Beschreibung:

Alessandro Graheli. The Manuscript is ca. 14,5 x 10 cm in size and is composed of 230countrymade paper leaves. Of these, 192 are written folios,14 are miniatures, and the rest are blank flyleaves. The textual portion is foliated 1 to 192 with numbers on the recto side of the folios. The text is written in black glossy ink and rubricated punctuation marks. Significant words, such as chapter titles, are also written in red. The text is elegantly laid out with six lines per page enclosed in a black, yellow and red rectangular frame, and surrounded by ample margins. The leaves are bound in a clothes cover with floral motives and are tightly sewn by a thick cotton string, along with a firm embroidered headband. The edges are trimmed and bear traces of saffron color. The text consists of a devotional compilation in Sanskrit language and in Gurmukhi script. The bulk of the manuskript, foll. 7 to 163, consists of the complete text of the Bhagavadgita, the famous Hindu devotional poem. In the six folios preceding the text of the Bhagavadgita there is a purifiicatory prayer meant to be recited before reading the Bagavadgita. On folios 163 to 192 there are three devotional hymns: eight verses in praise of Lord Rama, a devotional poem called Saragita, and a further prayer in Rama's honour. The manuscript is in good conditions, with minimal traces of age at the very edges of the leaves, which are all intact exept for a torn corner in folio 151. The back cover is detached from the binding. Judging from state of preservation and the script, the manuscript was likly produced towards the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th, in the Punjab region (present Noth- Western India and SouthEastern Pakistan). The fourteen fine miniatures in Pahari style, with opaque waterbased pigments with gold, depict devotional scenes. The first ten are systematically inserted at the end of each of the first ten chapters of the Bhagavadgita and portry Lord Visnu in his ten main manifestations.