A percepção do livro enquanto objeto sagrado na tradição védica

Abstract

This research aims to present the debates about the materiality of religious books of Hinduism, their habits, ways of reading and their appropriations, presenting the ancient Vedic traditional education system, in addition to discussing how religious reading practices take place. Indian literature originated with the production of the Vedas, an extensive work that for at least three thousand years was transmitted from Guru to disciple orally, being seen, until today, as the greatest religious authority of Hinduism. The focus of the research was specifically the Vaishnava community with its traditional Indian works, in order to understand how affection for such texts occurs, how their personal libraries are composed and how the arrival of the digital book influenced their relationship with the sacred book, observing the differences of affection for these works on paper and in digital format, trying to fill a gap that, when it comes to the materiality of the books, little is said about the religious and, when it comes to the cult of devotional objects, little is said about the books. The facility of using a digital support to store a library can cause a change in behavior. Traditional Indian texts, previously obtained only through oral transmission, are now translated and commented on by various western authors and available in digital format on the internet. However, there is a gap to be filled when dealing with materiality, since when we transport the physical book to the digital medium, there is a sensory loss in the reader's relationship with his book. The senses that were previously stimulated during reading are limited to what the digital device offers. This study, therefore, is relevant because it deals with a reader of millennial canonical works in a scenario of new reading technologies which is on a wall that, if on the one hand there is tradition, affection, respect and adoration for the book as an object by often placing it on altars with deities and sacred images, on the other hand there is the emergence of new forms of reading bringing with it the ephemerality and ease of access to works previously restricted to a select group of monks.