The Gilgit Manuscript of the Samādhirāja Sūtra
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Description
In 1931 a local inhabitant of Gilgit made a discovery of great moment for the discipline of Buddhist textual studies. Casual foraging for firewood or, according to some, for birch-bark folios to use as roof caulking, from a series of ancient mounds that had
already been plundered for the same purpose, was a common way for local cowherds grazing their cattle in the area to spend their time.[1] Eventually, under the larger central mound, one such forager chanced upon well preserved remains of what was probably a small Buddhist monastic library. The manuscripts filled a box, which was quickly removed for safekeeping and very likely for profit. News of this truly exceptional find soon spread, the British explorer Aurel Stein being the first European on the scene, and the major part of the manuscripts were eventually acquired, by a variety of avenues and parties, to be preserved for posterity. Although folios from this collection are deposited in a number of institutions around the world, the great bulk are now held by the National Archive in New Delhi.[2] Collectively manuscripts from this source are known as 'the Gilgit manuscripts' and for present purposes references to the Gilgit 'manuscripts' or 'collection' are to the total body of materials recovered from this original source.[3]
The Gilgit manuscripts have inevitably been the subject of considerable attention, not least because they preserve texts in some cases either known only from relatively late Nepalese sources or known only from Tibetan and Chinese translations. A terminus ante quern of 630 C.E. for the collection has been suggested on palaeographic grounds by von Hinüber, who argues that one of the scripts employed in the collection became obsolete in the Gilgit region by this date.[4] Gilgit manuscripts thus give us insights into these texts as circulated in the 6th century C.E.. Our interest is further enhanced when a Gilgit ms. records a distinct recension
of a given text, as is the case with the Samādhirāja Sūtra. The collection in its entirety is not catalogued, although the latest and most thorough description of the larger part was published by von Hinüber in 1979.[5] The same author, almost ten years later, declined to offer an exact figure for the number of texts preserved, even in the Delhi holding alone. Remarking upon recent progress in the identification of Gilgit material, he suggests that there are something in the region of 50 titles represented in the collection, if one treats all the avadāna stories as a single title.[6]
The ms. of the Samādhirāja Sūtra from Gilgit has been discussed in a variety of ways and circumstances. The first description, and we should be entitled to assume the most reliable, is that given by N. Dutt in his edition of the Samādhirāja Sūtra.[7] Unfortunately this description is inadequate, and has been supplemented by descriptions from Schopen and Matsumura.[8] The purpose of the present article is to present a comprehensive and detailed account of the Gilgit ms. of the Samādhirāja Sūtra, thereby clarifying the nature and extent of this particular manuscript and correcting a miscellaneous sprinkling of incorrect data that has been already published in connection with it. This attention is further justified by virtue of the manuscript being sole witness of a distinct recension of the text, and also of great antiquity. (Skilton, preliminary remarks, 1–3)
Notes
- The alarming roof-caulking motive is recounted in K. Jettmar, 'The Gilgit Manuscripts: Discovery by Instalments', Journal of Central Asia 4 (1981), pp. 1-18. (The substance of the present article is derived from A. Skilton, doctoral thesis: 'The Samādhirāja Sūtra :a study incorporating a critical edition and translation of Chapter 17', Oxford 1997.)
- Gilgit Materials are also held in Bombay, London, Fans, Foona, Kome, Srinagar and Ujjain. See O. von Hinüber, 'Die Bedeutung des Handschriftenfundes bei Gilgit', in F. Steppat, ed., XXL Deutscher Orientalistentag: Ausgewählte Vorträge, (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft: Supplement, 5), Wiesbaden 1983, pp. 48-49 for a brief summary of this disposition.
- Although the full story of this process, in so far as it is known, has not been related in any one place, it is not the purpose of the present article to do so. The reader is referred to the following for the circumstances of the initial discovery: S. Lévi, 'Notes sur les manuscrits Sanscrits provenant de Bamiyan (Afghanistan) et de Gilgit (Cachemire)', Journal Asiatique 220 (1932) pp. 1-45.
- Von Hinüber, 1983, pp. 47-66.
- O. von Hinüber, Die Erforschung der Gilgit-Handschriften, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, I. Phil.-hist. Kl. Jg. 1979, Nr. 12 pp. 327-360; supplements: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Band 130, Heft 2 (1980) pp. *25* -*26*, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Band 131, Heft 2 (1981) pp. *9* -*11*. These publications cover the New Delhi and Srinagar holdings only. Earlier handlists of the New Delhi holdings are given in: L. Chandra, 'A Note on the Gilgit Manuscripts', Journal of the Oriental Institute (Baroda), 9 (1960) pp. 135-140, and L. Chandra, 'Unpublished Gilgit Fragment of the Prātimoksasūtra', Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ost-asiens 4 (1960) pp. 1-13; and P. V. Bapat, 'Gilgit Manuscripts and Numerical Symbols', Journal of the Oriental Institute Baroda) 11 (1961-1962) pp. 127-131.
- 'Buddhism in Gilgit Between India and Central Asia', in The Countries of South Asia: Boundaries , Extensions , and Interrelations, ed. P. Gaeffke and D. A. Utz, Philadelphia 1988, pp. 40-48.
