Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: The British Library Kharosthi Fragments

Gandharan Buddhist Texts

by Richard Salomon, F. Raymond Allchin, Mark Barnard

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 centers 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 archeological 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

Genres: Buddhism

273 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Ihor Kolesnyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Книга буде цікава усім історикам буддизму, релігієзнавцям, археологам та людям, які цікавляться нищівним впливом часу та ерозії.

[Greg Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an early overview of the origin, content, context and significance of these birch bark texts.
Provides insight into the history of the development of opinion of the particular schools of this area, other related finds and potential learnings from future study of the available material.
While some of the content is rather technical, it is not overly-so, including explorations of the different hands visible in the found texts, dating based on the particular script used and how found texts relate to other extant Pali and Chinese texts.

Not for readers looking to explore the teachings of the Buddha as much as those interested in the history of the development of the Indian schools and their influence on later traditions.

Also, for those looking for a detailed analysis of each text, later publications specific to each are available. This is an early text and as the author indicates, was intended to provide the public with some level of access to the discovery and initial findings, with the full knowledge that the information would be preliminary and limited at best.

All in all, a thoroughly worthwhile read for any student of Indian Buddhism.