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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

92o   TEXTILE REMAINS AND MSS. FROM CHIEN-FO-TUNG [Chap. XXIV

of the method used for their ` sizing ' were to bear out this impression, a safe criterion would be gained for distinguishing manuscripts produced in Tibet from those of local origin.

There can be little doubt that, just as the Pôthi form prevalent in Tibetan manuscripts is directly derived from India, so the use of rolls may be due to the imitation of .Chinese models. The same appears probable also in the case of those Tibetan manuscripts, not infrequent at Ch`ienfo-tung, which take the form of long narrow booklets made up by the folding of sheets after the fashion of block-printed Chinese books or the bellows of a concertina.' The method seems obviously one which may have originated in China through the adaptation to paper of the arrangement likely to have been used in fastening up into book-form the narrow bamboo or wooden slips of the ancient Chinese stationery.'

In a geographical sense nothing, perhaps, illustrates better the variety of cross-currents of Buddhist propaganda once meeting at Tun-huang than the fact that, among the manuscripts from the Thousand Buddhas' cave, there have also come to light texts in the language of ancient Sogdiana and written in the script which is derived from the Aramaic through the intermediary of the cursive form of this writing preserved in our early Sogdian documents. In my collection the Sogdian contribution to the old monastic library of Chien-fo-tung is represented by about a dozen manuscripts, mostly rolls or fragments of such, but including also some Peithi leaves to be presently mentioned.? Ever since the distinctive character of these remains of Sogdian text was recognized in 1910 with the help of Sir D. Ross, I was anxious to secure their examination by Professor F. W. K. Müller, who first discovered remains of Sogdian language in manuscript fragments of Buddhist, Manichaean, and Christian character brought back from Turfân by Professor Grünwedel's expedition. From the photographs transmitted to him of a number of our Sogdian rolls, Professor F. W. K. Müller was able to identify two texts, one in the large roll Ch. ci. 001 as containing a Buddhist metaphysical treatise, and the other, Ch. oo5o, as a portion of the fifth and sixth chapters of the Padmacintdmanidheirani-sutra, of which a version made in A. D. 695-700 is to be found in the Chinese Tripitaka. These first results of his searching examination were kindly communicated by him towards the close of 1910.

Fulfilment of the hope subsequently raised of securing from this leading expert a preliminary account, and eventually also the complete publication of the above texts, was prevented by circumstances evidently due to pressure of other tasks. Therefore arrangements were made in 1913 with M. • Gauthiot, who had meanwhile, by his highly successful labours on the materials contained in M. Pelliot's collection, established his position as an authority of the first rank on Sogdian and other Eastern Îranian researches. In 1912 he had already been able to utilize the five Pbthi leaves of a Sogdian version of the Vessantara Jâtaka found in our collection for the masterly edition and translation of this text prepared mainly from the more extensive portion of the identical Pôthi which M. Pelliot's search had brought to light.' In the same year he also published, in collaboration with Professor de la Vallée Poussin, the manuscript of the Nïlaka.zthadhâraiii, Ch. 0092, in Sanskrit with interlinear transcription in Sogdian." But the hopes of seeing our other texts, too, all mostly Buddhist it seems, elucidated by this highly gifted and devoted collaborator

6 My attention was first called to these Tibetan booklets by a note of Prof. de la Vall& Poussin, who has used for them the graphic term of ' concertina'. Similar booklets are met with also among our Chinese manuscripts from Chien-fo-tung ; see e.g. Ch. Nos. 686, 7364.

6 Cf. above, pp. 764 sqq.

, For brief descriptions of the outer features of these Sogdian manuscripts, see List below, p. 924.

s For specimens of these large leaves written on excellent yellowish paper of the Tang period, see Ch. 0093. a, b, Pl. CLVIII.

' Cf. Gauthiot, Une version sogdienne du Vessanlara Jâlaka, journal Asial., janvier—février, mai—juin, 7972, pp. 763-93, 429-570.

10 Cf. J.R.A.S., 1972, pp. 629 sqq. ; also above, p. 974.

Tibetan Pôthis, rolls, concertina-shaped' booklets.

Sogdian manuscripts.

Sogdian manuscripts examined by M. Gauthiot.