The Newsletter | No.

62 | Winter 2012

48 | The Network

IIAS News
New publication

In Memoriam
Arne Kalland

Rath, Saraju (ed.) 2012

Aspects of Manuscript Culture
in South India
Leiden: Brill. 320 pages.
ISBN: 9789004219007
Aspects of Manuscript Culture in South
India is the outcome of a seminar
organized at the International Institute
for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden,
the Netherlands. The volume marks
an important advancement in the study
of South Indian Sanskrit manuscripts
and manuscript culture. These manuscripts, which are predominantly on
palm leaf, are rarely older than three
to four centuries. Nevertheless, they
give access to traditions of knowledge
and culture that developed in the
Indian world over several millennia.
In addition to an introductory essay
addressing theoretical and historical issues of text transmission in manuscripts
and in Indias remarkably strong oral
memory culture, the volume contains a
further twelve contributions. These deal
with South Indian manuscript collections (mainly Sanskrit texts), as well as
manuscripts that were recently, or that
still are, part of a living culture in which
manuscript culture is still intertwined
with oral transmission and a cultural
and religious tradition. Problems related
to the scripts and the dating of ancient
manuscripts are also dealt with.
The volume will be of interest to
indologists, manuscriptologists,
paleographists and students of Indias
intellectual history. Its contributors
are: Grard Colas, Anna Aurelia Esposito,
Masato Fujii, Cezary Galewicz, Jan E.M.
Houben, Heike Moser, P. Perumal,
Kim Plofker, Saraju Rath, Sreeramula
Rajeswara Sarma, Dominik Wujastyk
and Kenneth Zysk.

ON 22 OCTOBER we heard the sad news that

Prof. Arne Kalland had passed away after a long
increasingly immobilizing illness. Prof. Kalland worked as
an anthropologist at the University of Oslo. In the early
1990s he worked with the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
(NIAS) in Copenhagen before returning to Norway. His
main intellectual interest was Japanese fishing and whaling,
about which he published numerous articles and books,
including Japanese Whaling, End of an Era? and Fishing
Villages in Tokugawa Japan. In addition he (co)edited
books on topics like Asian Perceptions on Nature and
Environmental Movements in Asia.

The Van Manen Collection

at Leiden University
The volume is the outcome of the twoday workshop Production, distribution
and collection of Sanskrit manuscripts
in Ancient South India, organised by the
International Institute for Asian Studies
(IIAS) in Leiden, the Netherlands.
The workshop was convened by Saraju
Rath in the context of her research on
the Van Manen Collection of Sanskrit
palm leaf manuscripts, which have been
preserved at Leiden University since
1929. In 2009, Saraju completed the
five-year long manuscript project,
which resulted in the identification of
193 new texts within the manuscripts,
adding significantly to the 395 individual texts already known to be included
in the collection. A complete list of
titles of all 588 texts is available at
www.iias.nl/profile/saraju-rath.
A catalogue providing more details on
the manuscripts, and the texts they
contain, is under preparation.
The second article in the book by her
hand is entitled Varieties of Grantha
Script: the Date and Place of Origin

of Manuscripts. The article is a detailed

study of distinctive characteristics of
varieties and stages of the Grantha
script, which is the main script in the
Van Manen Collection, in addition to
other scripts such as Telugu, Malayalam,
Nandingar, and Vat t e uttu. Grantha
occupies a major position among
scripts used to transmit Sanskrit texts,
as it is the only script specially designed
to write Sanskrit (and Vedic) texts,
including royal records and documents
in the southern states of the Indian
subcontinent. In South India, Grantha
is therefore a transregional script,
employed for texts in the Sanskrit
language next to other scripts that are
preferably used for other languages
and vernaculars: Tamil script for Tamil,
Telugu script for Telugu, etc.
Saraju Rath, PhD (Pune University)
is a senior research fellow at IIAS
with extensive research experience
in Indian manuscripts. She teaches
and lectures on manuscriptology
and on the history and development
of ancient Indian scripts in India
and Europe.

In the late 1990s he was a member of a loose network

of scientists called East West Environmental Linkages,
which organised workshops on topics such as
Environmental Movements, Indigenous Environmental
Knowledge, Co-management of Natural Resources.
This network was facilitated by grants from the European
Science Foundation (ESF), but also from NIAS and IIAS
and the home institutions of the participating senior
scientists in the USA, United Kingdom, Norway,
the Philippines, the Netherlands and others. Many
publications have come out of this network.
Arne was an active member of this network for a number
of years. His physical condition, however, no longer
allowed him to travel to distant places. Even though he
was restricted in his movements he kept on teaching at the
university and inspiring young researchers and colleagues
to do solid and innovative research on human interaction
with the environment. His students and colleagues in
Norway as well as abroad are grateful for the opportunities
to have worked with him.
Gerard A. Persoon, PhD; IIAS Professor Environment
and Development, Institute Cultural Anthropology
and Development Sociology, Leiden University.

IIAS PhD platform

and discussion group

Patterns of
Early Urbanity

IIAS Global
Agenda

THE IIAS PhD DISCUSSION GROUP

on LinkedIn (www.iias.nl/linkedin-phd)
forms part of our National Platform
for Asia Related PhD Research in the
Netherlands. The PhD platform was
recently set up by IIAS as a tool to
support PhD students and their
supervisors in the Netherlands in
their research.

International Conference
on Pre-Modern Asian Cities
Date: November 2013
Venue: Leiden, The Netherlands

Submit your event to our online events calendar

In January 2012, the IIAS conducted

a review of PhD research on Asia in the
Netherlands (with a humanities and
social sciences focus) and this led to the
identification of more than 250 projects
being carried out all over the country.
What struck us most, was the enormous
range of subjects studied, and the large
number of Dutch universities, research
schools and institutes involved.
Subsequent discussions indicated that
PhD researchers in the field of Asian
studies, linked to different organisations,
rarely know of each others work, even
when the respective PhD subjects cover
a similar region and/or discipline and
co-operation could benefit both parties.
IIAS therefore decided to set up
a national PhD platform to help PhD
researchers (and their supervisors)
in the Netherlands to establish contact,
as well as to disseminate information
about relevant courses, lectures or,

for example, international visitors

(research fellows, visiting professors),
etc. The platform may also function
as a tool to encourage groups of PhD
researchers to initiate workshops, or
to invite national and/or international
scholars for lectures and seminars, etc.
Join the PhD platform
on LinkedIn
To develop the platform, PhD
researchers in Asian studies in the
Netherlands, and their supervisors,
are invited to join the LinkedIn group
IIAS PhD Platform. We welcome all
comments and recommendations
posted to the site, which will help to
develop the platform into a useful
tool for anyone conducting PhD
research in Asian studies in the
Netherlands, and who would like to
share information and experiences
with fellow researchers.

IN NOVEMBER 2013, IIAS and the

Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden
University, along with other partners,
will be hosting an International
Conference in Leiden, the Netherlands,
bringing together leading scholars from
around the world to explore the early
urbanity of pre-modern Asian cities.

We hope you will enjoy the discussions

and find the information on the
platforms useful.

The conference seeks to explore

Asian cities during their crucial period
of urban formation and activity, before
the modern period when Western
practices and concepts brought about
major changes. Although the main
focus of the conference will be on Asia,
informative comparison and contrast
will be brought into the debate
through contributions summarising
European, Mediterranean, Near Eastern
and Meso-American urban history.
Three main perspectives will be
explored:
a) processes of urban development,
b) urban economy,
c) social fabric of the city.

Willem Vogelsang,
International Institute
for Asian Studies, Leiden

More information on the conference

and Call For Papers will be made
available on the IIAS website: iias.nl

A comparable Facebook discussion

site has been set up at:
facebook.com/PhdPlatform

IIAS OFFERS THIRD PARTIES the opportunity to

disseminate information about their own Asia-related
events, research fellowships, grants or job opportunities
through the IIAS website.
We invite you to create your own account at
www.iias.nl/events and upload your information
to our Global Agenda.