Mark Allon is a senior research associate with the British Library/University of Washington Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project. He is the author of Style and Function：A Study of the Dominant Stylistic Features of the Prose Portions of Pali Canonical Texts and Their Mnemonic Function.
關鍵詞
Three Gandhari; Ekottarikagama-Type; Kharosthi; 佛教文學=Buddhist Literature;
摘要
Three Gandhari Ekottarikagama-Type Sutras continues the Gandharan Buddhist Texts studies of the first-century A.D. birch bark scrolls in the British Library's Kharosthi manuscript collection. It describes the text found on two fragments which constitute the lower part of a scroll and consists of the remnants of three sutras. All three sutras are relatively short and have an association with the number four，which suggests that they are from a Gandhar- Ekottarikagama, a collection of short discourses grouped according to numerical principles and one of the major collections of writings in the Buddhist canon.
The first sutra records a discussion in which a brahman asks the Buddha four questions. The second sutra, like the third，depicts the Buddha preaching to monks. The structure of this sutra is based on the four postures：walking，standing，sitting，and lying down. The Buddhais discourse in the third sutra concerns the four efforts (or abandonings).
The book describes the condition of the scroll and its reconstruction; examines in detail the literary and textual background of the sutras, comparing them with other extant versions and parallels in other languages; and presents a transcription of the extant text，a reconstruction，and an English translation. It includes chapters on the paleography，orthography，phonology，and morphology of the text，and offers a detailed analytic commentary.
This title continues the Gandharan Buddhist Texts studies of the first-century AD birch bark scrolls in the British Library's Kharosthi manuscript collection. It describes the text found on two fragments which constitute the lower part of a scroll. This is the second volume devoted to the ancient Buddhist texts, which are written on birch bark and were found in earthenware pots, perhaps in Afghanistan，and acquired by the British Library in 1994. The fragments 12 and 14 are reproduced here in color plates and form the basis of the study. Andrew Glass has written the paleographic analysis. Allon (we are not told his affiliation) offers a lengthy study of the fragments, comparing them to and placing them in the context of other versions of sutras of the same type.
