A Preliminary Report on a Palm-leaf Manuscript of Prajñākaramati's Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā (1)
| 🤓 Admin Zone 🛠️ hidden to non-admins | |
Description
With the recent discovery of a BCAP Sanskrit palm-leaf manuscript in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, further study of the BCAP has become possible.[1] This newly discovered palm-leaf manuscript measures around 32.1*6.2cm in size and is catalogued as ZX0617–ZB20 in the facsimile edition. Each page generally contains six or seven lines in black ink with space for a string hole slightly left of the center. Its scripts are mainly written in the Proto-Bengali style. Even considering that the same scribe would write in a different hand depending on circumstances—e.g., the script would change if he was in a hurry to finish the day’s transcription, etc.— we can identify the handwriting of at least three scribes in this palm-leaf manuscript. One of them would have copied the leaf of a Saṃghāṭasūtra manuscript (folio 71ab) that was inserted—probably by accident—into the BCAP. The other two scribes who copied the BCAP differ not only in the neatness of their writing as well as in the embellishment of akṣaras, but also in their unique choice of fonts. For example, Scribe A who copied the majority of the manuscript tends to use la in the typical Proto-Bengali style, although sometimes with a transitional form, while Scribe B tends to write la (91A1) in the Nāgarī style. The ca of the former is in the Nāgarī style, while the ca (92A1) of the latter is generally in the Proto-Bengali style. A closer study of their paleographical features will be done in the future. (Wang, et al., introduction, 97-98)
