Informal Talk: Avni Chag

From Parchment to Pedestal: Venerating an Indic Manuscript in the Secular Space

Avni Chag (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

In 2014 when the Weston Library re-opened its doors after a major state-of-the-art refurbishment, little did library staff know that the new dedicated gallery space for the library’s most treasured artefacts would be swarmed with visitors to view a small manuscript booklet of the Śikṣāpatrī, a short Sanskrit text of 212 verses on moral and devotional conduct from one of the largest and most visible global Hindu organizations, the Swaminarayan tradition. The manuscript eventually outgrew the exhibition space and was moved to its own permanent display cabinet where it continues to be venerated by thousands of followers of the Swaminarayan community on a daily basis. 

Originally assumed to be an artefact presented in the early tradition’s most iconic encounters with the new British rule in the early nineteenth century, my analysis unravelled how the manuscript not only postdates the encounter, but was likely altered to include the important Śikṣāpatrī text unit at a later date. Combining a palaeographical and codicological study of the Śikṣāpatrī manuscript, along with brief synopses of its composition and reception histories, this paper re-evaluates how productions of established religious histories and ideas are retrieved from and imagined around such texts as the Śikṣāpatrī. Ultimately, I will show how the Śikṣāpatrī’s relic status is a product of a combination of academic study, and also the community that continues to adore it, representing a shared process of meaning-making by the scholar and the Svāminārāyaṇa community.