Review: The Nepala-Mahatmya: A IX-century text or a pious fraud

Of the numerous testimonies of Nepal's religious history, some of the most palpable ones are, perhaps, the textual evidence, particularly the manuscripts. Although Nepal has preserved an unbelievable quantity of manuscripts of Hindu as well as Buddhist persuasions, they are mostly in the form of copies, rather than original contributions to religious thought or critical/exegetical commentaries on the cults practised in Nepal. Most manuscripts of cultural or critical significance were at first brought to the Nepal Valley either by wandering scholars seeking royal patronage or fleeing immigrant men of learning - fleeing mainly from tumultuous events in the neighbouring kingdoms. These manuscripts have, at limes been devotedly worshipped, preserved and labouriously copied and decorated for a millennium by the pious copyists and scribes or by laymen who sought religious merit in getting these sacred texts copied and preserved at places of worship.