Gāndhārī language
| Part of a series on |
| Buddhism |
|---|
 |
Gāndhārī (Sanskrit: गांधारी) was a north-western prakrit spoken in Gāndhāra. Like all prakrits, it is thus descended from either Vedic Sanskrit or a closely related language. Gāndhārī was written in the Kharoṣṭhī script. Scholars believe that the language featured elements from the languages native to the area (pre-Indo-European population), as well as Dardic and East-Iranian ethnic languages, which are related to the Indo-Aryan family to which all prakrits belong.
Contents |
Buddhist manuscripts in Gāndhāri [edit]
Until 1994, the only Gāndhāri manuscript available to the scholars was a birch bark scroll of a Buddhist text, the Dhammapada, discovered at Kohmāri Mazār near Hotan in Xinjiang in 1893 CE. From 1994 on, a large number of fragmentary manuscripts of Buddhist texts, seventy-seven altogether,[1] were discovered in eastern Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan. These include:[2]
- 29 fragments of birch-bark scrolls of British Library collection consisting of parts of the Dhammapada, Anavatapta gāthā, the Rhinoceros Sutra, Sangitiparyaya and a collection of sutras from the Anguttara Nikaya.
- 129 fragments of palm leaf folios of Schøyen collection, 27 fragments of palm-leaf folios of Hirayama collection and 18 fragments of palm leaf folios of Hayashidera collection consisting of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and the Bhadrakalpikā sutra.
- 24 birch-bark scrolls of Senior collection consists of mostly different sutras and the Anavatapta gāthā.
- 8 fragments of a single birch-bark scroll and 2 small fragments of another scroll of University of Washington collection consisting of probably an Abhidharma text or other scholastic commentaries.
Translations from Gāndhāri [edit]
Mahayana Buddhist Pure Land sūtras were brought from the Gandhara region to China as early as 147 CE, when the Kushan bhikkhu Lokakṣema began translating the first Buddhist sūtras into Chinese.[3] The earliest of these translations show evidence of having been translated from Gāndhārī.[4] It is also known that manuscripts in the Kharoṣṭhī script existed in China during this period.[5]
Some scholars believe that the importance of Gāndhārī in Central Asia is out of proportion with the relatively small number of surviving documents which have been discovered so far.[6]
Notes [edit]
- ^ http://ebmp.org/ The Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project
- ^ Saloman Richard, Recent Discoveries of Early Buddhist Manuscripts in Between the Empires, Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006 CE, ISBN 978-0-19-568935-8
- ^ "The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalog (T. 361)".
- ^ Mukherjee, Bratindra Nath. India in Early Central Asia. 1996. p. 15
- ^ Nakamura, Hajime. Indian Buddhism: A Survey With Biographical Notes. 1999. p. 205
- ^ Mukherjee, Bratindra Nath. India in Early Central Asia. 1996. p. 15
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- Rahman, Dr. Tariq, Peoples and Languages in Pre-Islamic Indus Valley, University of Texas at Austin.
- Salomon, Richard, Gandhari Language, Encyclopedia Iranica.
Further reading [edit]
Yu. V. Gankovsky, The Peoples of Pakistan: An Ethnic History. Translated from the Russian by Igor Gavrilov (Lahore: Peoples' Publishing House, 1964)
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
