PREFACE
Among the most ancient in the world, the Gilgit manuscripts are the oldest surviving
manuscript collection in India. Greatly significant in the area of Buddhist studies, theycontain both canonical and non-canonical Buddhist works that have enormous relevancein the evolution of Sanskrit, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Tibetan
religio-philosophical literature. Opinions vary on exactly when they were written, butthere is some consensus that the period was between the 5th and 6th centuries CE.
The manuscripts were discovered in three instalments in the Gilgit region in whatis described as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Their discovery was first announced by Sir
Aurel Stein, who reported in The Statesman of 24th July 1931, that some boys watching
flocks in a hilly area in Naupur village, about two miles west of Gilgit Cantonment, had
found a circular chamber within a Buddhists stupa filled with hundreds of small votive
stupas and relief plaques common in Central Asia and Tibet. Within these, some ancientmanuscripts were discovered in a wooden box. The grazers took these to the Maharajaof Jammu and Kashmir. The fact the manuscripts have survived is partly because theywere written on the bark of the Bhoj tree that does not decay or decompose, and partly
due to the near-freezing temperatures of the Gilgit region.
The corpus of the manuscripts contains inter alia, sutras from the Buddhist canon,
Samādhirājasūtra and Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra (popularly known as the LotusSutra).Written in the Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit language in the Gupta Brāhmī andpost-Gupta Brāhmī scripts, they cover a range of subjects, such as religious rituals,
iconometry, folk tales, medicine, and several related areas of life and knowledge. Their
importance lies in the fact that they are perhaps the only corpus of Buddhist manuscriptsthat have been discovered in India. The language is similar to the early Mahayana texts
and a mixed Sanskrit of a peculiar type, using largely Sanskrit words with Prakrit
inflections and Prakrit words with Sanskrit inflections.
Dr. Lokesh Chandra, Director of the International Academy of Indian Culture, andan eminent scholar of Buddhism and cultures of South and South East Asia, firstpublished a facsimile edition of the voluminous Gilgit manuscripts in New Delhi in1974. According to him, the text has reference to three Buddhist synods (meetings ofreligious heads). This suggests a date sometime around or after the reign of Emperor
Kanishka (78?-128? CE), as according to Sanskrit texts, the third synod was held during
Kanishka’s reign. Apart from the literary significance these manuscripts also provide
examples of decorated books. Two of the earliest Sanskrit manuscripts that form part of
the Srinagar Collection, were nestled between wooden book covers, painted on bothsides, with the lotus scroll decorating the outer side. These painted covers fill aknowledge gap of Kashmir art of this period since they are the only authentic specimensof Kashmir paintings.

The manuscripts were discovered in three stages. The major portion, as mentioned
earlier, was discovered by cattle grazers in 1931, and sent to Srinagar. These wereexamined by archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein, and 11 folios retrieved by local inhabitants
were sent to the British Museum; most of them now housed in the National Archives ofIndia. The second lot was discovered by Pandit Madhusudan Kaul in 1938, and a third
lot was mentioned by Prof. Giuseppe Tucci in 1956.
The major portion of the Gilgit manuscripts, called Vijananidhi or manuscript
treasure, became the possession of the National Archives, underwent a preliminaryconservation process followed by lamination, and has since been kept with highly
restricted access. The National Archives of India, attached to the Department of Culture,is the repository of non-current records of the Government of India holding them intrust for the use of administrators and scholars.
Some portions of the manuscripts are in the Jammu and Kashmir State
Government libraries and research department, and fragments are also in the collection
at the British Library and the Department of Archaeology in Karachi, Pakistan.
Though the grammatical and literary aspects of the text are more of historicalinterest, what is more interesting is how this information throws light on the socialfabric. While they are of immense significance to the scholarly community andpracticing Buddhists, they are also invaluable to historians and linguists who might
illuminate aspects related to the history of the period.
A crying need in our country and in other parts of the world is to make historical
documents accessible. We are indeed fortunate that these wonderful manuscripts can
now be viewed and studied more freely thanks to the dedicated work of the Institute ofOriental Philosophy (IOP) that has helped to produce a new facsimile edition of themanuscripts.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Soka Gakkai International(SGI) President, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, who is also the founder of the IOP and all others
who were directly and indirectly involved in the publication of this valuable
contribution to the study of Buddhist texts. I would also like to thank all those at theIOP led by the Director, Dr. Yoichi Kawada, who have successfully brought about thispublication through the coordinated efforts of the many people concerned.
It is hoped that this landmark achievement will herald the start of a trend of
thinking about creative and innovative ways of making our rich cultural heritage not justaccessible but also meaningful to many.
Mushirul Hasan
Director General
National Archives of India