An Ambitious Itinerary: Journey Across the Medieval Buddhist World in a Book, CUL Add.1643 (1015 CE)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an excellent study: fascinating to read, replete with detail. The fresh interpretations are highly insightful. The plethora of references to previous literature marks this as a work of the highest level of scholarship

Author Response

Thank you for your positive review. I am glad that it was interesting to read.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The iconographic program transforms Add.1643 into a portable device containing famous 10 pilgrimage sites of the Buddhist world is a very good program on the geography of ancient India and even ancient Asia. The discussion on geography of ancient India has been going on for hundreds of years. This paper is worth to publish and the research is worth to pay attention to.

 

 

Suggestions:

1. Eight keywords seem too many in amount. Is that possible to delete three and make five key words left?
2. Is that possible to show pictures of map or painted panels in the text? I’m puzzling in imaging the route.
3. The first sentence of abstract should focus on the main subject, i.e. itinery, maybe deleting “A Sanskrit manuscript of the Prajnnāpāramitā or Perfection of Wisdom in eight thousand 4 verses” is better?
4. Line 241-244, sanksrit words like Vaissāli, Māravijyaya, Parinirvāṇa, Prajnnāpāramitā , is not in right form and long ā should be corrected before publication. Please check the whole text.
5. In the minds of ancient elites, the cosmography, geography, myth mix together in their knowledge. If we focus on history of science, make the narrative of article closer to modern science; if we focus on history of minds, make the narrative to how ancient people look at their world.
6. Seems one book on this topic is not included in the conference. D. C. Sircar, Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature, Calcutta: Indian Studies, Past and Present.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your positive and thoughtful response. Please find my answers to your queries below.

1. Eight keywords seem too many in amount. Is that possible to delete three and make five key words left?  Thank you for the suggestion.I am happy to reduce the number of keywords by removing "Medieval Buddhist networks," and "Transregional connectivity." I'd like to consult with the special volume editors before making a final decision. 
2. Is that possible to show pictures of map or painted panels in the text? I’m puzzling in imaging the route. Yes! I am including a map with all the identified sites in the revised version ( in comparison to Acri-Chemburkar map).
3. The first sentence of abstract should focus on the main subject, i.e. itinery, maybe deleting “A Sanskrit manuscript of the Prajnnāpāramitā or Perfection of Wisdom in eight thousand 4 verses” is better? I see your point about emphasizing the concept of itinerary, which is not directly mentioned in the abstract but rather insinuated. I can shorten the reference to the manuscript's title but I think it's important to identify the manuscript in the abstract.  
4. Line 241-244, sanksrit words like Vaissāli, Māravijyaya, Parinirvāṇa, Prajnnāpāramitā , is not in right form and long ā should be corrected before publication. Please check the whole text. Thank you for pointing out the incorrect diacritical marks. The whole text has been reviewed for correct application of diacritic marks in Sanskrit terms. 
5. In the minds of ancient elites, the cosmography, geography, myth mix together in their knowledge. If we focus on history of science, make the narrative of article closer to modern science; if we focus on history of minds, make the narrative to how ancient people look at their world. Thank you for your insightful remark. I hope the article addresses both aspects with a bit more emphasis on the latter. 
6. Seems one book on this topic is not included in the conference. D. C. Sircar, Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature, Calcutta: Indian Studies, Past and Present. Thank you for pointing out this omission. I have indeed consulted D.C. Sircar’s Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India (1960), and I will add the references accordingly.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author in this study offers a well-organized approach by analyzing a richly painted 11th-century Buddhist manuscript from Nepal (CUL Add. 1643), providing a clear insights into medieval South Asian and Southeast Asian Buddhist networks. He/she seems to effectively integrate art historical analysis, Buddhist studies, and historical geography, highlighting the role of manuscript illustrations in documenting and transmitting geographical, and further religious context. He/she also engages well with current literature on Buddhist maritime and trans-regional connectivity, including recent theories of Monsoon Asia, which makes the research timely and relevant. But some iconographic descriptions used for the author’s argument remain broad or speculative to some extent. Potential readers would benefit from more precise iconographic comparisons or parallels from other known manuscripts or artworks. 

 

Overall, the paper is well-structured. It offers significant scholarly insights, supported by well prepared textual and historical evidence.

 

However, formatting errors were found in many places (e.g. diacritics for Sanskrit terms like pāramitā). I also found typos and errors, as listed below, so additional works are required for publication.

 

Page 1, line 4: "Perfection of Wisdom in eight thousand verses now in the Cambridge" > “Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Verses, now at Cambridge

 

Page 1, line 30: "muti-year" > "multi-year".

 

Page 1, line 33: "have be mapped" > "have been mapped."

 

Page 5, line 132: "Let us first considerthe" > "consider the"

 

Page 14, line 417: "Kanishka stupa near Peshawar" > "Kaniṣka Stūpa near Peshawar.”

Author Response

Thank you for your thoughtful and encouraging review. 

I appreciate your suggestion about providing “more precise iconographic comparisons from other known manuscripts or art works” in the iconographic descriptions. I have added a few more references to the existing published images for comparison ( like the colossal standing Buddha statues at Avukana and Sasseruwa in Sri Lanka).

Thank you also for pointing out the typographical errors and inconsistency in diacritics for Sanskrit terms. It seems that the diacritics got rather jumbled when it got transposed on to the journal’s template. I have gone through the whole document making corrections including those you have kindly identified.