Since the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century，a great number of manuscripts of `Saddharmapundarkasutra`，which belong to various editions of the text，were discovered from the cultural centres of Chinese Turkestan，such as Kashgar，Khotan，Kucha and Turpan. Among them，the socalled "Kashgar Manuscript" collected by N. P. Petrovsky of Russia is most complete，which contains 281 complete folios and 108 fragments. The missing part of the Sutra were procured by Count Ohtani of Japan，Mr. Emil Trinkler of Germany，Mr. G. McCartney and Sir Aurel Stein of Britain respectively and were preserved in various collections of Russia, Japan，Germany and Britain. Through studeis taken by numberous scholars, this text has been re-established from fragmentary situation and serves as one of the most popular early texts of Mahayana Buddhism.
There is an inscription in Khotanese-Saka on the last folio of the manuscript. This fact shows that the donor of the copy belong to a Khotanese. According to Chinese historical records, during the period of 7-8th century when the Kashgar manuscript was copied，Hinayana Buddhism was flourished in kashgar while Mahayana Buddhism prosperous in Khotan. More important is that both the collections of McCartney and Stein were found from the site of Khotan. It is rational to think that the so-called "Kashgar manuscript" actually was written in Khotan and later was brought to Kashgar by native merchants. So I think the text should be called "khotan manuscirpt".
Comparing with manuscripts of `Saddharmapundarka-sutra` from Nepal and Gilgit of Kashmir，the Kashgar one is much less than them; the date when the text was copied is earlier than Nepalese ones (11-18th century) but later than those of Gilgit (5-6th century). However，Kashgar manuscript contains the most primitive text of the `Sutra` and was the basis of the Chinese translation of `Dharmaraksa`. About the language，Kashgar manuscript also has rich characteristics：it is much more prolix; the use of b，v，'s, s' and s is better than that of Nepalese-Kashmirian ones; there are more Prakritisms and wrongly Sanskritised expressions; the language isn't as stable as those in Nepalese-Kashmirian mss..These facts exhibit that the date of formation of formation of Kashgar manuscript earlier than others.
