Abstract

This chapter addresses the large issue of the practice of text segmentation—formal or functional and semantic or content-related—and its various modes and devices, in the context of oral instructionInstructionandOralityoral instruction the study and transmissionTransmission of text through recitationRecitation and memorizationMemorization in the traditional, predominantly oral Sanskritic culture of South Asia, as well as in the context of the written transmissionTransmission of Sanskrit texts in South Asian manuscripts. Here, attention is also paid to the implications of practices of text segmentation for the transmissionTransmission of embeddedEmbedded texts in commentaries as well as to related modes of quotation and text-internal referenceReferenceinternal reference. Another major topic is the related issue of the practice of chapter naming—generic and specific–descriptive—treated under various aspects, such as linguistic strategies and semantic preferences, and the social context and function of a text. The chapter further considers the nature of text-internal and text-external surveys of content, which may include lists of text segmentsTexttext segments, numerical and quantitative information, characterizations of content and explanations of the names of text segments, especially in terms of their relevance for our knowledge of the historical development of a given text. The practices of both text segmentation and chapter naming are discussed with reference to texts belonging to the oldest corpus of orally transmitted religious texts of the Brahminical tradition, to the epic genre and to the scientific genre exemplified by works on socio-religious norm, medicine and philosophy.