Écrire et transmettre en Inde classique

The transmission of texts in premodern India cannot be dissociated from their use. Studying the milieux in which they were produced, as well as the literary genres to which they belong, can explain in part the ways in which they came into being, were read and underwent transformation. Some works, for example, are to a great extent shaped by being rooted in a fluid oral tradition; others have been submitted to the strictures of a learned discipline; others again have been transmitted by more than one path at the same time. Belles-lettres, works of grammar and philosophy, epigraphy, religious literature and ritual manuals all present different situations. The paper in this volume consider such situations with a shared perspective: the need to go beyond a simplistic opposition between orality and writing, an opposition which reveals itself to be not particularly fruitful for the study of premodern India, and to contribute towards a critique of text-criticism, thus refining philological methods.