Foreword
The Soka Gakkai has commissioned the Institute of Oriental Philosophy to carry out
studies of Lotus Sutra texts in Sanskrit, Xixia (Tangut), and other languages. Throughthe cooperation of academic institutions and experts in Japan and other countries of theworld, we have since 1997 been publishing the highly valuable results of theseresearches under the title Lotus Sutra Manuscript Series.
The publications issued so far are as follows:
1. Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Fragments from the Lüshun Museum Collection,Facsimile Edition and Romanized Text.
2-1. Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscript from the National Archives of Nepal (No.
4-21), Facsimile Edition.
2-2. Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscript from the National Archives of Nepal (No.
4-21), Romanized Text 1.
3. Fragments of a Manuscript of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra from Khādaliq(presently the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China).
4. Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscripts from Cambridge University Library (Add.
1682 and Add. 1683), Facsimile Edition.
The publication presented here, Lotus Sutra Manuscript Series 5, entitled Sanskrit Lotus
Sutra Manuscript from University of Tokyo General Library (No. 414), Romanized Text,
is one of the results of these researches and constitutes the sixth volume in the series.
Mr. Haruaki Kotsuki, researcher in charge of manuscript studies of the Institute ofOriental Philosophy, in this volume’s Acknowledgments, Introduction andMemorandum, entitled “A Brief History of Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscript Studies,”
describes in detail the process by which the romanized text of this Sanskrit manuscript
was prepared and discussed the characteristics of the manuscript.
This manuscript of the Lotus Sutra (referred to in the present publication as T8),
which is of great importance, was brought from Nepal to Japan in 1903 by Ekai
Kawaguchi and served as one of the bases of the Kern-Nanjio edition of the Lotus Sutra
published in the years 1908-12.
According to Mr. Kotsuki, this T8 manuscript is estimated to date from around theseventeenth or eighteenth century. But in content it bears a very close resemblance tothe palm-leaf manuscript (no. 5-144) in the National Archives of Nepal, which isestimated to date from around the thirteenth or fourteenth century. For this reason, thepublication of this T8 manuscript is an event of particular importance to the scholarlyworld.
Mr. Kotsuki is a graduate of the Indian and Pakistani Languages Department ofOsaka University of Foreign Studies. Following his graduation, he spent two periods inIndia, living there for a total of five years, devoting himself to the study of Hindi andSanskrit. In 1991 he went to India as a member of a Soka Gakkai International (SGI)
group, where he attended an India-Japan symposium sponsored by the Indian Council
for Cultural Relations (ICCR), the SGI and the Institute of Oriental Philosophy. At thattime he met Dr. Lokesh Chandra, director of the International Academy of IndianCulture, an encounter that led to his becoming engaged in intensive study of Lotus Sutra
manuscripts. While operating a private school, he continued to pursue these studies on
his own. Later, having come under the guidance of Dr. Hirofumi Toda, then professor,
and now professor emeritus, of the University of Tokushima, he set about romanizing
the T8 manuscript. After more than six years of labor, he completed the romanization ofthe text. I would like here to express my sincere admiration for Mr. Kotsuki’s exertions
and gratitude for the results they have produced.
The purpose of the Lotus Sutra Manuscript Series is to provide high quality
facsimile reproductions of materials of unquestionable importance in the study of theLotus Sutra, along with meticulously prepared romanized versions of the text wherethese are appropriate. The results are to be made available to scholars, experts in thefield, and academic organizations throughout the world so that they may contribute to a
deeper understanding of the sutra and of Buddhism in general. I am happy to observethat the five volumes so far published in the series have been greeted with acclaim byscholars and academic organizations both in Jap an and abroad. I thank them mostsincerely for their expressions of esteem. It is my hope that the future volumes in theseries will prove of similar value to researchers in the field.
Future volumes in this series that we hope to publish include “Xixia Lotus Sutra
Manuscript from St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian
Academy of Sciences, Facsimile Edition,” and “Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscript fromthe National Archives of Nepal (No. 4-21), Romanized Text 2.”
Lastly, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. Hirofumi Toda, aworldly acclaimed authority in studies of Sanskrit Lotus Sutra manuscripts, for thecareful and attentive guidance he gave to Mr. Kotsuki in the preparation of theromanized text. I also wish to thank all those associated with University of Tokyo
General Library for their invaluable assistance in the publication of this importantfacsimile edition.
Einosuke Akiya
President, Soka Gakkai
March 16, 2003