Three Gandhari Ekottarikagama Type Sutras ─ British Library Kharosthi Fragmments 12 and 14

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 su-tra, 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 Buddha’s 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.

For more information go to the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project web site at http://www.ebmp.org/

Mark Allon is senior lecturer in South Asian Buddhist Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia, and 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.