This book examines the unusual concept of the book that developed in South Asia with reference to the Veda. It tries to understand how emerging regional cultures created conditions for, inspired, and accommodated differently configured projects of bringing out printed editions of Vedic texts.

PrefaceIntroductionI. Objects, Spaces and PracticesI.1. The Book as an object circulating in spaceI.2. The Rebel Book of the VedaII. The Veda Before PrintII.1 The Beginnings: the travelling VedaII.2 The living libraries: the memorized VedaII.3 Performance and spectacle: The ritual VedaII.4 Scribes and scripture: the handwritten VedaII.5. The Veda commented uponII.5.1. The imperial commentaryII.6 The Veda in the empire of writingIII.The Coming of Print to Indian SubcontinentIII.1 The Missionary, the Government and the Commercial PrintersIII.2 Preachers, printers and PunditsIII.2.1The Jesuit printers of the western coastIII.2.2 German Danish Evangelists on the Coromandel CoastIII.2.3 The media revolution of Serampore 1800 ¿1837III.2.4 Later Missionary print culturesIII.3 The Empire in print and the Ethnographic StateIII.3.1 The Infernal machineIII.3.2 The Government Press and imperial typographyIII.3.3 Print, catalogues and native knowledgeIII.3.4 The ethnographic state in printIII.4 Indian Commercial Printing after 1835 (New Beginnings)IV.The Printed VedaIV.1 The lost, imagined and recovered VedaIV.2. The Philological VedaIV.3. The Imperial VedaIV.3.1. Max Muller and his patronsIV.4. The Printed Veda for Pä¿itas and PunditsIV.5. The Veda printed in IndiaIV.5.1 The polluting inkIV.5.2 Whose is the printed VedaIV.5.3. The codex and the pothiV. The reading practicesV.1. The cultural concepts and practices of readingV.1.1 The sv¿dhy¿ya and the brahma-yajñaV.1.2 brahmavidy¿-d¿naV.1.3 The vidh¿na traditionV.2. The regional practices of reading the VedaV.2.1 Modus legendi: däagranthaV.2.2 Modus legendi: the veda-p¿r¿yäaV.2.3 Modus legendi: the trisandh¿VI. Towards Social history of print cultures in colonial IndiaVI.1. Printing revolution and social changeVI.2 Publishing Indian Religions in PrintVI.2.1 Printing and Appropriation of the pastVI.3 The regional print cultures and the VedaABBREVIATIONSREFERENCESINDEX