Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments

Solomon, Richard (著); Allchin, Raymond (投稿); Barnard, Mark (投稿); His Holiness the Dalai Lama (前言)

著者

Solomon, Richard (著) ; Allchin, Raymond (投稿) ; Barnard, Mark (投稿) ; His Holiness the Dalai Lama (前言)

出版年月日

1999.03

ページ

273

出版者

University of Washington Press

出版サイト

https://uwapress.uw.edu/

出版地

Seattle, WA, US [西雅圖, 華盛頓州, 美國]

シリーズ

Gandharan Buddhist Texts

資料の種類

書籍=Book

言語

英文=English

ノート

Richard Salomon, professor of Asian languages and literature at the University of Washington, heads the team of scholars constituting The British Library/University of Washington Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project. He is the author of The Bridge to the Three Holy Cities, Indian Epigraphy, and numerous articles.

抄録

As the Dead Sea scrolls have changed our understanding of Judaism and early Christianity, so a set of twenty-nine scrolls recently acquired by the British Library promise to provide a window into a crucial phase of the history of Buddhism in India. The fragmentary birch bark scrolls, which were found inside one of a set of inscribed clay pots, are written in the Gandhari Prakrit language and in Kharosthi script. Dating from around the beginning of the Christian era, the scrolls are probably the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered.

The manuscripts and pots come from a region known in ancient times as Gandhara, corresponding to modern northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. At the peak of its influence, Gandhara was the capital of a series of wealthy and powerful dynasties and became one of the world’s most important centres of Buddhism and the gateway through which Buddhism was transmitted from India to China and other parts of Asia. Gandhara was also a principal point of contact between India and the Western world. Despite abundant archaeological evidence of Gandhara’s thriving culture, until now there has been virtually no documentary evidence of its literary and religious canon.

This volume introduces a groundbreaking project to decipher and interpret the Gandhäran texts. It provides a detailed description of the manuscripts and a survey of their contents, along with a preliminary evaluation of their significance. Also included are representative samples of texts and translations.

This discovery sheds new light on the regional character of early Indian Buddhist traditions, the process of the formation of standardized written canons, and the transmission of Buddhism into central and east Asia. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara will appeal to a broad audience with interests in Buddhism, comparative religion, and Asian languages.

For more information go to the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project web site at http://www.ebmp.org/

List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface
Note on the system of transcription and citation
Abbreviations
The Background: Gandhara and Gandharan Buddhism
The Contents of the British Library Kharosthi Collection
Previous Discoveries of Kharosthi Manuscripts
Origin and Character of the Collection
Format, Material, and Construction of the Scrolls
Paleographic and Linguistic Features of the Gandharan Scrolls
The Date of the Manuscripts
Preliminary Evaluation of the New Corpus
Appendix: Inscribed pots and Potsherds in the British Library Collection
Glossary
References
Index

ISBN

9780295977690 (pbc); 9780712346108 (hbc); 0295977698 (pbc)

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