Spreading the Dhamma: Writing, orality, and textual transmission in Buddhist northern Thailand

摘要

In the conclusion of his study of the emergence of writing in northern Thailand, Daniel Veidlinger states that he has attempted to 'see the strings' - 'the mechanism by which much of the literary wealth of Buddhism in northern Thailand has been created, sustained, and passed down' (p. 205). For those interested in the history of Buddhism in the region before the twentieth century, this study does just that. However, it also does much more, placing the history of writing in a small corner of the Buddhist world into the larger history of religious scriptoria in Europe and South Asia. He not only closely examines Pali manuscripts - including the marginalia, wooden covers, orthography, colophons and binding strings — but also the ways in which these manuscripts were circulated and stored. This study of the movement and place of texts within a community has much to say to those in medieval Catholic, Islamic and Taoist studies who are concerned with the interplay between medium and message in textual production.