Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā
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Description
Fragments 1–2 are small, irregularly shaped pieces too damaged to yield a coherent sense or textual identification; Fragment 1 is tentatively judged the oldest of the set on paleographic grounds.
Fragment 3 is rhomboid, in a slanting Gupta script, and represents a discourse between the Buddha and Kāśyapa on the four classes of "false ascetics" (duḥśīlaśīlavatpratirūpakāḥ), correlated with dhūtaguṇa lists in the Dharmasaṃgraha and Mahāvyutpatti.
Fragment 4 is a complete leaf, badly damaged, containing a metrical portion (verses 8–16) dealing with bodhisattvas adorned with the four dharmas, with a partial parallel noted in Mahāvastu II; the prose section on the reverse could not be matched to a known text.
Fragment 5 is identified as a portion of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, corresponding to the printed text pp. 40¹⁶–41¹⁴, with the fragment's readings differing only slightly from the edition.
Fragment 6 (Plates III–IV) is identified as a portion of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, corresponding to parivarta 14 and to p. 68⁹ ff. of Rai Sarat Chandra Śāstri's 1898 edition (Buddhist Texts Society of India, Calcutta). Reuter transcribes and restores the fragment's stanzas (numbered 27–32 in the source), comparing its readings against Śāstri's printed edition line by line and noting divergences in wording, meter, and vocabulary.
Fragment 7 (Plate V) corresponds to a passage in the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, 11th parivarta, but the fragment distributes the same text over two differently-numbered parivartas and shows enough divergence from the printed edition to suggest it belongs to a different manuscript recension, possibly related to Fragment 8.
Fragment 8 (Plate VI) is a complete leaf (numbered 147) closely allied to the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, opening with the bodhisattva Subhūti's questions to the Buddha on the "dream-like" and "illusion-like" nature of phenomena, and possibly forming part of the same textual tradition as Fragment 7, though not the same manuscript.
Fragment 9 (Plate VII) could not be identified with any known text; its general argument concerns the invincibility of an irreversible (avaivartika) bodhisattva's mind against the hosts of Māra, illustrated by the simile of a lapis lazuli gem placed amid glass beads, whose luster the glass cannot eclipse.
Fragment 10 (Plate I) is a small, bilingual Sanskrit-Khotanese piece, difficult to read, containing scattered decipherable words in both languages.
Fragment 11 (Plates VIII–IX) is a Khotanese-language piece naming the otherwise rare bodhisattva Bhaiṣajasena, offering philological comparanda with other known Khotanese Buddhist manuscripts (the Stein collection and the Godfrey manuscripts), and providing material for Reuter's discussion of Khotanese numerals, loanwords from Sanskrit, and verb morphology.
Fragments 1–2 are small, irregularly shaped pieces too damaged to yield a coherent sense or textual identification; Fragment 1 is tentatively judged the oldest of the set on paleographic grounds.
Fragment 3 is rhomboid, in a slanting Gupta script, and represents a discourse between the Buddha and Kāśyapa on the four classes of "false ascetics" (duḥśīlaśīlavatpratirūpakāḥ), correlated with dhūtaguṇa lists in the Dharmasaṃgraha and Mahāvyutpatti.
Fragment 4 is a complete leaf, badly damaged, containing a metrical portion (verses 8–16) dealing with bodhisattvas adorned with the four dharmas, with a partial parallel noted in Mahāvastu II; the prose section on the reverse could not be matched to a known text.
Fragment 5 is identified as a portion of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, corresponding to the printed text pp. 40¹⁶–41¹⁴, with the fragment's readings differing only slightly from the edition.
Fragment 6 (Plates III–IV) is identified as a portion of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, corresponding to parivarta 14 and to p. 68⁹ ff. of Rai Sarat Chandra Śāstri's 1898 edition (Buddhist Texts Society of India, Calcutta). Reuter transcribes and restores the fragment's stanzas (numbered 27–32 in the source), comparing its readings against Śāstri's printed edition line by line and noting divergences in wording, meter, and vocabulary.
Fragment 7 (Plate V) corresponds to a passage in the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, 11th parivarta, but the fragment distributes the same text over two differently-numbered parivartas and shows enough divergence from the printed edition to suggest it belongs to a different manuscript recension, possibly related to Fragment 8.
Fragment 8 (Plate VI) is a complete leaf (numbered 147) closely allied to the Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, opening with the bodhisattva Subhūti's questions to the Buddha on the "dream-like" and "illusion-like" nature of phenomena, and possibly forming part of the same textual tradition as Fragment 7, though not the same manuscript.
Fragment 9 (Plate VII) could not be identified with any known text; its general argument concerns the invincibility of an irreversible (avaivartika) bodhisattva's mind against the hosts of Māra, illustrated by the simile of a lapis lazuli gem placed amid glass beads, whose luster the glass cannot eclipse.
Fragment 10 (Plate I) is a small, bilingual Sanskrit-Khotanese piece, difficult to read, containing scattered decipherable words in both languages.
Fragment 11 (Plates VIII–IX) is a Khotanese-language piece naming the otherwise rare bodhisattva Bhaiṣajasena, offering philological comparanda with other known Khotanese Buddhist manuscripts (the Stein collection and the Godfrey manuscripts), and providing material for Reuter's discussion of Khotanese numerals, loanwords from Sanskrit, and verb morphology.
