Ba and the Book That Is an Object

A manuscript in the Newar tradition is not only a text but a made object, and Ranjana belongs to the part of it that is looked at. Covers were painted and sometimes carved, title lines were written in the formal hand, and a completed manuscript could be a dedication as much as a copy, produced through the sponsorship of a household and kept in a collection where it had a place in the life of a community rather than only in a library. That context explains the design of the script better than any account of its letterforms alone. A hand with heavy stems and a strong bar, with wedge terminals and a marked contrast between thick and thin, is a hand for a page that is meant to be handled and seen. The same qualities are what recommended it beyond the Valley.

When Tibetan traditions adopted the script for ornament they were adopting a hand already shaped by the requirements of display, and they used it in the settings where those requirements are strongest, on the outside of things rather than in the body of a text. Knowing that also changes what counts as evidence about the script. The history of Ranjana is written as much in objects, covers and inscriptions as in texts, and an account drawn only from the bodies of manuscripts would understate how much of the script survives.