A Twelfth-Century East Indian Monastic Library and its Fate

In an on-going research project embedded in the frame-work of the inter-diciplinary Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC), University of Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Harunaga Isaacson ( as principal investigator) and Dr. Martin Delhey try to gain knowledge on an important aspect of late Indian Buddhist material culture, viz. on the manuscript collection(s) or library of the famous monastery Vikramaśīla, mainly, but not exclusively, by identifying those manuscripts that are still extant and by studying their lay-out, paratexts, material composition, etc. In accordance with the fact that Vikramaśīla was a strong-hold of Tantric practice and erudition, many of these manuscripts contain ritual and exegetical texts belonging to this variety of Buddhism.