#benjamin fleming

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Untitled by Benjamin Fleming

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Catalogs, Colophons, and Curses from the Rāmamālā Library in Bangladesh - New post from Benjamin Fleming on Penn Libraries Special Collections Blog. {Image: Rucistava [RLMS 1523, 1883-1892 A.D] with post-colophon curse.}

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10/20 5:15pm - Benjamin J. Fleming, “Form vs Function: Aesthetics, Ritual, and Religion in South Asian Manuscript Traditions," Class of 1978 Pavilion, Kislak Center, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT: One of the most intriguing dynamics across different religious traditions in South Asia is the persistent continuity in the physical form, material, and format of manuscript traditions. With the exception of some late examples, influenced by the Western codex, South Asian manuscripts are usually comprised of very long, thin, and loose folios, originally derived from trees—primarily dried palm or banana tree leaves, but later imitated with regionally-made papers, introduced by Islamic cultures around the tenth century. Each region of South Asia developed its own variations, suited to available materials and regional scripts, each typically evolving through interaction and in symbiosis with different material forms. This presentation explores how genre and religion also helped to shape the development of different forms of texts and different approaches to constructing them. Drawing on results from his recent edited volume, Material Culture in Asian Religions: Text, Image, Object (Routledge 2014), as well as observations from hie work in Bangladesh on the Rāmamālā Library Project, co-sponsored by British Library Endangered Archive Programme and Penn’s Schoenberg Institute for Manuscripts Studies, and his work with Indic manuscripts at Penn, Fleming will explore how different South Asian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and their different articulations of memory, ritual, and aesthetics, helped to shape the development and formation of manuscript traditions in South Asia.

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In today's Daily Star, article by Benjamin Fleming on Ramamala Library Manuscript Project to preserve and digitize Bangla and Sanskrit manuscripts in Comilla, Bangladesh.

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Inauguration of the Ramamala Library Project, headed up by Benjamin Fleming and supported by the British Library's Endangered Archive Programme and the University of Pennsylvania's Kislak Center for Special Collections. The project brings together a team of international scholars to create an inventory of 6,000+ Sanskrit, Bengali, and Prakrit palm-leaf and paper manuscripts held at the Rāmamālā Library in Comilla, Bangladesh, and to begin preserving and digitizing them with local scholars and students. Above pictures include Saymon Zakarya housing palm leaf manuscript in locally-made cotton; palm-leaf MSS of Bangla versions of the Mahabharata and Ramayana; and the manuscripts in various states of preservation. For more pictures and updates, see http://twitter.com/indic_mss/

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Forthcoming 2014 Routledge volume with contributions by many UPenn RELS faculty. TOC = "1. Material Culture and Religious Studies Benjamin J. Fleming and Richard D. Mann / 2.Bamboo and the Production of Philosophy: A Hypothesis about a Shift in Writing and Thought in Early China Dirk Meyer / 3. Seeing in Between the Space: The Aura of Writing and the Shape of Artistic Productions in Medieval South Asia Jinah Kim / 4. Manuscripts and Shifting Geographies: The Dvādaśajyotirlingastotra from the Deccan College as Case Study Benjamin J. Fleming / 5. Representations of Religion in The Tibet Mirror: The Newspaper as Religious Object and Patterns of Continuity and Rupture in Tibetan Material Culture Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa / 6. An Ingestible Scripture: Qur'ānic Erasure and the Limits of “Popular” Religion Travis Zadeh / 7. Buddhism on the Battlefield: The Cult of the "Substitute Body" Talisman in Imperial Japan (1890-1945) Kevin Bond / 8. The Material Turn: An Introduction to Thai Sources for the Study of Buddhist Amulets Justin McDaniel / 9. Ninshô, Ryôhen, and the Twenty-Five Bodhisattvas of Hakone Hank Glassman 10. Encountering Ascetics On and Beyond the Indian Temple Wall Tamara I. Sears 11. Goddesses in Text and Stone: Temples of the Yoginīs in Light of Tantric and Purānic Literature Shaman Hatley / 12. Material Culture and Ruler Ideology in South Asia: The Case of Huviska’s Skanda-Kumāra with Viśākha Coinage Richard D. Mann / 13. Literary and Visual Narratives in Gandhāran Buddhist Manuscripts and Material Cultures: Localizations of Jātakas, Avadānas, and Previous-birth Stories Jason Neelis / 14. Reimagining the "East": Eurasian Trade, Asian Religions, and Christian Identities Annette Yoshiko Reed / 15. Seeing the Religious Image in the Historical Account: Icons and Idols in the Islamic Past Jamal J. Elias"

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Benjamin Fleming has been awarded a British Library Endangered Archives grant to preserve and digitize manuscripts in Bangladesh.