Certain Times in Uncertain Places: A Study on Scribal Colophons of Manuscripts Written in Tamil and Tamilian Grantha Scripts

The authors present the initial results of their ongoing collaborative research, which aims to produce a comprehensive study of colophons found in manuscripts written in Tamilian Grantha and/or Tamil scripts. Colophons are among the main means by which scholars can outline the aspects characterising a manuscript culture, in the present case that of Tamil Nadu. In fact, they are the sources of a wide variety of data that are not only of a temporal and spatial nature, but which also pertain to the identities of the scribes and owners of manuscripts, the religious environment in which manuscripts were produced, the features of the language – or languages – used by the scribes, and the categories into which literature was organised (e.g. colophons may contain labels used to name literary genres). In the present article the authors have focused their investigation especially on the temporal and spatial data that are found in the colophons, but they also touch upon other aspects.