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0313 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 313 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CHAPTER LXIX

A POLYGLOT TEMPLE LIBRARY

The interchange of influences from varied regions and
races is also illustrated in characteristic fashion by the
manuscript remains from the hidden temple library. A
rapid review of them will suffice to bring out the large
part played by Buddhist propaganda in linking civiliza-
tions right across Asia, and how much of its current must
have passed through Tun-huang during successive periods.

Regard for the original home of Buddhist doctrine—
and personal attachment to my old Indian field of work
—induces me to mention in the first place the relics of
Sanskrit manuscripts. They all belong to Buddhist religious
literature. Though their number and extent are relatively
modest, Professor L. de la Vallée Poussin, who has kindly
undertaken the examination of them, has discovered
texts of considerable interest for the critical history of the
Sanskrit Canon of Northern Buddhism, which in India
itself has been almost completely lost through the vicissi-
tudes of the Buddhist church in the country of its origin.
The large and well-preserved manuscript on palm leaves
(Fig. 192, 1) which I had occasion to mention previously
contains portions of a famous canonical work, and has on
account of its great age and undoubtedly Indian produc-
tion proved of particular value. Other manuscripts written
on paper evidently represent text recensions which were
current in Central Asia.

Far more numerous and of exceptional linguistic as
well as palaeographical interest are the rolls and Pothis on
paper written in several Central-Asian varieties of Indian
Brahmi script but in non-Indian language (Fig. 192, 5, 7).

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