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0551 Innermost Asia : vol.2
Innermost Asia : vol.2 / Page 551 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000187
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APPENDIX E

INVENTORY LIST OF MANUSCRIPT REMAINS

MAINLY IN SANSKRIT

BY

F. E. PARGITER, M.A., I.C.S. (RET.)

[NOTE.—As it has not been found practicable to reproduce all transcripts which Mr. Pargiter's painstaking care has furnished from the majority of text fragments, a typed copy of the original Inventory ` slips ' as received from him has been placed in the India Office Library for convenient reference by future students.—A. STEIN.]

GENERAL REMARKS.

THESE MS. remains are generally written on country paper, but silk cloth is found in one Pahl leaf, B. Koy i. 020, and birch-bark and palm-leaf in fragments from Koyumal and Bash-koyumal.

The writing is all in Brahmi script of the Northern Gupta style, but shows many varieties, the letters being sometimes very large, thick, and squat, and sometimes small, fine, and neat ; sometimes very angular and sometimes rounded ; sometimes stiff and upright and sometimes cursive and slanting. A few appear to be in some other script, as Kuduk-Köl. 043.

The fragments are of all sizes, from tiny bits to a large sheet measuring 231" x 7e" (Far. 07). They show all stages of decay, some being well preserved, and some so far torn, frayed, or crumpled that little or nothing can be made out of them.

Letters that are not quite clear but can be read with some probability are italicized ; those that are more or less obliterated are enclosed in round brackets ( ) ; and portions that are destroyed, torn off, or lost are enclosed in square brackets [ ].

In most fragments there is nothing clear to indicate which side is the obverse and which the reverse. If this can be discovered from the contents, it is so stated and treated ; but if it is not discoverable, the side on which site mark ' has been written is for convenience treated as the obverse, and the unmarked side as the reverse.

The dimensions of the fragments are stated, the first figure denoting the length in the direction of the writing, and the second the width at right angles thereto, the maxima measures being taken always.

The language is generally the inaccurate form of Sanskrit, affected by Prakrit, which is sometimes called mixed Sanskrit ', but which might preferably be styled ` low Sanskrit ', after the analogy of ` low Latin '. A few fragments are in Khotanese, as styled in Hoernle's MS. Remains of Buddhist Literature found in E. Turkestan, pp. x, xi, 214, &c. Dom. 0124 appears to be more Pali than Sanskrit.

Where a letter (aksara) is destroyed or illegible, it is marked . . If it consists of compound letters, it is marked ... If the consonant is legible but not the vowel, it is marked e. g. thus, k. . If the vowel is legible but not the consonant, it is marked e.g. thus, .a.

Some remarks may be made about the script. Final consonants, which in ordinary Sanskrit are marked by virama, are written slightly lower than the line of writing (and often without their top wedge) and are super-