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Gandhran Buddhist texts

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(Redirected from Gandhran Buddhist Texts) The Gandhran Buddhist texts are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, dating from about the 1st century CE.[1] They are written in Gndhr, and are possibly the oldest extant Indic texts altogether. They were sold to European and Japanese institutions and individuals, and are currently being recovered and studied by several universities. The Gandhran texts are in a considerably deteriorated form (their survival alone is extraordinary), but educated guesses about reconstruction have been possible in several cases using both modern preservation techniques and more traditional textual scholarship, comparing previously known Pli and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit versions of texts. Other Gandhran Buddhist texts"several and perhaps many"have been found over the last two centuries but lost or destroyed.[2] The texts are attributed to the Dharmaguptaka sect by Richard Salomon, the leading scholar in the field,[3] and the British Library scrolls "represent a random but reasonably representative fraction of what was probably a much larger set of texts preserved in the library of a monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect in Nagarhra."[4]

Early Buddhism
Scriptures
Gandhran texts gamas Pali Canon

Councils
1st Council 2nd Council 3rd Council 4th Council

Schools
First Sangha Mahsghika Ekavyvahrika Lokottaravda Bahurutya Prajaptivda Caitika Sthaviravda Mahsaka Dharmaguptaka Kyapya Sarvstivda Vibhajyavda Theravda
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Contents
1 Collections 1.1 The British Library Collection 1.2 The Senior Collection 1.3 The Schyen collection 1.4 University of Washington 1.5 The Khotan Dharmapada 2 Published Material 3 See also 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

Collections
The British Library Collection
In 1994 the British Library acquired a group of some eighty Gandharan manuscript fragments from the first half of the 1st century. They were written on birch bark and stored in clay jars, which preserved them. They are thought to have been found in eastern Afghanistan (Bamiyan, Jalalabad, Hadda, which were part of Gandhara), and the clay jars were buried in ancient monasteries. A team has been at work, trying to decipher the manuscripts: three volumes have appeared to date (2009). The manuscripts were written in Gndhr using the Kharoh script, and are therefore sometimes also called the Kharoh Manuscripts. The collection is composed of a diversity of texts: a Dhammapada, discourses of Buddha (for example the Rhinoceros Horn Sutra), Avadanas and Purvayogas, commentaries and Abhidharma texts. There is evidence to suggest that these texts may belong to the Dharmaguptaka school, an Indian Buddhist Nikaya (Salomon 2000, p. 5). There is an inscription on a jar to that school, and there is some textual evidence a s well. On a semi-related point, the Gandhran text of the Rhinoceros Sutra contains the word mahayaaa which some might identify with Mahyna (Salomon, 2000, p. 127). However, according to Salomon, in Kharoh orthography there is no reason to think that the phrase in question, amatraa bhoti mahayaaa ("there are calls from the multitude"), has any connection to Mahyna (Salomon, 2000, p. 127).

The Senior Collection

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The Senior collection was bought by R. Senior, a British collector. The Senior collection may be slightly younger than the British Library collection. It consists almost entirely of canonical sutras, and, like the British Library collection, was written on birch bark and stored in clay jars.[5] The jars bear inscriptions referring to Macedonian rather than Indian month names, as is characteristic of the Kaniska era from which they derive.[6] There is a "strong likelihood that the Senior scrolls were written, at the earliest, in the latter part of the first century A.D., or, perhaps more likely, in the first half of the second century. This would make the Senior scrolls slightly but significantly later than the scrolls of the British Library collection, which have been provisionally dated to the first half of the first century."[7] Saloman writes: The Senior collection is superficially similar in character to the British Library collection in that they both consist of about two dozen birch bark manuscripts or manuscript fragments arranged in scroll or similar format and written in Kharosthi script and Gandhari language. Both were found inside inscribed clay pots, and both are believed to have come from the same or nearby sites, in or around Hadda in eastern Afghanistan. But in terms of their textual contents, the two collections differ in important ways. Whereas the British Library collection was a diverse mixture of texts of many different genres written by some two dozen different scribes (Salomon 1999: 22-55, esp. 22-23 and 54-55), all or nearly all of the manuscripts in the Senior collection are written in the same hand, and all but one of them seem to belong to the same genre, namely sutra. Moreover, whereas all of the British Library scrolls were fragmentary and at least some of them were evidently already damaged and incomplete before they were interred in antiquity (Salomon 1999: 69-71; Salomon 2000: 20-23), some of the Senior scrolls are still more or less complete and intact and must have been in good condition when they were buried. Thus the Senior scrolls, unlike the British Library scrolls, constitute a unified, cohesive, and at least partially intact collection that was carefully interred as such.[7] He further reports that "largest number of parallels for the sutras in the Senior collection are in the Samyutta-nikaya and the corresponding collections in Sanskrit and Chinese."[8]

The Schyen collection

The Buddhist works within Schyen collection consists of birch bark, palm leaf and vellum manuscripts. They are thought to have been found in the Bamiyan caves, where refugees were seeking shelter. Most of these manuscripts were bought by a Norwegian collector, named Martin Schyen, while smaller quantities are in possession of Japanese collectors.[2] (http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2003 /03021901.shtml) These manuscripts date from the second to the 8th century CE. In addition to texts in Gandhri, the Schyen collection also contains important early sutric material in Sanskrit.[9] The Buddhist texts within the Schyen collection includes fragments of canonical Suttas, Abhidharma, Vinaya, and Mahyna texts. Most of these manuscripts are written in the Brahmi scripts, while a small portion is written in Gandhari/Kharoh script Among the early Dharmaguptaka texts in the Schyen Collection, is a fragment in the Kharoh script referencing the Six Pramits, a central practice for bodhisattvas in Mahyna Buddhism.[10]

University of Washington
One more manuscript, written on birch bark in a Buddhist monastery of the Abhidharma tradition, from the 1st or 2nd century CE, was acquired from a collector by the University of Washington Libraries in 2002. It is an early commentary on the Buddha's teachings, on the subject of human suffering.

The Khotan Dharmapada

In 1892 a copy of the Dhammapada written in the Gandhr Prakrit was discovered near Khotan in Xinjiang, western China. It was broken up and came to Europe in parts, some going to Russia and some to France, but unfortunately a portion of the manuscript never appeared on the market and seems to have been lost. In 1898 most of the French material was published in the Journal Asiatique. In 1962 John Brough published the collected Russian and French fragments with a commentary.

Published Material
Scholarly critical editions of the texts of the University of Washington and the British Library are being printed by the University of Washington Press in the "Gandhran Buddhist Texts" series,[11] beginning with a detailed analysis of the Ghndr Rhinoceros Sutra including phonology, morphology, orthography, paleography, etc. Material from the Schyen Collection is published by Hermes Publishing, Oslo, Norway. The following scholars have published fragements of the Gandharan manuscripts: Mark Allon, Richard Salomon, Timothy Lenz and Jens Braarvig. Some of the published material is listed below: 1999 - Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: The British Library Kharosthi Fragments, by Richard Salomon, F. Raymond Allchin, and Mark Barnard 2000 - Manuscripts in the Schyen Collection I, Buddhist Manuscripts, Vol. 1., by Braarvig, Jens. Oslo: Hermes Publishing. 2000 - A Gandhari Version of the Rhinoceros Sutra: British Library Kharosthi Fragment 5B (Gandharan Buddhist Texts, 1), by

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Andrew Glass and Richard Salomon 2001 - Three Gandhari Ekottarikagama-Type Sutras: British Library Kharosthi Fragments 12 and 14 (GBT Vol 2) by Mark Allon (Author, Editor), Andrew Glass (Editor). Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2003 - A New Version of the Gandhari Dharmapada and a Collection of Previous-Birth Stories: British Library Karosthi Fragments 16 + 25 (GBT vol. 3), by Timothy Lenz (Author), Andrew Glass (Author), Bhikshu Dharmamitra (Author). Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2008 - Four Gandhari Samyuktagama Sutras: Senior Kharosthi Fragment 5 (GBT, Vol. 4) by Andrew Glass (Author), Mark Allon (Contributor) Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2009 - Two Gandhari Manuscripts of the Songs of Lake Anavtapta (Anavatapta-gatha): British Library Kharosthi Fragment 1 and Senior Scroll 14 (GBT vol 5) by Richard Salomon (Author), Andrew Glass (Contributor). Seattle: University of Washington Press.

See also
Early Buddhist schools Gandhra Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan Schools of Buddhism

Notes
1. ^ "UW Press: Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara" (http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/SALANC.html) . http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/SALANC.html. Retrieved 2008-09-04. 2. ^ Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE by Patrick Olivelle. Oxford University Press, 2006 ISBN 0-19-530532-9 pg 357 [1] (http://books.google.com/books?id=efaOR_-YsIcC&dq=Between+the+Empires:+Society+in+India+300+BCE+to+400&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&
ei=-McnS43cN8jU8Abju_mjDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBA#v=snippet&q=substantial&f=false)

3. ^ "The Discovery of 'the Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts'" Review article by Enomoto Fumio. The Eastern Buddhist, Vol NS32 Issue I, 2000, pg 160 4. ^ Richard Salomon. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhra: The British Library Kharosth Fragments, with contributions by Raymond Allchin and Mark Barnard. Seattle: University of Washington Press; London: The British Library, 1999. pg 181 5. ^ The Senior Manuscripts: Another Collection of Gandhran Buddhist Scrolls by Richard Salomon. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 123, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2003), pp. 73-92 6. ^ The Senior Manuscripts: Another Collection of Gandhran Buddhist Scrolls by Richard Salomon. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 123, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2003), pp. 77 7. ^ a b The Senior Manuscripts: Another Collection of Gandhran Buddhist Scrolls by Richard Salomon. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 123, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2003), pp. 78 8. ^ The Senior Manuscripts: Another Collection of Gandhran Buddhist Scrolls by Richard Salomon. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 123, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2003), pp. 79 9. ^ Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE by Patrick Olivelle. Oxford University Press, 2006 ISBN 0-19-530532-9 pg 356 10. ^ Presenters: Patrick Cabouat and Alain Moreau (2004). "Eurasia Episode III - Gandhara, the Renaissance of Buddhism". Eurasia. Episode 3. 11:20 minutes in. France 5 / NHK / Point du Jour International. 11. ^ "UW Press: Book in Series, Gandharan Buddhist Texts" (http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/books/series/Seriesbuddhist.html) . http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/books/series/Seriesbuddhist.html. Retrieved 2008-09-04.

References
Salomon, Richard. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhra, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1999, ISBN 0-295-97769-8. Salomon, Richard. A Gndhr Version of the Rhinoceros Sutra: British Library Kharohi Fragment 5B Univ. of Washington Press: Seattle and London, 2000. Allon, Mark. Wrestling with Kharosthi Manuscripts, BDK Fellowship Newsletter, No 7, 2004.

External links
"Gandharan scrolls" (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/themes/asianafricanman/budscrolls.html) from the British Library's on-line gallery. "The British Library Kharoh Fragments" (http://depts.washington.edu/ebmp/ebmpintro.php) from UW's Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project. The Schoyen Collection (http://www.schoyencollection.com/Buddhism.htm) The Gndhr Dharmapada (http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/ind/mind/gandhpkt/dhpgpkt/dhpgp.htm) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gandhran_Buddhist_texts&oldid=535003917" Categories: Buddhist manuscripts Early Buddhist texts Pre-Islamic history of Afghanistan Buddhism in Afghanistan

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