Foreword

I. F. Popova

THE present publication of the Lotus Sutra in Sanskrit is without
exaggeration an outcome of over a hundred years of dedicated workand efforts of generations of collectors, researchers, curators, andrestorers. The manuscript of the Lotus Sutra introduced to readers of thispublication has been stored at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts ofthe Russian Academy of Sciences (IOM RAS). The manuscript is recognized as one of the “diamonds” of the world’s largest and most valuable
Russian collection of Eastern books and manuscripts. The collection ofthe manuscripts stored at IOM RAS includes over 115,000 items in 65
living and extinct Oriental languages.
IOM RAS was founded as the Asiatic Museum. On November 23(11), 1818, the president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St.
Petersburg at the time, Sergei Semenovich Uvarov (1786–1855), approached the Board of the Academy with a letter in which he emphasized the “necessity of opening a specialized section for Eastern medals,
manuscripts, and books” within the Kunstkamera of the Academy.1		Therequest matched the overall goals of scientific research at the time,
which was primarily focused on the research of antiquities and monuments of the past.
Christian Martin Frähn (1782–1851), an outstanding numismatist andhistorian in the field of Oriental studies, became the first director of theAsiatic Museum. According to I. Y. Krachkovskij (1883–1951) and V. V.
Barthold (1869–1930), both Russian Oriental scholars and historians,
due to Frähn’s tremendous efforts, the Asiatic Museum reached a levelof development that other European centers of Oriental studies needed
at least 200 years to achieve in the relatively short period of just twodecades. One of the justifications for establishing the Asiatic Museum
was the purchase of over 700 unique Muslim manuscripts of Arabicgraphics made in 1819 and 1825 from Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Jacques
Rousseau (1780–1831), the French consul in Aleppo and relative of thegreat philosopher. The research work on the new collection immediately
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that point on, all of the Asiatic Museum’s significant purchases had adirect influence on the growth of specialized fields of Oriental studies inRussia. The purchases from the collection of P. L. Schilling vonCanstadt (1786–1837) made in 1836 and 1838 by the Asiatic Museum
contributed to the expansion of Tibetan, Mongolian and Buddhist
studies. The collecting activities of M. I. Brosse (1802–1880) in themiddle of the 19th century caused significant breakthroughs in certain
research fields such as Georgian and Armenian studies, which then led
to the establishment of one of the most recognized centers of Caucasus
studies and the Georgian fund.
The Asiatic Museum was considered by the Russian government andthe Academy of Sciences to be a major center responsible for coordinating all the sources needed for research and study of Oriental culturesand customs. Already in the middle of the 19th century, the Museum
was the only governmental institution for the storage and research of
Oriental manuscripts that guaranteed their safety and coordinated theirusage for practical and scientific purposes. The manuscripts wereaccesible not only to researchers and practitioners of Oriental studies inSt. Petersburg, but also, according to the regulations at the time, could
be delivered for research purposes to the Russian provinces and evenabroad. The Asiatic Museum from its very first day of existence served
not only a research and storage function, but also as an educational
institution by making its collections available to the public. Accesswithout any special arrangement was provided to anyone interested in
the rare exhibits of the Museum, and Oriental scholars could use themanuscripts for research purposes.
One of the remarkable stages in the enlargement of the Museum
collection was definitely related to the expeditions to Central Asia at theturn of the century around 1900. The materials collected during those
expeditions contributed to the emergence of unique research fields suchas Dunhuangology, Uyghurology, Tangutology, and Turkic runicepigraphy. The Russian Geographical Society, founded in 1845, became
the organizer of the first multidimentional expeditions to the Ussuri
region, Mongolia, and China. The explorers N. M. Przhevalsky (1839–1888), M. V. Pevtsov (1843–1902), G. N. Potanin (1835–1920), and V. I.
Roborovsky (1856–1910), who took part in the expeditions focused on
the discoveries of antiques, initiated arhaeological excavations, andpurchased ancient manuscripts and other items of everyday life fromlocals.
Russian diplomats contributed greatly to the foundation of Oriental
manuscript funds in their country. In 1844, the Russian government

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imposed a purchasing duty on the consuls in Asia for manuscripts
written in Oriental languages. The government’s order was strictly
maintained until 1914, the beginning of the First World War. In 1863, anextensive collection was presented to the Asiatic Museum by the Asian
Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A significant number ofhandwritten items and books in various languages was donated to theMuseum at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries by
Russian diplomats who served in the Far East and Central Asia.		
Nikolay Fedorovich Petrovsky (1837–1908), diplomat and Orientalist, played a formidable role in the reaserch of the antiquities ofCentral and Middle Asia. At the beginning of his career he had joined
the army, and between years 1859 to 1861, after graduating from theCadets Corps in Moscow, he served as an instructor in a similar institution known as the Alexander Cadets Corps for orphans. In 1870, N. F.
Petrovsky was assigned as a representative of the Ministry of Finance in
the General Governorship of Turkistan and was transferred to Tashkent
in order to collect information regarding the general situation of tradeand industry.
Already in Tashkent, N. F. Petrovsky began to research the history ofthe region and was actively engaged in local academic life. He participated in the opening of both the Turkestan Branch of the NaturalScience, Anthropology, and Ethnography Lovers Society, a Central
Asian scientific association, and the Turkistan Club of Archaeology
Lovers. In 1872, he set off for Bukhara, India, and Afganistan. Between
October and December 1878, he visited Tiflis, Batum, Poti, and Kars inorder to gather information on the Russian trade situation in theTranscaucasian region, Persia, and the territories reconquered fromTurkey.2 Petrovsky was promoted to the position of the consul in
Kashgar on June 1, 1882. In August 1903, he accomplished his service
and settled in Tashkent where he died on November 19, 1908.		
N. F. Petrovsky not only supported the extension of Russian involvement in Eastern Turkestan but also advanced the field of scientificarchaeological research. According to his biographers, Petrovsky “wasconsidered a first-class expert on Eastern Turkestan. The extensive
knowledge he gained from his outstanding library of French, German,
English, and Turkish languages helped him to broaden access to thestudies through various languages published about the region in generaland the Central Asian region in particular.”3
The long-term cooperation between Petrovsky and the Oriental
Branch of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society (EBRAS)
started with his attendance at a meeting organized by the society on

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March 15, 1890, where he demonstrated a few coins he had broughtfrom Central Asia.4 On November 28, 1891, in response to a suggestion
made by Sergey Fedorovich Oldenburg (1863–1934), EBRAS approached Petrovsky with a request to provide information on theexistence of archaeological sites in Kucha and other areas of Kashgaria.
Petrovsky sent a detailed reply together with a manuscript he hadpurchased two years earlier. The manuscript was the famous “KashgarManuscript” featured in the current publication. It was introduced to thescientific society by S. F. Oldenburg in 1892.5
Also known as the Kashgar Manuscript, it was the first manuscriptthat started the Serindian (Central Asian) fund of the Asiatic Museumthat at present maintains over 7,000 items in Uyghur, Tocharian, Saka,Sogdian, and other unique languages, and remains one of the mostvaluable collections worldwide. Between the years 1892 and 1893,Petrovsky forwarded to S. F. Oldenburg over 100 folios and fragmentsof manuscripts that he purchased from the inhabitants of Kucha, Korla,and Aksu. In 1905 he donated the entire Eastern Turkestan collection ofthe manuscripts to the Russian Committee for Middle and East Asia
Exploration that was founded in 1903. Later, the other Russian consuls
in Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang), N. N. Krotkov, A. A. Dyakov, and S. A.
Kolokolov, followed Petrovsky and started to send the manuscripts theypurchased to the Committee on a regular basis. The research activities
conducted by Russian scholars in Central Asia matched the generaltendencies of the mainstream school of Oriental studies worldwide as
the region appeared to be at the top of research agendas at the time andreceived most of the attention toward the end of the 19th and beginningof the 20th centuries. As a result, a few extinct and forgotten languages(Khotanese-Saka and Tocharian A and B) were discovered, and certain
new research trends were developed in the field of Oriental studies dueto the findings of not only Russian, but also German, British, andJapanese diplomats, explorers, and researchers.
The objectives of the Museum that received a large portion of themanuscripts imported to Russia included taking inventory, cataloguing,researching them, and utilizing them for other scientific purposes. Partof the exclusive texts from Central Asia were published already at thebeginning of the first decade of the 20th century due to the combined
efforts of V. V. Radloff (1837–1918), K. G. Salemann (1849–1916), S. F.
Oldenburg, F. A. Rosenberg (1867–1934), A. I. Ivanov (1878–1937), S.
E. Malov (1880–1957), and N. A. Nevsky (1892–1937), among others.		
The Museum was reorganized in 1930 and started functioning as theInstitute of Oriental Studies (IOS) of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

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foreword

From that point, along with research of the written heritage of the East,
the staff members of the new Institute were expected to conduct theresearch on current issues of Asian history, and to compile new
dictionaries and grammar guides of Oriental languages in general, andthe languages of the Soviet Asian republics as a priority. In 1950, theCouncil of Ministers of the Soviet Union and the Presidium of theAcademy of Sciences decided to transfer the Institute to Moscow. TheDepartment of Oriental Manuscripts remained in Leningrad. In 1956, it
was reorganized into the Leningrad Branch of IOS, and in 1991, into theSt. Petersburg Branch of the IOS of RAS. In 2007, the St. Petersburg
Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies was reorganized again into
the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of RAS.
In the 1950s, Vladimir Svyatoslavovich Vorobyov-Desyatovsky(1927–1956) continued the inventory and the research work on theSerindian fund by compiling a preliminary catalog of the palaeographical description of all the fragments. He initiated the process ofdescribing (based on the collection in St. Petersburg) the various issues
in Central Asian philology comprehensively. Unfortunately, he managed
to complete only a few of his projects before his untimely death.6
Thereafter, M. I. Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya continued the work on
fragments in Indian languges from the collection of the IOS RAS. In thefirst place, in the years 1990 and 2004, due to her tenacious efforts andcontributions of G. M. Bongard-Levin (1931–2009) and E. N. Tyomkin,the pages of the Petrovky’s Kashgar Manuscript from the St. Petersburg’s collection came out in the 2nd and 3rd volumes of the publication“The Monuments of Indian Scripts from Central Asia” («Памятникииндийской письменности из Центральной Азии») as a facsimile,transliterated with scientific explanations.7
The current publication, put together by leading experts in the field ofCentral Asian textology for the first time, offers the reader a color
facsimile of the Lotus Sutra text in Sanskrit found in Xinjiang at the endof the 19th century. The manuscript from the collection of our Instituteof Oriental Manuscripts of RAS was supplemented by fragments fromother world collections. With these portions added, this current publication can truly be called the most complete and invaluable researchsource on the history of Buddhism in the vast regions of Central Asiaand the Far East.

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NOTES
St. Petersburg Branch Archive RAS. F. 4. Inv. 2 (1818), unit 52. F. 12–13.
Bukhert, V. G. ....And his Russian Portrait // N. F. Petrovsky. Letters fromTurkestan. Ed. by V. S. Myasnikov. M: The Monuments of Historical Thought, 2010, p.
23.
3
Nikolay Fedorovich Petrovsky // Historiography of Social Science in Uzbekistan.
Biobibliographical Essays. Ed. by B. V. Lunin. Tashkent: Fan Publishers, Uzbek SSR,1974, p. 278.
4The Notes of the Oriental Branch of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society.
StP, 1891. Vol. V. Pt. I. P. II-III; Bukhert, V. G. ....And his Russian Portrait. P. 31.
5
Oldenburg, S. F.		 N. F. Petrovsky’s Kashgar Manuscript // Proceedings of theOriental Branch of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society. V. VII (1892). 1893. P.
81–82.		
6The Monuments of Indian Scripts from Central Asia. Vol. 1. Pub. of the texts, study,and com. by G. M. Bongard-Levin and M. I. Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya. M: OrientalLiterature, 1985. P. 11. (The Monuments of Oriental Scripts, LXXIII,1; Bibliotheca
Buddhica, XXXIII).				
7
The Monuments of Indian Scripts from Central Asia. Vol. 2. Pub. of the texts, study,trans., and com. by G. M. Bongard-Levin and M. I. Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya. M:
Oriental Literature, 1990. (The Monuments of Oriental Scripts, LXXIII, 1; Bibliotheca
Buddhica, XXXIV); The Monuments of Indian Scripts from Central Asia. Vol. 3. Pub. ofthe texts, study, trans., and com. by G. M. Bongard-Levin and M. I. VorobyovaDesyatovskaya. M: Oriental Literature, 2004. (The Monuments of Oriental Scripts,LXXIII, 3; Bibliotheca Buddhica, XL).
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