FOREWORD
Ever since their discovery from a stupa in 1931, the Gilgit manuscripts have awaited fora thousand full moons to find a dedicated personality of the wisdom and stature of Soka
Gakkai International (SGI) President Daisaku Ikeda to be reproduced with all theirpatina of centuries and in all the natural charm of the birch-bark on which they arewritten. These manuscripts are the offspring of untrammelled inspiration, luminous
calligraphy, and lively symbols of the piety of royal patrons. They were edification oflife in the stillness of the written logos, commissioned as pious works to bring merit toboth the donor and the scribe. As acts of worship, they made the beauty of the mind andthe dynamics of action in the world of experience a radiant manifestation.
The Lotus Sutra celebrates the vision that springs from within, and one of theGilgit manuscripts of the Lotus Sutra has been dedicated to all beings to attain supreme
knowledge and merit, i.e., to fulfill the two sambhāras (jñāana-sambhāra andpuṇya-sambhāra). The names of the donors are both in Sanskrit and in Central Asianlanguages. Some names end in pharna which is the Avesta hvareno or Persian farnah,
the indwelling light from which issues a radiance so brilliant as to dazzle humans.
Farnah refers to “royal glory” and the Gilgit manuscripts are the glowing splendour of
Buddhist sutras.
These codices of the Lotus Sutra are the depth of the inner space that makes us
pilgrim beings in the majestic syllables of time. President Daisaku Ikeda gives a newlife to them and enriches the academic quest with an important source forcomprehending the dynamic flow of the text of the Sutra. This de luxe facsimile edition
will invite inquisitive minds to study the psycho-active sub-texts and to find the lostlinks in the development of ideas. It will echo a toiling, thinking mind in the silence ofwords.
These manuscripts were written during the Paṭola Ṣāhi dynasty of Gilgit. The
names of the kings of this dynasty are mentioned in the colophons; e.g.,
Surendra-vikramāditya-nandi in the colophon of Ratnaketu-parivarta. His father
Vikramāditya-nandi and his mother Surendramālā are also named along with him. On
the basis of the Hatūn and Danyor inscriptions, T’ang Annals, bronze statue no. 31,
colophons of the Gilgit manuscripts and palaeography, Oskar von Hinüber has drawn up
a list of the Paṭola Ṣāhi kings of Gilgit before 630, after 630, and after 725. The T’ang
Annals speak of the King of Gilgit who sent embassies to the Chinese Court in 696 and713. He must have been Nandi-vikramāditya-nandi, the donor of bronze no. 31. The
T’ang court recognized Su-fu-shê-li-chih-li-ni 蘇弗舎利支離泥 in 717. The last kingrecognized by the T’ang Court, Surendrāditya, ruled between 720 and 725. The Danyor
inscription of King Jaya-maṅgala-vikramāditya-nandi has been dated to 730.
These manuscripts were commissioned for the stabilization of the dynasty. TheMahāmāyūrī and mantras written on small scrolls of birch-bark are dedicated to protect
King Śrī Navasurendra. Hinüber dates the Saṁghāṭa-sūtra to 627/8 on palaeographicgrounds. The Gilgit manuscripts can be dated to the seventh century in general (Oskarvon Hinüber, The Paṭola Ṣāhīs of Gilgit—A Forgotten Dynasty, typescript with L.
Chandra).
The Gilgit manuscripts of the Lotus Sutra have been classified into three groups by
Shōkō Watanabe: groups A, B, C. They can be detailed as follows:
Group A:Group B:

Group C:

8 lines per folio
National Archives, serial no. 45
RV/LC
nos.2813-3052
Watanabe
1. 1-173 (facsimiles)
2. pp. 3-178 (romanized text)
3. 351-355 (facsimiles, epilogue giving names ofdonors)
4. pp. 293-294 (romanized text, epilogue)
mostly 9lines per folio
National Archives, serial nos. 44, 47, 49, etc.
RV/LC
nos. 3217-3220
Watanabe
1. 247-350 (facsimiles, mostly 9 lines, but including
8, 10, 11 lines per folio)
2. pp. 181-292 (romanized text)Toda
p. 249, N.B.: “right parts of 2785-86 and 2801-02”
pp. 300-303 (10 lines per folio)
pp. 303-304 (Bapat, 10 lines)
Group B has mostly 9 lines per folio, so the folios and fragments with
10 lines can represent another group.
11 lines per folio(i)
British Library
Lévi in JA. 220
Watanabe
1. Ia-VIIb (facsimiles)
2. 297-307 (romanized text)
KN
251-257, 272-275, 436-439, 443-445,

Group K:481-487
(ii)
RV/LC
nos. 3121-3216 (48 folios)
Toda
pp. 249-300
KN
28-32, 46-49, 51-53, 55-57, 59-61, 63-70,71-85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93, 192, 233-235, 237,
243-244, 280, 282-284, 286-292, 294-297,
304-317, 321-323, 331-337, 342-348,
352-355, 358-365, 373-376, 378-382
8 lines per folio (can belong to Group A)
Sir Pratap Singh Museum, Srinagar
Edited by Oskar von Hinüber, A New Fragmentary manuscript of theSaddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, Tokyo 1982

The Gilgit manuscripts can be arranged according to the number of lines per folio, after
taking into account the ductus of writing and other factors. While nos. 44 and 49 with
10 lines can belong to Group B which has the same number of lines, no. 47 may
constitute a new group D with 9 lines.
The facsimiles in Raghu Vira/Lokesh Chandra’s Gilgit Buddhist Manuscripts,
parts 9 and 10 can be arranged as follows:
2813-3052 8 lines Archives no. 45 GroupA3053-3120* 9 lines Archives no. 47 GroupB2785-2812 10 lines Archives no. 44 Group B (?)
3217-3220 10 lines Archives no. 49 Group B
3121-3216 11 lines Archives no. 48 Group C
The manuscripts will have to be transcribed to get a correct picture of the text. The
romanized text of Watanabe does not reflect the Gilgit readings and is misleading for
any textual criticism. The diplomatic transcription of Hirofumi Toda of 48 folios ofGroup C (RV/LC nos. 3121-3216) provides a model for the precise transliteration of theextant portions.
The Gilgit manuscripts have preserved more ancient readings than the Nepalesevulgate. Some readings of the Group C manuscript are cited from the transcription ofToda:

RV/LC. 3121
abhūvankauśalyu (gāthā form)
vyuttiṣṭhatahetoḥ bahu-buddha-śata-saha
RV/LC 3122śāradvatīputra

KN 28.2-29.5
babhūvakauśalya (classical form)
vyutthitohetoḥ / bahu-buddha-koṭī-nayuta-śata-sahasra(koṭī-nayuta is a later addition)
KN 29.6-30.10
śāriputra

The aforesaid clearly shows that the readings in the Gilgit manuscripts preserve gāthāforms, lower numbers which have been enhanced later like the addition of koṭī-nayuta,
the use of the original form Śāradvatīputra instead of Śāriputa in KN, and so on. A
critical edition with meticulous recording of variant readings is an urgent need to follow
the textual vicissitudes of the Sutra.
The Gilgit manuscripts were deposited within the vault of the third of the fourstupas. The third stupa had a double basement: the lower measured 22 x 22 feet, withthe upper receding 2 feet on all four sides. In the centre of the chamber there were fivewooden boxes, the fifth was emboxed within the other four and the manuscripts were
deposited in it.
Some colophons name royal personages as donors. This act of piety is in accord
with the 28th chapter of the Lotus Sutra where Samantabhadra says: “[those] who seekout, accept, uphold, read, recite, and transcribe this Lotus Sutra ... should do so
diligently and with a single mind.... And because he has acquired these spells, nononhuman being will be able to injure him.... I too will personally guard him at alltimes.... If they do no more than copy the Sutra, when their lives come to an end they
will be reborn in the Trayastriṁśa heaven.” (The Lotus Sutra, translated by Burton
Watson pp. 321-322). Samantabhadra goes on to exhort devotees to copy the Sutrathemselves, recite it, and to guard it in all ways, as he employs his transcendental
powers to protect this Sutra.
The Lotus Sutra from the Gilgit stupa is the adamantine essence of logos, thetranscendence of Bodhi in the words of the Guhyasamāja (Bodhi-nairātmyamvākya-vajra-samāvahaṁ).
The Great Teacher, Daisensei President Daisaku Ikeda, brings to us this second
most ancient codex of the Lotus Sutra, to bless our daily lives with the eyes of the spirit,
to enliven our daily toils with the nobility of Dharma. This facsimile edition is a dropfrom the heavenly heart of the Daisensei. In the words of Prājña 般若 in hisZōtōemmyōkudokukyō 造塔延命功徳経 (Taishō 1026), compassion for all beings isthe guiding principle, and the thought of obtaining Bodhi is the base of practical andethical activity. In the midst of centuries lives this birch-bark Lotus Sutra to spread its
glow once again by the perfection of Japanese technology, merging in the endlesssolemnity of life. It greets us with expressions that are more ancient than the vulgate
version as they implant in us the essence of a throbbing new.
President Ikeda is the culmination of the trinity of the Lotus Sutra, his twopredecessors being Kumārajīva and Nichiren Daishonin. He impresses our times with
its novelty and freshness. Like a landscape painter who uses a large canvas but finebrushes, filling the canvas with gentle and well-defined strokes that result in a nuanced
and multiple-layered picture, he gives a subtle but clear analysis of the Sutra as theastonishing catalyst of life in the reflexivity of ideas. His vast oeuvre gives us themeaning of the Sutra as action in the simplest of chores as well as the fusion of horizons.
He endows us with vivid perception in objective standards and makes the lives ofmillions a gratifying experience of joy. The Sutra too has had a dynamic blossoming in
the long transmission of its text, as shown by the codices from Kashgar (better Khotan)
and Gilgit. This crystalline reproduction of the Gilgit manuscripts of the Sutra makes us
realize the grandeur of human involvement, so that we become “protagonists of a ‘story’of inner victory forged in the depth of [our] lives”,† in the words of Daisensei Ikeda in
his Peace Proposals of 2010. The Sutra is awareness, the Daisensei is the dynamic
enlightenment of life, and we are the fields of action. Here are the wondrous birch-bark
folios sparkling like jewels of the human mind.
Lokesh Chandra

References
Hinüber 1982:

Oskar von Hinüber, A New Fragmentary Manuscript of theSaddharmapuņdarīkasūtra, Tokyo, The Reiyukai.

KN:

H. Kern and Bunyiu Nanjio, Saddharmapuņdarīka, Bibliotheca Buddhica X,1908-1912.

Lévi:

Sylvain Lévi, Journal Asiatique 1932: 14f.

RV/LC:

Raghu Vira and Lokesh Chandra, Gilgit Buddhist Manuscripts (facsimile edition),
New Delhi, International Academy of Indian Culture, Part 9 (2326-2908), Part 10(2909-3368).

Toda 1979:

Hirofumi Toda, Saddharmapuņdarīka Gilgit Manuscripts (Group B and C),

Tokushima Daigaku Kyōyōbu Kiyō, vol. 14. Group B: RV/LC 3121-3216, Group C:
RV/LC 3217-3220, Bapat 171ab (ABORI. 1950: 30.3-4 pl. III).
Watanabe:

Shōkō Watanabe, Saddharmapuņdarīka Gilgit Manuscripts Found in Gilgit, Parts 1,2, Tokyo, The Reyukai, 1972, 1975.

Watson:Burton Watson, The Lotus Sutra, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993.