CE. The Puranas are

204-461: A distinctive long rectangular shape, were used dating back to the 5th century BCE or earlier, and in some cases continued to be used until the 19th century. In China, bamboo and wooden slips were used prior to the introduction of paper . In Russia, birch bark documents as old as from the 11th century have survived. Paper spread from China via the Islamic world to Europe by the 14th century, and by

272-732: A manuscript is called facsimile . Digital reproductions can be called (high-resolution) scans or digital images . Before the inventions of printing, in China by woodblock and in Europe by movable type in a printing press , all written documents had to be both produced and reproduced by hand. In the west, manuscripts were produced in form of scrolls ( volumen in Latin) or books ( codex , plural codices ). Manuscripts were produced on vellum and other parchment, on papyrus , and on paper. In Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia , palm leaf manuscripts , with

340-407: A manuscript, or script for short, is an author's or dramatist's text, used by a theatre company or film crew during the production of the work's performance or filming. More specifically, a motion picture manuscript is called a screenplay; a television manuscript, a teleplay; a manuscript for the theatre, a stage play; and a manuscript for audio-only performance is often called a radio play, even when

408-458: A metal stylus. In the Philippines , for example, as early as 900 AD, specimen documents were not inscribed by stylus, but were punched much like the style of today's dot-matrix printers . This type of document was rare compared to the usual leaves and bamboo staves that were inscribed. However, neither the leaves nor paper were as durable as the metal document in the hot, humid climate. In Burma ,

476-589: A person to uplift the divine bow were being kind, soft-spoken, gracious and far from ego. Before and after the King Ravana, many other powerful kings and princes tried to uplift the divine bow but no one was able to uplift the bow by their powers. It is said that Guru Vishwamitra received invitation from the King Janaka to come in the Sita Swayamvara Shabha. After receiving the invitation, Guru Vishwamitra along with his disciples Rama and Lakshmana went to

544-409: A single day ceremony at the court of King Janaka in which all the kings or princes of the kingdoms in the entire Aryavarta were invited. But according to some scholars and legends the Sita Swayamvara Shabha ceremony was not organised for a single day but for many different days. According to legend, there is also a story of participation of King Ravan without any invitation. In the story Banashur ,

612-672: A vast genre of Hindu texts that encyclopedically cover a wide range of topics, particularly legends and other traditional lore. Composed primarily in Sanskrit, but also in regional languages, several of these texts are named after major Hindu deities such as Vishnu , Shiva , and Devi . The Puranic literature is encyclopedic, and it includes diverse topics such as cosmogony , cosmology , genealogies of gods, goddesses, kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, folk tales, pilgrimages, temples, medicine, astronomy, grammar, mineralogy, humor, love stories, as well as theology and philosophy. The content

680-920: Is a vast corpus of diverse texts, and includes but is not limited to Vedāngas , the Hindu epics (such as the Mahabharat and Ramayan), the Sutras and Shastras , the texts of Hindu philosophies , the Puranas , the Kāvya or poetical literature, the Bhasyas , and numerous Nibandhas (digests) covering politics, ethics, culture, arts and society. Many ancient Hindu texts were composed in Sanskrit and other regional Indian languages. In modern times, most ancient texts have been translated into other Indian languages and some in non-Indian languages. Prior to

748-798: Is diverse across the Puranas, and each Purana has survived in numerous manuscripts which are themselves voluminous and comprehensive. The Hindu Puranas are anonymous texts and likely the work of many authors over the centuries; in contrast, most Jaina Puranas can be dated and their authors assigned. There are 18 Maha Puranas (Great Puranas): Agni Purana , Bhagavata Purana , Bhavishya Purana , Brahmanda Purana , Brahmavaivarta Purana , Garuda Purana , Kurma Purana , Linga Purana , Markandeya Purana , Naradiya Purana , Padma Purana , Shiva Purana , Skanda Purana , Vamana Purana , Varaha Purana , Vayu Purana , and Vishnu Purana and 18 Upa Puranas (Minor Puranas), with over 400,000 verses. The Puranas do not enjoy

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816-421: Is heard, and Smriti ( Sanskrit : स्मृति, IAST : Smṛti ) – that which is remembered. The Shruti texts refer to the body of most authoritative and ancient religious texts , believed to be eternal knowledge authored neither by human nor divine agent but transmitted by sages ( rishis ). These comprise the central canon of Hinduism . It includes the four Vedas including its four types of embedded texts –

884-431: Is not attributed to these texts. The origin language of these texts is Sanskrit. The Vedas are considered Shruti texts. The Vedas consist of four parts: Rig Veda , Sama Veda , Yajur Veda , and Atharva Veda . Each Veda is subcategorized into Samhitas , Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and Upanishads . The four Vedas ( Rig Veda , Sama Veda , Yajur Veda , and Atharva Veda ) are a large body of Hindu texts originating from

952-685: Is often used by modern academics, especially where the animal has not been established by testing. Merovingian script , or "Luxeuil minuscule", is named after an abbey in Western France, the Luxeuil Abbey , founded by the Irish missionary St Columba c.  590 . Caroline minuscule is a calligraphic script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Latin alphabet could be easily recognized by

1020-457: Is said that princess Sita was also not interested from her heart to adopt Ravana as her life partner. Then he returned from there after being humiliated with the public present in the assembly. According to Shree Ramcharitmanas , the reason behind the failure of Ravana at the Swayamvar Sabha was his proudness of power. It took love, not power, to uplift the bow. The eligibility and virtues of

1088-479: Is the classification of literature which includes various scriptures and Itihasa s (epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata ), Harivamsa Puranas , Agamas and Darshanas . This genre of texts includes the Sutras and Shastras of the six schools of Hindu philosophy : Samkhya , Yoga, Nyaya , Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta . The Sutras and Shastras texts were compilations of technical or specialized knowledge in

1156-471: The mukhya (main) or principal Upanishads . The ten mukhya Upanishads are: Isha , Kena , Katha , Prashna , Mundaka , Mandukya , Taittiriya , Aitareya , Chandogya , and Brihadaranyaka. The mukhya Upanishads are found mostly in the concluding part of the Brahmanas and Aranyakas and were, for centuries, memorized by each generation and passed down verbally . The early Upanishads all predate

1224-662: The Dead Sea scrolls make no such differentiation. Manuscripts using all upper case letters are called majuscule , those using all lower case are called minuscule . Usually, the majuscule scripts such as uncial are written with much more care. The scribe lifted his pen between each stroke, producing an unmistakable effect of regularity and formality. On the other hand, while minuscule scripts can be written with pen-lift, they may also be cursive , that is, use little or no pen-lift. Islamic manuscripts were produced in different ways depending on their use and time period. Parchment (vellum)

1292-693: The Indian subcontinent . In 2016, Siya Ke Ram television serial of Star Plus made special and grand episodes on the topic Sita Swayamvara. They also launched 15 days Dhanush Yatra that traveled 107 major cities of India across Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab for the awareness of the popular epic event "Sita Swayamvara" in Ramayana . Hindu texts Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas Traditional Hindu texts or Hindu scriptures are manuscripts and voluminous historical literature which are related to any of

1360-402: The Latin : manūscriptum (from manus , hand and scriptum from scribere , to write ). The study of the writing (the "hand") in surviving manuscripts is termed palaeography (or paleography). The traditional abbreviations are MS for manuscript and MSS for manuscripts, while the forms MS. , ms or ms. for singular, and MSS. , mss or mss. for plural (with or without

1428-494: The Natasutras to have been composed around 600 BCE, whose complete manuscript has not survived into the modern age. Manuscripts collections (incomplete) Online resources: Manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten , as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently,

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1496-831: The Samhitas , the Brahmanas , the Aranyakas and the Upanishads . Of the Shrutis , the Upanishads alone are widely influential among Hindus, considered scriptures par excellence of Hinduism, and their central ideas have continued to influence its thoughts and traditions. The Smriti texts are a specific body of Hindu texts attributed to an author, as a derivative work they are considered less authoritative than Shruti in Hinduism. The Smriti literature

1564-455: The Shabhapati of the assembly for swayamvara, asked introduction with the King Ravana, then Ravana became very angry with him. The dialogue between King Ravana and Banashur is popularly known as Ravana-Banashur Samvada . It is said that Ravana tried to uplift the divine bow of Lord Shiva forcefully there but was not able to uplift the bow. He even failed to move the divine bow a little bit. It

1632-575: The University of Timbuktu in Mali . Major U.S. repositories of medieval manuscripts include: Many European libraries have far larger collections. Because they are books, pre-modern manuscripts are best described using bibliographic rather than archival standards. The standard endorsed by the American Library Association is known as AMREMM. A growing digital catalog of pre-modern manuscripts

1700-664: The Vedic period in northern India, the Rig Veda being composed c.  1200 BCE , and its Samhita and Brahmanas complete before about 800 BCE. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit hymns , the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism . Hindus consider the Vedas to be timeless revelation, apauruṣeya , which means "not of a man, superhuman" and "impersonal, authorless". The knowledge in

1768-745: The middens of Oxyrhynchus or secreted for safe-keeping in jars and buried ( Nag Hammadi library ) or stored in dry caves ( Dead Sea scrolls ). Volcanic ash preserved some of the Roman library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum . Manuscripts in Tocharian languages , written on palm leaves, survived in desert burials in the Tarim Basin of Central Asia. Ironically, the manuscripts that were being most carefully preserved in

1836-541: The "last chapters, parts of the Veda " or "the object, the highest purpose of the Veda". The concepts of Brahman (Ultimate Reality) and Ātman (Soul, Self) are central ideas in all the Upanishads , and "Know your Ātman" their thematic focus. The central ideas of the Upanishads have had a lasting influence on Hindu philosophy. More than 200 Upanishads are known, of which ten are the oldest and most important and are referred to as

1904-460: The Bhagavad Gita teaches Arjuna about atma (soul), God, moksha , and dharma. The Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit text with the earliest part believed to have been composed in the 5th century BCE, is attributed to the sage Valmiki and contains over 24,000 verses. The epic covers the life journey of Rama , an incarnation of Vishnu, along with his wife Sita , and brother Lakshmana . Central to

1972-471: The Bible came scores of commentaries. Commentaries were written in volumes, with some focusing on just single pages of scripture. Across Europe, there were universities that prided themselves on their biblical knowledge. Along with universities, certain cities also had their own celebrities of biblical knowledge during the medieval period. A book of hours is a type of devotional text which was widely popular during

2040-688: The Carolingian script, giving it proportion and legibility. This new revision of the Caroline minuscule was called English Protogothic Bookhand. Another script that is derived from the Caroline Minuscule was the German Protogothic Bookhand. It originated in southern Germany during the second half of the 12th century. All the individual letters are Caroline; but just as with English Protogothic Bookhand it evolved. This can be seen most notably in

2108-634: The Common Era, some in all likelihood pre-Buddhist (6th century BCE), down to the Maurya period . Of the remainder, some 95 Upanishads are part of the Muktika canon, composed from about the start of common era through medieval Hinduism . New Upanishads, beyond the 108 in the Muktika canon, continued being composed through the early modern and modern era, though often dealing with subjects unconnected to Hinduism. Smriti

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2176-472: The Kingdom of Mithila. After few days they reached at the court of King Janaka where Sita Swayamvara Shabha was organised. In the Swayamvar Sabha, when all the kings and princes became unsuccessful in uplifting the divine bow, then Guru Vishwamitra directed his disciple Rama to uplift the divine bow. It is said that the prince Rama first bowed to the divine bow Pinaka of Lord Shiva and then tried to lift it with

2244-562: The Middle Ages. They are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscripts . Each book of hours contain a similar collection of texts, prayers , and psalms but decoration can vary between each and each example. Many have minimal illumination, often restricted to ornamented initials , but books of hours made for wealthier patrons can be extremely extravagant with full-page miniatures . These books were used for owners to recite prayers privately eight different times, or hours, of

2312-410: The Vedas is believed in Hinduism to be eternal, uncreated, neither authored by human nor by divine source, but seen, heard and transmitted by sages. Vedas are also called shruti ("what is heard") literature, distinguishing them from other religious texts, which are called smṛti ("what is remembered"). The Vedas, for orthodox Indian theologians, are considered revelations, some way or other

2380-684: The arm of the letter h. It has a hairline that tapers out by curving to the left. When first read the German Protogothic h looks like the German Protogothic b. Many more scripts sprang out of the German Protogothic Bookhand. After those came Bastard Anglicana, which is best described as: The coexistence in the Gothic period of formal hands employed for the copying of books and cursive scripts used for documentary purposes eventually resulted in cross-fertilization between these two fundamentally different writing styles. Notably, scribes began to upgrade some of

2448-655: The authority of a scripture in Hinduism, but are considered a Smriti . These Hindu texts have been influential in the Hindu culture , inspiring major national and regional annual festivals of Hinduism. The Bhagavata Purana has been among the most celebrated and popular text in the Puranic genre. The Bhagavata Purana emphasizes bhakti (devotion) towards Krishna. The Bhagavata Purana is a key text in Krishna bhakti literature. The Mahābhārata , which translates to " The Great Indian Tale ",

2516-542: The beginning of this text coming from the Abby of Saint-Martin at Tours . Caroline Minuscule arrived in England in the second half of the 10th century. Its adoption there, replacing Insular script , was encouraged by the importation of continental European manuscripts by Saints Dunstan , Aethelwold , and Oswald . This script spread quite rapidly, being employed in many English centres for copying Latin texts. English scribes adapted

2584-464: The codex format (as in a modern book), which had replaced the scroll by Late Antiquity . Parchment or vellum , as the best type of parchment is known, had also replaced papyrus , which was not nearly so long lived and has survived to the present almost exclusively in the very dry climate of Egypt , although it was widely used across the Roman world. Parchment is made of animal skin, normally calf, sheep, or goat, but also other animals. With all skins,

2652-715: The collection, in accordance with national and international content standards such as DACS and ISAD(G) . In other contexts, however, the use of the term "manuscript" no longer necessarily means something that is hand-written. By analogy a typescript has been produced on a typewriter. In book, magazine, and music publishing, a manuscript is an autograph or copy of a work, written by an author, composer or copyist. Such manuscripts generally follow standardized typographic and formatting rules, in which case they can be called fair copy (whether original or copy). The staff paper commonly used for handwritten music is, for this reason, often called "manuscript paper". In film and theatre,

2720-432: The cursive scripts. A script that has been thus formalized is known as a bastard script (whereas a bookhand that has had cursive elements fused onto it is known as a hybrid script). The advantage of such a script was that it could be written more quickly than a pure bookhand; it thus recommended itself to scribes in a period when demand for books was increasing and authors were tending to write longer texts. In England during

2788-457: The day. Along with Bibles, large numbers of manuscripts made in the Middle Ages were received in Church . Due to the complex church system of rituals and worship these books were the most elegantly written and finely decorated of all medieval manuscripts. Liturgical books usually came in two varieties. Those used during mass and those for divine office. Most liturgical books came with a calendar in

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2856-717: The diverse traditions within Hinduism . Some of the major Hindu texts include the Vedas , the Upanishads , and the Itihasa . Scholars hesitate in defining the term "Hindu scriptures" given the diverse nature of Hinduism , but many list the Agamas as Hindu scriptures, and Dominic Goodall includes Bhagavata Purana and Yajnavalkya Smriti in the list of Hindu scriptures as well. There are two historic classifications of Hindu texts: Shruti ( Sanskrit : श्रुति, IAST : Śruti ) – that which

2924-403: The divine bow Pinaka, he was impressed by her power and then he thought that she was no ordinary maiden. After King Janaka thought that princess Sita should marry to a more powerful man who can uplift and break the bow. Therefore, when the princess Sita later grew up and became eligible for marriage, then the King Janaka organised Swayamvara Shabha at his court for the selection of bridegroom to

2992-537: The early centuries of the Christian era , manuscripts were written without spaces between the words ( scriptio continua ), which makes them especially hard for the untrained to read. Extant copies of these early manuscripts written in Greek or Latin and usually dating from the 4th century to the 8th century, are classified according to their use of either all upper case or all lower case letters . Hebrew manuscripts, such as

3060-631: The early documented history of arts and science forms in India such as music , dance , sculptures , architecture , astronomy , science , mathematics , medicine and wellness . Valmiki 's Ramayana (500 BCE to 100 BCE) mentions music and singing by Gandharvas , dance by Apsaras such as Urvashi , Rambha , Menaka , Tilottama Panchāpsaras , and by Ravana 's wives who excelling in nrityageeta or "singing and dancing" and nritavaditra or "playing musical instruments"). The evidence of earliest dance related texts are in Natasutras , which are mentioned in

3128-447: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many books were written in the script known as Bastard Anglicana. From ancient texts to medieval maps, anything written down for study would have been done with manuscripts. Some of the most common genres were bibles, religious commentaries, philosophy, law and government texts. " The Bible was the most studied book of the Middle Ages". The Bible was the center of medieval religious life. Along with

3196-558: The front. This served as a quick reference point for important dates in Jesus' life and to tell church officials which saints were to be honored and on what day. In the context of library science , a manuscript is defined as any hand-written item in the collections of a library or an archive. For example, a library's collection of hand-written letters or diaries is considered a manuscript collection. Such manuscript collections are described in finding aids, similar to an index or table of contents to

3264-523: The full stop, all uppercase or all lowercase) are also accepted. The second s is not simply the plural; by an old convention, a doubling of the last letter of the abbreviation expresses the plural, just as pp. means "pages". A manuscript may be a codex (i.e. bound as a book ), a scroll , or bound differently or consist of loose pages. Illuminated manuscripts are enriched with pictures, border decorations, elaborately embossed initial letters or full-page illustrations. The mechanical reproduction of

3332-505: The kammavaca, Buddhist manuscripts, were inscribed on brass, copper or ivory sheets, and even on discarded monk robes folded and lacquered. In Italy some important Etruscan texts were similarly inscribed on thin gold plates: similar sheets have been discovered in Bulgaria . Technically, these are all inscriptions rather than manuscripts. In the Western world, from the classical period through

3400-549: The late 15th century had largely replaced parchment for many purposes there. When Greek or Latin works were published, numerous professional copies were sometimes made simultaneously by scribes in a scriptorium , each making a single copy from an original that was declaimed aloud. The oldest written manuscripts have been preserved by the perfect dryness of their Middle Eastern resting places, whether placed within sarcophagi in Egyptian tombs, or reused as mummy -wrappings, discarded in

3468-402: The libraries of antiquity are virtually all lost. Papyrus has a life of at most a century or two in relatively humid Italian or Greek conditions; only those works copied onto parchment, usually after the general conversion to Christianity, have survived, and by no means all of those. Originally, all books were in manuscript form. In China, and later other parts of East Asia, woodblock printing

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3536-652: The literate class from different regions. It was used in the Holy Roman Empire between approximately 800 and 1200. Codices, classical and Christian texts, and educational material were written in Carolingian minuscule throughout the Carolingian Renaissance . The script developed into blackletter and became obsolete, though its revival in the Italian renaissance forms the basis of more recent scripts. In Introduction to Manuscript Studies , Clemens and Graham associate

3604-563: The plot is the fourteen-year exile endured by Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana, during which Sita is abducted by Ravana of Lanka . Rama, accompanied by Lakshmana, Hanuman (a devotee of Rama), and an army, engages in a battle with Ravana, ultimately emerging victorious with Rama's slaying of Ravana. The epic concludes with Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana's return to Ayodhya , where Rama is crowned king and reigns over Ayodhya. Hindu texts for specific fields, in Sanskrit and other regional languages, have been reviewed as follows: The Hindu scriptures provide

3672-697: The population organized around the NGO "Sauvegarde et valorisation des manuscrits pour la défense de la culture islamique" (SAVAMA-DCI). Some 350,000 manuscripts were transported to safety, and 300,000 of them were still in Bamako in 2022. An international consultation on the safeguarding, accessibility and promotion of ancient manuscripts in the Sahel was held at the UNESCO office in Bamako in 2020. Most surviving pre-modern manuscripts use

3740-522: The princess Sita. In the Swayamvara Shabha, the King Janaka put a condition among the participating kings that to become bridegroom of the princess Sita one had to uplift and break the divine bow Pinaka . In different versions of Ramayana , there are some slight differences in the stories of the Sita Swayamvara. In the Ramayana serial of Ramanand Sagar , Sita Swayamvara ceremony is depicted as

3808-542: The quality of the finished product is based on how much preparation and skill was put into turning the skin into parchment. Parchment made from calf or sheep was the most common in Northern Europe, while civilizations in Southern Europe preferred goatskin. Often, if the parchment is white or cream in color and veins from the animal can still be seen, it is calfskin. If it is yellow, greasy or in some cases shiny, then it

3876-418: The recorded performance is disseminated via non-radio means. In insurance, a manuscript policy is one that is negotiated between the insurer and the policyholder, as opposed to an off-the-shelf form supplied by the insurer. About 300,000 Latin, 55,000 Greek, 30,000 Armenian and 12,000 Georgian medieval manuscripts have survived. National Geographic estimates that 700,000 African manuscripts have survived at

3944-473: The same ease and humility as princess Sita. His spirit succeeded and he was able to uplift the divine bow easily. After that he broke the bow. Then princess Sita came to prince Rama. She garlanded him with her swayamvara garland and accepted Lord Rama as her life partner. In the modern times the Sita Swayamvara ceremony is still played and shown in dramas, theatre and Ramleela , etc. at different parts of

4012-530: The start of the common era, the Hindu texts were composed orally, then memorized and transmitted orally, from one generation to the next, for more than a millennium before they were written down into manuscripts. This verbal tradition of preserving and transmitting Hindu texts, from one generation to next, continued into the modern era. The Shruti texts, defined as "that which is heard", are texts that are believed to be divine revelations of God and were heard by ancient rishis thousands of years ago. Thus, an author

4080-469: The term has come to be understood to further include any written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same. Before the arrival of prints, all documents and books were manuscripts. Manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, music notation , explanatory figures, or illustrations. The word "manuscript" derives from

4148-415: The text of Panini , the sage who wrote the classic on Sanskrit grammar , and who is dated to about 500 BCE. This performance arts related Sutra text is mentioned in other late Vedic texts, as are two scholars names Shilalin ( IAST : Śilālin) and Krishashva (Kṛśaśva), credited to be pioneers in the studies of ancient drama, singing, dance and Sanskrit compositions for these arts. Richmond et al. estimate

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4216-486: The typewriter in the late 19th century. Because of the likelihood of errors being introduced each time a manuscript was copied, the filiation of different versions of the same text is a fundamental part of the study and criticism of all texts that have been transmitted in manuscript. In Southeast Asia , in the first millennium, documents of sufficiently great importance were inscribed on soft metallic sheets such as copperplate , softened by refiner's fire and inscribed with

4284-620: The war between two groups of cousins (the Pandavas and the Kauravas ) and the aftermath of the Kurukshetra War . The Mahabharata also teaches about dharma (duty), the stories of many key figures in Hinduism, and includes the Bhagavad Gita . The Bhagavad Gita is made up of 700 shlokas and is the discussion between Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield before the start of the war. Krishna in

4352-518: The work of the Deity . In the Hindu Epic the Mahabharata , the creation of Vedas is credited to the deity responsible for creation, Brahma . Each of the four Vedas have been subclassified into four major text types: The Upanishads are a collection of Hindu texts which contain the central philosophical concepts of Hinduism. The Upanishads are the foundation of Hindu philosophical thought and its diverse traditions. The Upanishads are commonly referred to as Vedānta , interpreted to mean either

4420-474: Was a common way to produce manuscripts. Manuscripts eventually transitioned to using paper in later centuries with the diffusion of paper making in the Islamic empire. When Muslims encountered paper in Central Asia, its use and production spread to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa during the 8th century. 4,203 of Timbuktu's manuscripts were burned or stolen during the armed conflict in Mali between 2012 and 2013. 90% of these manuscripts were saved by

4488-412: Was made from sheepskin. Vellum comes from the Latin word vitulinum which means "of calf"/ "made from calf". For modern parchment makers and calligraphers, and apparently often in the past, the terms parchment and vellum are used based on the different degrees of quality, preparation and thickness, and not according to which animal the skin came from, and because of this, the more neutral term "membrane"

4556-405: Was probably compiled between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE, with the oldest preserved parts not much older than around 400 BCE. The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period ( c.  4th century CE ). The composition is traditionally attributed to Vedavyasa and is made up of over 100,000 shlokas . The plot of the Mahabharata covers the events of

4624-402: Was used for books from about the 7th century. The earliest dated example is the Diamond Sutra of 868. In the Islamic world and the West, all books were in manuscript until the introduction of movable type printing in about 1450. Manuscript copying of books continued for a least a century, as printing remained expensive. Private or government documents remained hand-written until the invention of

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