Kingdoms of Memory, Empires of Ink – The Veda and the Regional Print Cultures of Colonial India

Cezary Galewicz, Associate Professor in Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. A historian of civilisations; a researcher exploring contemporary forms of cultural, religious and literary traditions of South Asia; member and coordinator of international research teams; translator.

Preface

Introduction


I. Objects, Spaces and Practices

I.1. The Book as an object circulating in space

I.2. The Rebel Book of the Veda



II. The Veda Before Print

II.1 The Beginnings: the travelling Veda

II.2 The living libraries: the memorized Veda

II.3 Performance and spectacle: The ritual Veda

II.4 Scribes and scripture: the handwritten Veda

II.5. The Veda commented upon

II.5.1. The imperial commentary

II.6 The Veda in the empire of writing



III.The Coming of Print to Indian Subcontinent

III.1 The Missionary, the Government and the Commercial Printers

III.2 Preachers, printers and Pundits

III.2.1The Jesuit printers of the western coast

III.2.2 German Danish Evangelists on the Coromandel Coast

III.2.3 The media revolution of Serampore 1800 –1837

III.2.4 Later Missionary print cultures

III.3 The Empire in print and the Ethnographic State

III.3.1 The Infernal machine

III.3.2 The Government Press and imperial typography

III.3.3 Print, catalogues and native knowledge

III.3.4 The ethnographic state in print

III.4 Indian Commercial Printing after 1835 (New Beginnings)



IV.The Printed Veda

IV.1 The lost, imagined and recovered Veda

IV.2. The Philological Veda

IV.3. The Imperial Veda

IV.3.1. Max Muller and his patrons

IV.4. The Printed Veda for Paṇḍitas and Pundits

IV.5. The Veda printed in India

IV.5.1 The polluting ink

IV.5.2 Whose is the printed Veda

IV.5.3. The codex and the pothi



V. The reading practices

V.1. The cultural concepts and practices of reading

V.1.1 The svādhyāya and the brahma-yajña

V.1.2 brahmavidyā-dāna

V.1.3 The vidhāna tradition

V.2. The regional practices of reading the Veda

V.2.1 Modus legendi: daśagrantha

V.2.2 Modus legendi: the veda-pārāyaṇa

V.2.3 Modus legendi: the trisandhā



VI. Towards Social history of print cultures in colonial India

VI.1. Printing revolution and social change

VI.2 Publishing Indian Religions in Print

VI.2.1 Printing and Appropriation of the past

VI.3 The regional print cultures and the Veda



ABBREVIATIONS

REFERENCES

INDEX