Buying and Selling of the Newar Buddhist Scriptures

Abstract

Buddhist scriptures present us the words of Buddha (s). Buddhist paintings and sculptures present us the appearance of Buddha (s). They are priceless or beyond price in Buddhist religious life. But they are now sold for a fixed price in the market. I will examine this change in the Newar Buddhist Scriptures in the Kathmandu valley. The handwritten manuscripts were generally produced by donation from sponsors who had asked scribes to copy older manuscripts. The value of the newly produced manuscripts and the sum of donation were not equal. The goodwill shown by the sponsor to the scribe (or by the scribe to the sponsor) made them enter a new phase of further production. Printed books with a fixed price made their circulation in the market quicker and wider, but as a result scribes lost their cooperation with sponsors. The publication of printed books by Dharma-dāna (the charity of sponsors) are still now in vogue in the Kathmandu valley. It is praised as “priceless or beyond price” in the Newar Buddhist religious life. Printing offices also made a large contribution toward the Dharma-dāna of books.