Sanskrit Manuscripts at Cambridge University

The University of Cambridge embarked on an exercise of 'linguistic archaeology' late last year, launching a project to survey their extensive collection of India and Nepalese Sanskrit manuscripts. Most of these are Buddhist. Some 2000 birch-bark, and palm-leaf manuscripts were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and not all have been properly catalogued. The manuscripts themselves date from as far back to the 9th century - making them amongst the oldest surviving India manuscripts. Because there has previously been no systematic survey of all the texts it is possible that some treasures may lie waiting to be discovered.

The project includes plans to digitise some of the texts and make them available via Cambridge University's Digital Library, which recently added images of Isaac Newton's papers. I think everyone is hoping for a renaissance of Sanskrit studies at Cambridge, and perhaps also for Buddhist studies (CU presently offers no separate courses in Buddhism).

Last Friday I attended an informal talk by visiting scholar Harunaga Isaacson and saw pictures of some of the manuscripts. I felt privileged to be amongst such illustrious scholars (people who are fluent in Sanskrit and the many variations of the scripts). I will try to add updates about the project as it goes.

Image and text borrowed from the University of Cambridge Website. Their account of the project is here: Powerful Words.

Aother Siddhaṃ Manuscript of the Heart Sūtra

Vinod alerted me to another Siddhaṃ manuscript of the Heart Sūtra on Wikimedia (a sister site to Wikipedia for uploading out of copyright images). He thinks it may be Sogdian. We don't know much about it as the source simply uploaded it and cannot say much about it's provenance.

The hand is quite rough and inconsistent - not very beautiful. There is a great deal of variability between letters. I'm not sure whether to criticise the wavey lines as they may have been induced by the medium - birchbark does this I think. Reading through the text there are a number of corruptions and omissions. But we should not be surprised by this as it is common. And given that the scribe was a sloppy writer it is not a stretch to think they were a sloppy copyist as well. There is what looks like an explanation of the mantra (perhaps pronunciation instructions?) in another script which I cannot identify at the end.

One of the features of the writing is that the pen is held close to vertical. This gives the syllables a 'blocky' feel with heavy horizontal lines. Another distinctive feature is that words are separated by a dot - this is not quite like the Tibetan tsheg which separates syllables, but not an Indian practice either.

The akṣara heads are simply a horizontal line which is typical of manuscript Siddhaṃ - the elaborate wavy lines on Japanese Siddhaṃ appear to be an Asian innovation.

A long ā diacritic moves diagonally up and and away from the head, rather than either vertically or curving downwards. (see image right)

If you are used to contemporary Asian Siddhaṃ then some of the letter forms might appear unusual. I've cut out some of the interesting akṣara and labelled them. The ca is similar to Tibetan forms (which are more closely related to their progenitors than either Siddhaṃ or Devanāgarī). The ṇa is like nothing I've seen before and I only know it from the context. Ta (here with the ā diacritic) is more like a modern bha, whereas the bha is closer to the Lantsa bha (again I think this is an earlier form preserved). Note that sa and śa are very similar. In fact sa looks like a Devanāgarī bha and śa like a Devanāgarī sa.

I think this text demonstrates how difficult it can be to move from the clean lines and tidy arrangement of contemporary Siddhaṃ calligraphy to the manuscript tradition. I can more or less read this text as long as I have a Sanskrit Heart Sūtra handy to fill in the gaps. But I have seen a lot worse than this!

If anyone has more information about this manuscript - such as where and when it is from then I would love to hear from you.

Note 29.11.12. I have reason to believe that this ms. is the one referred to by Edward Conze in the notes to his critical edition of the Heart Sutra: Conze (1948: 49), and Conze (1967: 154) Ms. Nm/Cg.

Bibliothèque Nationale [de France] 62 no.139. Pelliot Sogdien. 

The text is the same as that published in Benveniste, Émile. Textes sogdiens. 1940; the image file name includes the text "Pel.sogd". I can't find the image or the record for it on the BNF site, so I've written to them for confirmation, but I'm fairly certain.

The ms. dates from ca. 1800, and is written in the Sogdiana form of Siddhaṃ. It was found in Dunhuang by French Sinologist Paul Pelliot in 1910.</

Manuscript of Early Vajrasattva Mantra

stts-ms contract enhanced
Originally uploaded by jayarava

This is a page from the Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṅgraha (STTS), a 7th century Buddhist text concerning Tantric rituals. The STTS is classed as a Yoga Tantra by Tibetan Buddhists. Here we have the verso of the 15th palm leaf in the mantra containing what became the Hundred Syllable Vajrasattva Mantra. This is the oldest occurrence of the Vajrasattva Mantra (as far as the Chinese Canon is concerned).

This image is modified from the facsimile edition of a 10th century Nepalese palm-leaf manuscript using the Siddhaṃ script, published by Candra and Snellgrove. You will note that the Siddhaṃ script is significantly different from contemporary Siddhaṃ calligraphy (and much more difficult to read!)

If you want to have a go at reading it - note that you read from left to right right across the leaf (i.e. ignore the columns). The transliteration shows subtle differences from the well known 100 syllable mantra.

oṁ vajra sattvasamayamanupālaya vajrasattvatvenopatiṣṭha dṛḍho me bhava sutoṣyo me bhavānurakto me bhava supoṣyo me bhava sarvasiddhiñca me prayaccha sarvakarmasu ca me cittaśreyaḥ kuru hūṁ ha ha ha ha hoḥ bhagavan sarvatathāgatavajra mā me muṁca vajrībhava mahāsamayasatva āḥ||

To see where the mantra is look at the version with the mantra highlihghted
See the text inverted as well - this sometimes improves readability