Nepalese and Cambodian Sanskrit Inscriptions Reading Sessions

Members of Task-Force C (Dominic Goodall, Kunthea Chhom, Chhunteng Hun and Chloé Chollet) along with Prof. Diwakar Acharya (University of Oxford) and Dr. Nina Mirnig (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna) meet online on Wednesday mornings to study Sanskrit inscriptions originating from Nepal (especially from the 5^th century CE) and Cambodia (from the pre-Angkorian and Angkorian periods). During these meetings, both published and unpublished epigraphic materials are reviewed.

Mānadeva pillar, Changu Narayan temple (photo by Nina Mirnig).

Regarding the texts that have already been published, the team aims to check their reading using rubbings or recent photographs in order to improve existing edition, and to formulate a new translation into English.

In the case of unpublished inscriptions, the team prepares an edition with a translation into English. The new data provided by these texts are of significant interest for the history of the geographical areas under study. Such is the case, for instance, of the inscription K. 1457 from Prasat Kon Kramom (Cambodia) which sheds welcome light on the vagaries of religious life at the ninth-century court of Jayavarman III, about whom little was known before, other than that he was fond of tracking and capturing elephants. The study of this inscription has already led to the preparation of an article which will soon be published*.

Finally, for all inscriptions, the editors encode their new editions and translations in EpiDoc-XML for future online publication.

* Dominic GOODALL and Chhunteng HUN, in collaboration with Diwakar ACHARYA, Kunthea CHHOM, Chloé CHOLLET and Nina MIRNIG: “Sectarian Rivalry in Ninth-Century Cambodia. A Posthumous Inscription Narrating the Religious Tergiversations of Jayavarman III (K. 1457)” (to be published).