Table Of ContentThe DeaTh of SacreD TexTS
The Death of Sacred Texts draws attention to a much neglected topic in the study
of sacred texts: the religious and ritual attitudes towards texts which have become
old and damaged and can no longer be used for reading practices or in religious
worship. This book approaches religious texts and scriptures by focusing on their
physical properties and the dynamic interactions of devices and habits that lie
beneath and within a given text. In the last decades a growing body of research
studies has directed attention to the multiple uses and ways people encounter
written texts and how they make them alive, even as social actors, in different
times and cultures.
considering religious people seem to have all the motives for giving their sacred
texts a respectful symbolic treatment, scholars have paid surprisingly little
attention to the ritual procedures of disposing and renovating old texts. This book
fills this gap, providing empirical data and theoretical analyses of historical and
contemporary religious attitudes towards, and practices of text disposals within,
seven world religions: Judaism, Islam, christianity, hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism
and Sikhism. exploring the cultural and historical variations of rituals for religious
scriptures and texts (such as burials, cremations and immersion into rivers) and
the underlying beliefs within the religious traditions, this book investigates how
these religious practices and stances respond to modernization and globalization
processes when new technologies have made it possible to mass-produce and
publish religious texts on the Internet.
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The Death of Sacred Texts
ritual Disposal and renovation of
Texts in World religions
Edited by
KrISTIna MyrvolD
Lund University, Sweden
© Kristina Myrvold and the contributors 2010
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Kristina Myrvold has asserted her right under the copyright, Designs and Patents act,
1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
Wey court east Suite 420
Union road 101 cherry Street
farnham Burlington
Surrey, GU9 7PT vT 05401-4405
england USa
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The death of sacred texts: ritual disposal and renovation of texts in world religions.
1. Sacred books – conservation and restoration.
2. Discarding of books, periodicals, etc. 3. rites and ceremonies.
I. Myrvold, Kristina.
208.2–dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The death of sacred texts: ritual disposal and renovation of texts in world religions /
[edited by] Kristina Myrvold.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBn 978-0-7546-6918-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBn 978-0-7546-9621-6
(ebook) 1. Sacred books. 2. Books – religious aspects. I. Myrvold, Kristina.
Bl71.D43 2010
208’.2–dc22
2009040968
ISBn 9780754669180 (hbk)
ISBn 9780754696216 (ebk)
contents
List of Figures vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Kristina Myrvold
1 accounts of a Dying Scroll: on Jewish handling of Sacred Texts
in need of restoration or Disposal 11
Marianne Schleicher
2 relating, revering, and removing: Muslim views on the Use,
Power, and Disposal of Divine Words 31
Jonas Svensson
3 a fitting ceremony: christian concerns for Bible Disposal 55
Dorina Miller Parmenter
4 The Death of the Dharma: Buddhist Sutra Burials in early
Medieval Japan 71
D. Max Moerman
5 rites of Burial and Immersion: hindu ritual Practices on
Disposing of Sacred Texts in vrindavan 91
Måns Broo
6 Is a Manuscript an object or a living Being?: Jain views on the
life and Use of Sacred Texts 107
Nalini Balbir
7 Making the Scripture a Person: reinventing Death rituals of Guru
Granth Sahib in Sikhism 125
Kristina Myrvold
8 Disposing of non-Disposable Texts: conclusions and Prospects for
further Study 147
James W. Watts
Index 161
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list of figures
4.1 Diagram of Sutra Burials in Japan. author’s illustration 75
4.2 Map of Sutra Burial locations. author’s illustration 79
5.1 The Grantha Samādhi in Vrindavan. Author’s photograph 99
6.1 folio from the Kalpasūtra/Kālakakathā manuscript, British
library I.o. San. 3177 (dated 1427 ce). reproduced by courtesy of
the British library 113
7.1 Agan Bhet Samskar at Goindwal Sahib in 2008. author’s
photograph 138
7.2 ritual Structure of human versus Scriptural cremations 141
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notes on contributors
Nalini Balbir is professor in Indology at University of Paris-3 Sorbonne
nouvelle and at ecole Pratique des hautes etudes (Section Sciences historiques et
philologiques). Her fields of research are primarily Jainism, Theravada Buddhism,
and Pali and Prakrit languages and literature. among Balbir’s latest publications
are, for example, Catalogue of the Jain Manuscripts of the British Library (2006)
and Jaina Studies (2008).
Måns Broo received his PhD in comparative religion in 2003 and is currently
adjunct Professor of religious Studies at Åbo akademi University. his research
interests are directed towards Sanskrit texts and vaishnava hinduism. Broo’s
publications include a Swedish translation of the main Upanishads (2005).
D. Max Moerman received his PhD in east asian religions from Stanford
University in 1999. currently associate Professor in the Department of asian and
Middle eastern cultures, Barnard college, columbia University and associate
Director of the columbia center for Japanese religion, he is the author of Localizing
Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan
(2005).
Kristina Myrvold is assistant Professor of history and anthropology of religion
at lund University. her doctoral dissertation of 2007 focused on ritual uses of texts
among the Sikhs in Varanasi, India, where she has conducted extensive fieldwork.
Myrvold has published several book chapters on Sikh practices, such as “Death
and Sikhism” (2006) and “Personalizing the Sikh Scripture: Processions of the
Guru Granth Sahib in India” (2008).
Dorina Miller Parmenter is assistant Professor of religious Studies at Spalding
University in louisville, Kentucky. She completed her PhD at Syracuse University
in 2009 with the dissertation “The Iconic Book: The Image of the christian Bible
in Myth and ritual.”
Marianne Schleicher received her PhD in comparative religion in 2003. her
dissertation, which was awarded the University of aarhus Prize for the best PhD
dissertation, was later revised and published as Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi
Nahman: A Close Reading of Sippurey Ma’asiyot (2007). currently Schleicher
holds a position as assistant Professor in Jewish Studies at the Department of the
Study of religion, the University of aarhus, Denmark.
