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This is a special internet edition of the article“Sanskrit as a Medium of Maldivian Buddhism”
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Festschrift für Klaus Mylius. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2005 (Beiträge zur
Indologie, 40), 213-220 / 487-488.

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Jost Gippert, Frankfurt 2011

Sanskrit as a Medium of Maldivian Buddhism
Jost Gippert
Among the areas that pertain to the Indian Subcontinent, the Maldives are peculiar
in many respects. In the course of their history, the islands have seen long periodsof stability as well as radical changes, which were usually induced from abroad.
The most radical change consisted, as far as we can tell from historical sources, inthe conversion of the inhabitants from Buddhism to Islam, which took place by the
middle of the 12th century. The cultural reorientation it brought about was strong
enough to withstand the impact of both European (esp. Portuguese) colonisationand modern tourism until the present day.
While the circumstances of the Islamicisation can be established with confidence on the basis of contemporary documents (esp. copper plate grants, so-calledlōmāfanus, from the end of the 12th century) and historical records written either
in the autochthonous Indo-Aryan language, Dhivehi 1 (esp. the so-called Kings’
chronicle, the rādavaḷi) or in Arabic (esp. the so-called tārīḫ) 2 , little has been
known so far about the Buddhist times preceding it. The reason for this may well
be found in the fact that during the conversion process, most remnants of theformer Buddhist culture were deliberately destroyed3, leaving but a few ruins ofmonasteries here and there under the coral sand4. The only written material fromthe Pre-Islamic period that had been unearthed until the end of the 20th century
consists of inscriptions on two statues which were found in the islands’ capital,
Male, in the 1960ies and which have been stored in the National Museum
eversince (cf. fig. 1)5 . But even though the inscriptions they bear resemble thescript of the early lōmāfanus, a typical Southern-Brāhmī cursive clearly related to
the Old-Sinhalese script, no attempt of decipherment has been successful so far6,
1
2
3
4
5

6

For a general historical account of the Dhivehi language now cf. Fritz (2002).
For a survey of the documents involved now cf. Gippert (2000).
Cp. the documents quoted in Gippert (2000).
Cf. Bell (1940) for a first account of the archaeology of the Maldives.
A third inscribed artefact of this type (obviously the head of a God’s statue, as well preserved in
the Male museum) has been damaged too much to admit of a reading, only a few akṣaras being
visible.
The late Mr. Hasan Maniku, a Maldivian scholar who paved the way for thorough investigations
into lōmāfanus and other historical records, stated (in 1999) with resignation that these
inscriptions “consist of unintelligible syllables only”.

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Jost Gippert

and it is only from the weapon-like symbols that are engraved in the artefacts thatthey have been regarded as pertaining to a Vajrayāna-type Buddhist environment7.
This situation has now changed dramatically after an inscribed coral stone(shaped like a brick) was found in the remnants of a Buddhist monastery on the island of Landhoo in one of the northern atolls of the Maldives. By the script and thelanguage it is written in, the inscription must be much older than those of the statues, presumably dating of the 6th-8th centuries, and by its contents it can clearlybe shown that the Buddhism prevailing on the Maldives at that time was of thenorthern type, the text representing a dhāraṇī-like series of mantras for protection
against demons such as pretas, piśācas, or kumbhāṇḍas8. In this way, it not only
confirmed the assumption of Vajrayāna Buddhism being present on the islands in
Pre-Islamic times but also paved the way for a reading and understanding of thelater inscriptions, even though there is a fundamental difference between them:
While the Landhoo inscription is basically written in an (Insular) Prakrit, with
Sanskritisms appearing here and there, the texts on the statues are Sanskrit texts
throughout, albeit written in a very cumbersome way (which has prevented former
investigators from recognising this fact). In the following pages, I can give but apreliminary account of the statue inscriptions; my main concern will be to illustrate
the problems that must be solved before a complete edition can be attempted9.
It has hitherto remained unnoticed that the text of the two inscriptions is basically the same, even though the graphical differences remain notable. The main
problem consists in the fact that the texts are engraved across the bodies of the statues in such a way that their beginnings, directions and ends are not easily determinable. In fig. 2, I have indicated the discernible text passages by colours and theirrespective starting points by numbers and arrows. It will be clear from these pictures that in the second inscription, equivalents of the initial part of the first one(1) and the phrase which is regarded as its closing passage here (7) are missing;whether this was intentional or due to damages, must remain open until further investigations into the surface of this statue have been undertaken.
In both inscriptions, we obviously deal with the invocation of a Vajrayānic
deity. The text is very similar in its wording to some of the mantra (or vidyā) formulas collected in the so-called Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha (STTS), a tantric
Mahayāna text (also known as Vajraśekharasūtra) that has been preserved in a
Sanskrit manuscript from Nepal as well as in Chinese and Tibetan versions10. Of
the “magical formulas” it contains, which were discussed at large by D.L.
7
8
9
10

Cf. Naseema (1999, 5 and 19) and Tholal (2002, 13 f.) for details.
Cf. Gippert (forthcoming 2003) for a detailed study of this inscription.
The publication of a first edition is envisaged for 2005.
Cf. Yamada (1981, 5-6); a facsimile edition of the Nepal manuscript is provided by Lokesh
Chandra / Snellgrove (1981).

Sanskrit as a Medium of Maldivian Buddhism

215

Snellgrove in his account of “Indo-Tibetan Buddhism” (1987, p. 141ff.), the one
pertaining to (and uttered by) “the Bodhisattva Vajraviśva” alone contains at leastten elements that are also present in our inscriptions. The formula runs as follows(with punctuation marks added according to the meaning):
oṃ vajra-karmottama, vajra-dhara-samayam anusmara!
śumbha-niśumbha, ākarṣaya, pravésaya, āveśaya, bandhaya!
samayaṃ grahaya! sarva-karmāṇi me kuru, mahā-sattva!
huṃ! phaṭ!
Cp. Snellgrove’s translation (1987, p. 142):‘O vajra-action, most excellent, bear in mind the pledge of Vajradhara.
Śumbha niśumbha11 – coerce, induce, prevail, bind,hold to the pledge, affect all actions for me, O Vajrasattva.’
What we find in our inscriptions is, first of all, the bīja syllables oṃ, huṃ, andphaṭ, which are in quite likewise manner exposed to the beginnings and ends,
resp., of given text passages; we thus read oṃ (written omu or om̐ ) at the beginningof the sections marked (2) and (7) in the figures, huṃ (written in this way) in the
middle of (1) and at the end of (7), and huṃ huṃ huṃ phaṭ phaṭ (written hum̐ hum̐
hum̐ paṭ\ paṭ\ in both inscriptions) at the end of (4). In the latter passage, hum̐ ispreceded by a sequence of akṣaras that must be read as sa-ma-ya-ma-nu-ṣma-ra,
thus clearly representing the clause samayam anuṣmara ‘bear in mind the pledge’of the STTS formula. The imperatives ākarṣaya ‘coerce, draw near’ andpraveśaya ‘induce, let enter’ are met with in passage (2), written a-ka-rṣa-ya andpra/ā-ve-sa-ya on the two statues (orange and pink color sections). Instead ofsarva-karmāni me kuru, we find ... ka-ra ka-ra ku-ru ku-ru ma-ma ka-rm(m)ā-n(i)‘causer / doer, do / perform my actions’ in (3), and sarva- ‘all’ is met with as acompound member in, among others, sa-rvva-pa-ra-ma-ntra in (2), which must beread as sarva-para-mantrān ‘all mantras (uttered) by others’ here12, given that it isclearly the object of the double imperative bhi-nda bhi-nda ‘smash, destroy’ following, just as para-mantrān appears as an object of bhañja, marda, and khāda‘break, crush, and devour’ in another formula of the STTS (p. 178, l. 14). As inseveral further mantras of this sūtra (e.g., p. 293, l. 8 and 3), the imperative
bhinda is put in a rhyming contrast with its quasi-synonym chinda ‘cut, split’, written ṣinda or sinda in our inscriptions (section 2).
1112

According to Snellgrove (1987, p. 141 n. 50), “Niśumbha and śumbha ... are the names of two
titans famous in Hindu tradition for their prolonged austerities and magical powers.”
This compound must be distinguished from para-mantra appearing in other Buddhist texts whichis regarded as a varia lectio of para-mātrā ̆ denoting ‘a high number’; this alone is documented in
the dictionaries (Monier-Williams, SED, p. 587a; Edgerton, BHSD, p. 319ab).

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As we can see from the examples quoted so far, the graphical representation of
the Sanskrit words is unusual, to say the least. To explain this, we have to assume
that the Dhivehi language as spoken at the time when the inscriptions were written(probably the 10-12th century A.D.) must have interferred with the “correct” pronunciation of Sanskrit in many ways, thus yielding “irregular” spellings. This may
well be be responsible for the addition of an -u vowel to word-final consonants (asin omu standing for oṃ), which has remained a feature typical of Dhivehi until thepresent day; cp., e.g., the modern word xādimu ‘servant’ representing Arabicḫādim ‘id.’13. Another feature that can be explained by assuming an interference of
spoken Dhivehi is the confusion observable in the spelling of sibilants (cp. thedoublet of sinda and ṣinda quoted above). This reflects the fact that at an earlystage of the prehistory of Dhivehi, all three sibilants of Old Indic as well as thetwo palatals c and ch fell together into one /s/, which later even tended to develop
into [h] (or Ø) depending on its position in a given word (as in Sinhalese)14. At thesame time, the distinction of aspirated and non-aspirated sounds was lost so thatpaṭ became an equivalent spelling of the “regular” phaṭ15. Likewise, the confusionof short and long vowels manifesting itself in the spellings of a-karṣaya (instead of
ā-°) and prā-vesaya (instead of pra-veśaya) must reflect the early merger of shortand long vowels which was another characteristic trait of the Prakrits underlying
Dhivehi and Sinhalese16.
The latter observations conceal the clue to several other problematical elementsof the two inscriptions. First, we must state that of the many compounds containing
the term vajra that occur in the STTS (and similar texts)17, none is met with on
the statues. What we do find, is a sequence a-ra-kṣī-tta-va-jra which might be readas a vocative a-rakṣita-vajra, ‘unguarded Vajra!’, in the introductory formula (1)of statue 1 (namas samanta a°, ‘(your) praise (be) forever, u.V.’); and a sequence
written va-jra-ki-nṣi-ra-ya (and °-nsi-°, resp.) at the beginning of section (6) inboth inscriptions. At first glance, one might suggest that this sequence consists ofthree words, vajra kiṃ-ci raya, with kiṃ-ci equivalent to kaś-ci appearing, insteadof “regular” kaś-cid ‘whoever’, in one of the Gilgit Buddhist texts, viz. the Sarvatathāgatādhiṣṭhānavyūha (p. 75, l. 12: yaḥ kaści rājā vā rājñī vā ...; similar ib.
76, 14: yaḥ kaści māṃ svarūpeṅābhikāṃkṣī bʰave tena ...). This, however, would

13
14
15

16
17

Cp. Fritz (2002, p. 133).
Cf. Fritz/Gippert (1999, p. 40f.) and Fritz (2002, p. 32).
This rule may also be seen at work in the bīja syllables ka-kka ka-ka ka-i ka-i if these reflect a sequence such as kha kha kha kha khai khai appearing in the Chinese transcripts of several dhāraṇī
texts contained in the Taishō canon (e.g., T. 963: 338a 3; T. 964: 338b 25; T. 997: 568c 11; citations from the Taishō are here and elsewhere quoted from CBETA 2000).
For the sound changes concerned, cf. also Fritz/Gippert (1999, p. 32) and Fritz (2002, p. 28f.).
Cf., e.g., the list given in Snellgrove (1987, p. 210).

Sanskrit as a Medium of Maldivian Buddhism

217

leave no explanation for raya (which cannot represent rājā ‘king’ in any case18).
The same holds true for the assumption that (vajra-)kiṃci might be the (compound) name of a deity. This assumption is suggested by N. Dutt’s summary of thecontents of another Gilgit text, viz. the Bhaiṣajyaguru Sūtra (BGS; Dutt 1984,
p. 57) where one Kiṃca is mentioned as a chief of the rākṣasas alongside “Vajra,
Sanila, Indraloka, Pāyila, Vidala, etc.”. The text passage in question does not contain a kiṃca, however, but a ‘general of demons’ (mahāyakṣasenāpati) namedkiṃbhīra; cf. the text edition, p. 26, l. 13 (similarly in the edition of BGS in Vaidya
1961, p. 172, l. 24). This latter reading is also confirmed by the Chinese version of
the BGS pertaining to the Taishō canon (T. 449) which has Gung-pi-lo da-jiang, i.e. ‘General Kiṃbhīra’, in the given passage (p. 404, l. 11)19. Insteadof an unattested name †kiṃca, it is then probable that we have a similar expression
here as the one we find in STTS 16620 which reads:
kapālamālālaṃkṛtasarvakāye kiṃ cirāyasi *vajrakhaṭvāṅgadʰāriṇi 21 pretamānuṣaśarīre śīghram āveśaya praveśaya bandha[ya vaśī-kuru māraya
vajra-rākṣasī hūṃ hūṃ hūṃ hūṃ phaṭ ||]It is clear that kiṃ cirāyasi must be a verbal phrase meaning ‘what are you latefor?’ here:‘Oh (deity provided with a) body all adorned with a garland of bowls, why are
you late? Oh *holder of a club with a skull at the top, having the body of both

18

19
20
21

In Dhivehi, O.I. rājā is represented both by the inherited word ras and by the loan rāda. The regular outcome of O.I. -j- is s. Cf. Fritz (2002, p. 50).
The Tibetan text referred to by Dutt (1984, p. 26, n. 13) has jiṃ’jigasa instead of kiṃbhīra.
Fol. 42b l. 1 in the facsimile edition, p. 307 in Yamada’s edition (1981).
Yamada’s edition (1981, p. 307, l. 1) has KAPĀLA MĀLĀ LAṄKR̥ TA SARVA-KAYE KIṀCI
RĀYASI VAJRA-KAHTVĀṄGA-DHĀRIṆI. This reading can hardly be maintained with respect to the word boundaries it contains, letting alone the curious ligature -htv- which it implies in
KAHTVĀNGA. For the latter word, the facsimile edition of the Sanskrit manuscript (fol. 166b,l. 1: Lokesh Chandra / Snellgrove 1981, p. 42) rather suggests an abbreviated *vajrakhaṭvāṅga,with -dhāriṇī ‘bearer’ missing (there being but five akṣaras visible after vajra- and before thefollowing preta-); the restitution yielding the meaning ‘(bearer) of a club shaped like the foot of a
bedstead’, i.e., ‘a club or staff with a skull at the top’, is nevertheless supported by the Chinesetranscript (Dānapāla’s version, Taishō no. T. 882: vol. 18, p. 398a, l. 7) where the word inquestion (-khaṭva-) is rendered by the syllables kie-chun (kie: Rüdenberg 1963, p. 159, no. 2023:‘hingehen; tapfer, mutig’, missing in Karlgren 1923, p. 55f. under no. 73; chun: Rüdenberg 1963,
p. 599, no. 7426: ‘eine Art Zeder; Vater’; Karlgren 1923, p. 359 under no. 1268). By the use ofChinese chun, the alternative reading *vajrakhaḍga ‘(holder of a) Vajra sword’ as suggested by
Yamada for another occurrence of the same word within a close context (o.c. p. 305, l. 4; facsimile edition, fol. 165b, l. 3; Chinese transcript T. 18, 397b l. 24) can be ruled out as well. Forkhaṭvāṅga- cf. Monier-Williams, SED, 335b and Snellgrove (1987, 154).

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Jost Gippert
pretas and mānuṣas, come quickly, enter22, bind, subjugate, kill, oh Vajrarākṣasī.’In quite a similar way, the Hayagrīvavidyā, a magic spell devoted to a horse-neckshaped deity, comprises the phrase gʰorapiśācasarvagraheṣv apratihato mama
varavajradaṃṣṭra kiṃ cirāpayasi 23 , with cirāpayasi reflecting not the plain denominative present ‘to be absent or delayed for long’24 of cira- ‘long lasting’ butits (secondary) causative25: ‘Unimpaired by all the possessions (caused by) terrificpiśācas, my favourite Vajra-tusk, why do you waste time?’
In contrast to the two indicative forms of the passages quoted above, the Maldivian statues seem to show an imperative: vajra kiṃ ciraya. It is true that this would
yield an awkward translation (‘V., why (lit. what [for]) delay!’), but there is no indication whatsoever of a second person singular indicative ending (-si) following.
Instead, the text continues with ma-ma sa-(r)vv/bba-ya-(r)ttha sa-dya sva-ha
which must be restored as mama sarva:arthān sadyaḥ svāha. Taking this all together, we arrive at the conclusion that the interrogative pronoun, kiṃ, was reinterpreted as if it were a negation particle here, yielding a meaning like ‘Vajra, accelerate (≈ don’t delay) my (reaching) all (my) aims immediately, hail!’ All thispresupposes, of course, that the knowledge of Sanskrit the engravers of the inscriptions relied upon was rather limited.
The same conclusion suggests itself if we consider the expression ma-hā-vi-lamba which occurs two times in both inscriptions, introducing section (4) and immediately preceding the formula samayam anuṣmara we have discussed above. In
the light of the related passages quoted from the STTS, mahāvilamba seems to represent a name (viz. of a deity addressed) again. There is good evidence, however,that we have to see a negated imperative mā vilamba with the meaning ‘don’t belate, don’t waste time’ here instead; this is suggested by the manifold occurrenceof this formulaic imperative in the Gilgit manuscripts and other Buddhist Sanskrit
texts26. If this is correct, mahā must represent a hyper-sanskritised spelling of the

22
23
24

25

26

Note the re-occurrence of these two imperatives in the given context.
p. 443, l. 16 f. of the edition in Dutt 1984.
Monier-Williams, SED p. 399a notes the two present stems ciraya and cirāya side by side, withthe same meaning of ‘to act slowly, delay, be absent a long while’. cirāyati is also supposed to bereflected by Pkt. (Mg.) cilāadi ‘he is (will be) absent for long’ as appearing in Kālidāsa’sŚakuntalā (VI, 1, 14 ed. Pischel 1922; 124 (68, 20) ed. Capeller 1909), cf. Pischel-Jha (1981, 447,§558).
Cp. the causative formation likʰāpayitum (inf.) occurring in the Sarvatathāgatādhiṣṭhānavyūha(Dutt 1984, p. 62, l. 2) side by side with likʰāyitum (ib., 68, 11).
In the Hayagrīva (Dutt 1984, p. 44, l. 1) and the Sarvatathāgatādhiṣṭhānavyūha (ib., 58, 5 and74, 13). For the use of imperatives with negative mā cp. mā karotu (ib. 67, 6-7). — In the Chinese
Taishō canon, the same formula occurs, e.g., in T. 230 (p. 685b, 8).

Sanskrit as a Medium of Maldivian Buddhism

219

prohibitive particle, mā, which was triggered by the regular equivalence of Skt.
mahā and Insular Pkt. mā ‘big’ emerging from the early loss of intervocalic -h-.
As a last example of this type, I quote the sequence vya-gra-sa-rmma-ni-vā-sak(uru) which is attested within section (2) of both inscriptions. For this sequence,
too, we find a parallel in the STTS, in the formula vyāghra-carma nivasana27 .
Whether this is about ‘wearing a tiger’s skin’ (of ni-√4.vas ‘to clothe, dress oneself’) or, rather, ‘residing on’ it (of ni-√5.vas ‘to sojourn, dwell, inhabit’)28 mustremain open. It can be taken for granted, however, that we have an imperative construction of the same expression here, sc. vyāghra-carma nivāsa(m) kuru, ‘wear’ or‘reside on a tiger’s skin!’29.
The parallels quoted above are not only decisive for the establishment of thetexts underlying the inscriptions but also for a general account of late Maldivian
Buddhism and its affinities. The fact that we have Vajrayānic texts of the dhāraṇī
genre written in Sanskrit here leaves no room for the wide-spread assumption that
Maldivian culture was, at the time in question, a mere off-shoot of its Srī Lankancounterpart. This is all the more true since no traces whatsoever of Pāli texts oreven words have been found on the Maldives so far. Instead, the Maldives mustfrom now on be taken seriously as one more region where we can expect to findtexts written in Buddhist Sanskrit, thus adding a new area of concern to Klaus
Mylius’ statement according to whom “the importance of dhāraṇīs in the cultural
history ... of large areas of Asia must not be underestimated”30.
Bibliography
Bell 1940: H.C.P. B., The Máldive Islands. Monograph on the History, Archeology,
and Epigraphy. Colombo.
Capeller 1909: Kālidāsa’s Śakuntalā (kürzere Textform). Mit kritischen und erklärenden Anmerkungen hrsg. v. Carl Capeller. Leipzig: H. Haessel.
CBETA 2002: Chinese Electronic Tripitaka Series. Taisho Tripitaka Vol. 1-55 &85. (CD-ROM version). Taipei.
27

28
29

30

Ed. Yamada (1981, p. 324, l. 11; cf. the Chinese transcript by Dānapāla in T. 882, 400c 14f.); thesame formula is contained in the “Essential Dharaṇi of the Blue-Necked Bodhisattva who Contemplates Spontaneously”, transcribed by Amoghavajra, Taishō canon text T. 1111 (p. 490a, 22).
Cf. Monier-Williams, SED p. 559a for the two lemmas.
In the latter meaning, we would have to assume a haplographical loss of the locative ending incarmani. That this was understood as underlying is perhaps suggested by the Tibetan version
which reads “VYAGHRA CARRMANI and omits -VASANA” (Yamada 1981, 324 n. 3).
K. Mylius, Geschichte der Literatur im alten Indien, Leipzig 1983, 415: „Dagegen darf nicht
verschwiegen werden, daß die kulturgeschichtliche Bedeutung der Dhāraṇīs, besonders für die
außerindischen Länder des Mahāyāna-Buddhismus und damit für große Teile Asiens, nicht
unterschätzt werden sollte.“

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Dutt 1984: Gilgit manuscripts, ed. by Nalinaksha D., vol. 1, 2nd ed., Delhi.
Edgerton, BHSD: Franklin E., Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary.
Vol II.: Dictionary. New Haven 1953 / Repr. Delhi / Varanasi / Patna /Madras 1985.
Fritz 2002: Sonja F., The Dhivehi Language. A Descriptive and Historical Grammar of Maldivian and Its Dialects. Vols. 1-2. Würzburg: Südasien-Institut,
Universität Heidelberg 2002 (Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, 191)
Fritz / Gippert (1999): Towards a Historical Phonology of Maldivian. In: Chr.
Zinko / M. Ofitsch (eds.), 125 Jahre Indogermanistik in Graz. Graz:
Leykam 2000, pp. 139-152.
Gippert (2000): Early New Persian as A Medium of Spreading Islam. In: L. Paul(ed.), Persian Origins - Early Judaeo-Persian and the Emergence of New
Persian. Collected Papers of the Symposium, Göttingen 1999. Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz 2003, pp. 31-47
Gippert (forthcoming 2003): Jost G., A glimpse into the Buddhist past of theMaldives. I: An early Prakrit inscription. To appear in WZKS, 2004.
Karlgren 1923: Bernhard K., Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese.
Paris: Geuthner / Repr. Taipei: Ch’eng-wen 1975.
Lokesh Chandra / Snellgrove 1981: L.Ch. / David L. S. (eds.), Sarva-tathāgatatattva-saṅgraha. Facsimile reproduction of a Tenth Century Sanskrit
Manuscript from Nepal. New Delhi (Śata-piṭaka series, 269).
Monier-Williams, SED: Monier M.-W., A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. New ed.,Oxford 1899 / Repr. 1951.
Naseema 1999: N. Mohamed, Dhivehi Writing Systems. Male’ (National Centre
for Linguistic and Historical Research).
Pischel 1922: Richard P. (ed.), Kalidasa’s Śakuntala, an ancient Hindu Drama.
2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass. (Harvard Oriental Series, 16).
Pischel/Jha 1981: R. P., A Grammar of Prākrit Languages. Translated by SubhadraJhā. 2nd rev. ed. Delhi / Varanasi / Patna.
Rüdenberg 1963: Werner R., Chinesisch-deutsches Wörterbuch. 3. erw., völlig neu
bearb. Aufl. von Hans O.H. Stange. Hamburg: Cram / de Gruyter.
Tholal 2002: Ahmed Th., The National Museum. Male’ (National Centre for
Linguistic and Historical Research).
Vaidya 1961: Mahāyāna-sūtra-saṃgraha, pt. 1, ed. P.L. V., Darbhanga 1961 [=Buddhist Sanskrit Texts, 17]
Yamada 1981: Isshi Y. (ed.), Sarva-tathāgata-tattva-saṅgraha nāma mahāyānasūtra. New Delhi (Śata-piṭaka series, 262).

Gippert, Sanskrit as a Medium of Maldivian Buddhism

Fig. 1:
Buddhist statue, found in the islands’ capital, Male, in the 1960ies.
National Museum of the Maldives.

487

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Gippert, Sanskrit as a Medium of Maldivian Buddhism

Fig. 2: Same statue with inscriptions marked

Jost
Gippert

Digital unterschrieben von Jost Gippert
DN: cn=Jost Gippert, o=Universität
Frankfurt, ou=Vergleichende
Sprachwissenschaft, email=gippert@em.
uni-frankfurt.de, c=DE
Datum: 2011.12.28 01:02:56 +01'00'