The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) presents the following workshop: June 2018 at the CSMC in Hamburg

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1 The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) presents the following workshop: Narrations of Origin, Performance, Exegesis: Traces of Oral Practices in Manuscripts June 2018 at the CSMC in Hamburg Friday, 15 June room 2002 Ritual Sessions 2.00 pm Silsupa Jaengsawang, Hamburg Paratextual Traces of Oral Traditions: Representative Elements of Praying and Preaching Rituals 2.45 pm Jochen Vennebusch, Hamburg Paratexts as Indicators of Temporal Layers. Tracing the Liturgical Use of the Limburg Gospels (Cod. 218) 3.30 pm Coffee Break Performance Sessions 4.00 pm Sutheera Satayaphan, Hamburg Paratexts in Siamese manuscripts used for Theatre Performances : The Case of the Bot Lakhòn Nòk 4.45 pm Alan Darmawan / Jan van der Putten, Hamburg Mak Yong Drama Performance in manuscript form: a Reinvention of Oral Heritage in Riau (Indonesia) Saturday, 16 June room 001 Exegesis / Education Sessions 9.30 am Dmitry Bondarev / Darya Ogorodnikova, Hamburg Annotations in West African Manuscripts: Traces of What? am Ali Zaherinezhad, Hamburg The Role of Text Variants in the Transmission History of al-buhari s Sahih am Coffee Break Transmission Sessions am Peera Paranut, Hamburg Oral History of Siamese Texts through Paratexts of Manuscripts pm Eva Wilden, Hamburg School Formation according to Colophon Verses and Prefaces in Tamil Manuscripts

2 2 Abstracts Paratexts as indicators of temporal layers. Tracing the liturgical use of the Limburg Gospels (Cod. 218) Jochen Vennebusch, CSMC The Limburg Gospels, written and illuminated around 1035 in the famous scriptorium of the Benedictine Monastery on the Island of Reichenau and now preserved in the Cathedral Library of Cologne (Cod. 218), were presumably donated to Limburg Abbey by emperor Konrad II. This precious manuscript contains the Four Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as further contemporary paratexts, for example indices and introductory letters or prologues. Additionally, the Gospel Book was enriched with entries in later times, indicating the liturgical and paraliturgical use of the manuscript. This paper will especially focus on the original indices and recitation marks as well as on the late medieval and early modern entries indicating the liturgical use of the Limburg Gospels. Furthermore these paratexts provide hints for the yet unknown history of the manuscript. Paratextual Traces of Oral Traditions: Representative Elements of Praying and Preaching Ritual Silpsupa Jaengsawang, CSMC Unlike manuscripts containing historical witnesses, epics, or treatises, those particularly produced for preaching on several occasions show traces of evidence pertaining to preaching and praying practices in oral traditions. These are clearly elements of oral activities reflected in the manuscripts. However, a number of manuscripts merely declare the preaching purpose in their colophons. The manuscripts were circulated to be read by monks for giving sermons among members of a local community; some of remaining elements are therefore evidenced as oral representation. Contemporary monks who have not been trained in reading the Dhamma script were also required to preach laypeople by means of reading texts from manuscripts aloud; interlinear glosses written in modern vernacular scripts (such as modern Thai or Lao) give advice to preachers concerning correct pronunciation. In addition, specific manners, such as the prostrating of worship (Thai: krap), the sitting in a certain place, or the wearing a proper robe, which are supposed to be accompanied by oral activities, are also apparently explained in the manuscripts. Three perspectives of oral representations are analyzed in details: the circulation of manuscripts within the community of monks, the preaching manner of monks, and the praying manner of laypeople.

3 3 Paratexts in Siamese Manuscripts used for Theatre Performances: The Case of the Bot Lakhòn Nok Sutheera Satayaphan, Asia-Africa Institute, Universität Hamburg Bot lakhòn nòk or Siamese theatre plays performed outside (nòk) the royal court, were usually written on concertina-like manuscripts made from the bark of the khòi tree. Depending on the kind of paper used these manuscripts are called in Siamese Samut thai dam (black paper folded book) and Samut thai khao (white paper folded book). The plot of the theatre plays are based on folktales dating at least from the 18th century or even earlier. Research on Siamese theatre plays have mostly focused on textual contents, literary conventions and performance techniques. Few scholars have so far seriously investigated the extant manuscripts. Moreover, the only research devoted to the Bot lakhòn nòk manuscripts still focuses on the texts largely ignoring the paratextual evidence and traces in the manuscripts reflecting performative aspects. Therefore, my analysis of paratexts, notably colophons and glosses, left in Bot lakhòn nok manuscripts opens new venues of research in traditional Siamese theatre plays. My corpus consists of fifteen manuscripts which contain paratexts providing specific informations on, for example, the accompanying songs specific for each episode, the wages the actors received, the dates and places where the performance were supposed to have taken place, and finally the sponsors and donors of the manuscripts. Therefore, the study of paratexts provides an important key to comprehend the usage of manuscripts in Siamese theatre performances as well as the literary contents of these plays. Annotations in West African Manuscripts: Traces of What? Dmitriy Bondarew/Darya Ogorodnikowa, CSMC The tradition of translation and interpretation of Arabic texts into languages of Sab-Saharan Africa has developed in both oral and written domains. The evidence for the oral domain comes from modern day exegetical recitations whereas the evidence for the written domain is found in the manuscripts produced from the 17th century until nowadays. The structural similarity of translational techniques in the two domains suggests a certain relationship between the oral and written commentaries. However, the modal difference between speech and writing makes it problematic to project the annotations in manuscripts onto a hypothetical oral counterpart. We will discuss some aspects of writing which problematise such connections. Given that the two modes are in complementary distribution, the study of one mode leads to a reconstruction of only one channel of the exegetical tradition.

4 4 School Formation according to Colophon verses and prefaces in Tamil manuscripts Eva Wilden, CSMC The most important source for understanding the way texts were preserved, transmitted and taught in the Tamil traditions consists in a certain type of additional, paratextual verse either integrated into the colophon or, more frequently, added in front of a manuscript in the form of an unnumbered first page, originally meant as an aide memoire in a context of oral exegesis. Here we find information as to the title(s) of the text and its background, its author and possibly commentator. In some domains, such stanzas have merged with more standardised prefatory material. Such prefaces (pāyiram) can become considerably longer than the usual four-line mnemonic stanza and very often distinctly cannot go back to the author himself, but to someone (sometimes with a name) in the generations of transmitters. The current presentation will briefly sketch development of such prefaces in the Tamil grammatical tradition and will then proceed to reviewing the manuscript material for a number of cases. The point to be made here is, on the one hand, that in these materials we can observe the process of school formation. On the other hand, we get a glimpse at the local and/or personal freedom of interpretation or affiliation in that various manuscripts may contain significantly different pieces of information. Mak Yong Drama Performance in manuscript form: a reinvention of oral heritage in Riau (Indonesia) Alan Darmawan/Jan van der Putten, CSMC Against the backdrop of the ongoing efforts to revive and preserve local, traditional practices and performances in the province of Kepulauan Riau (the islands between Singapore and Sumatra, Indonesia), we present on a manuscript that was written in the region and emerged to the surface when the local dance/drama performance tradition of Mak Yong was proposed to be included in UNESCO s Intangible Cultural Heritage List of the world. The authorities had to compete with Malaysia for the status and lost, because it was considered as having little significance on a global scale. We examine the manuscript from the viewpoint how the content of Mak Yong plays is presented on the written pages and whether we can make any conclusions about the age of the manuscript.

5 5 Oral History of Siamese Texts through Paratexts of Manuscripts: A Case Study of the Si Prat s Literary Works Peera Panarut, CSMC In the Siamese literary and manuscript culture, the knowledge on the textual history been transmitted mainly orally, and thus left no traces to the modern period. However, some fragment of the text s history, as well as its authorship, has been transmitted in the paratexts of the manuscripts, i.e. in preface, colophon, and scribal notes. This study focuses mainly on the case of Si Prat, a legendary poet in the late seventeenth century, to whom several literary texts have been attributed. Furthermore, along with the written texts attributed to him, an elaborate legend on his life has been well-known and transmitted orally up to the early twentieth century. Among the extant manuscripts of Si Prat s literary works, the scribal paratexts provide a fragmentary piece of information on the text s history significantly corresponding to the legend. Though many parts of this legend have not been widely accepted among modern scholars as a credible and reliable historical source, the paratexts of the manuscripts still reveal the scribes perception towards the texts in the pre-modern period, as well as the strong relationship between literacy and orality in the transmission of the Siamese classical literature.