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The Gilgit manuscripts are a group of manuscripts found in an ancient structure near the village of Naupur in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. They are among the oldest manuscript finds in South Asia, dating from 5th and 6th centuries AD. They comprise several hundred folios of birchbark manuscripts, most containing Buddhist texts. One of the most important texts found in the manuscripts is a version of the vinaya (monastic rule) of the Mūlasarvāstivāda sect. Several popular Mahāyāna sūtras have also been identified in the collection, including the Samādhirāja Sūtra and the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra , or "Lotus Sutra".

Discovery and Excavations

In 1931, a box of manuscripts was discovered by local cattle-herders. Marc Aurel Stein heard about this when passing through the area, returning from his 4th expedition to Central Asia, and announced their discovery in a newspaper article. This publicity caused the Indian government to claim the manuscripts. Stein brought a few leaves back with him, and they are now at the British Library. The site was also excavated by J Hackin, who took some manuscript folios back to Paris.

There have been later discoveries of manuscripts in the area, including a substantial 454-folio manuscript of the Dīrghāgama discovered in 1998 (Fussman 2004).

While most accounts of the Gilgit manuscripts state that the structure in which they were found was an ancient stūpa, this has been disputed by Gerard Fussman (2004), who suggests that it was the temple or dwelling of a Buddhist teacher or a lineage of teachers. Gregory Schopen (2009) on the other hand has argued that the structure was a combination of a scriptorium where new manusripts were produced and a depositing place for unwanted manuscripts.

In 2006 the Gilgit manuscripts were nominated for inclusion on the UNESCO Memory of the World register, but without success.

Cataloguing

The main collections of Gilgit manuscripts are at the National Archives in New Delhi and the Department of Archaeology, Archives and Museums, Jammu and Kashmir. The British Library in London and Bibliothèque nationale de France hold much smaller collections.

As yet there is no catalogue of either of the two main collections of Gilgit Manuscripts. Between 1939 and 1959, Prof. Nalinaksha Dutt produced nine volumes of editions of the manuscripts in Devanagari script under the title Gilgit Manuscripts.

Texts

The following is an incomplete list of texts found in the Gilgit manuscripts, identified so far in the collection of the National Archives, New Delhi:

1. Pratimoksa-sutra
2. Karma-vacana
3. Ekottaragama
4. Pravrajya-vastu
5. Vinaya-vibhanga
6. Visvantaravadana
7. Astasahasrika
8. Bhaisajya-vastu
9. Mahapratisara
10. Mahasannipata Ratnaketusutra
11. Buddhia-baladhana-pratiharya
12. Mahasannipata Ratnaketusutra
13. Mandhatavadana and
14. Dharmauch-avadana
15. Kutagara-sutra
16. Tathagata-bimba-karapana-sutra
17. Anna-pana-vidhi
18. Sanghata-sutra
19. Saddharama-pundarika-sutra
20. Pranama-stava
21. Darika-gath

Bibliography

Fussman, G.: "Dans quel type de bâtiment furent trouvés les manuscrits de Gilgit?" JA 292 (2004), pp. 101-150.

Jettmar, Karl: "Zu den Fundumständen der Gilgit-Manuskripte", ZAS 15 (1981), pp. 307-322.

Kaul Shastri, M.S.: "Report on the Gilgit Excavation in 1938", The Quarterly of the Mythic Society 30.1 (1939), pp. 1-12

Schopen, Gregory. 2009. 'On the Absence of Ur-texts and Otiose Ācāryas: Building, Books, and Lay Buddhist Ritual at Gilgit", in Gérard Colas & Gerdi Gerschheimer (eds.), Ecrire et transmettre en Inde classique, Etudes thématiques vol.23, Paris: EFEO, 2009, pp. 189-219.

External links

• Wooden Covers of the Two Gilgit Manuscripts in the Sri Pratap Singh Museum