PREFACEThe Central Asian manuscript of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra of which all known
fragments are edited here suffered the same fate as many of the other manuscripts of thesame origin. After being excavated by local treasure hunters at the beginning of thiscentury it was torn apart and sold to various European customers.
During a visit in the seventies to the Akademie der Wissenschaften der Deutschen
Demokratischen Republik, Zentralinstitut für Alte Geschichte und Archäologie [nowBerlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Turfanforschung], in Berlin, H.
Bechert came across a manuscript “lump" in the Turfan collection which he could
identify as part of a Sanskrit manuscript of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. In early 1988
he finally received photographs of fragments which had been put between ten pairs ofglass sheets containing several fragments of the so-called lump. Professor Bechert thenhanded the photographs over to my care. The script of the fragments is the South
Turkestan Brāhmī. As J.-U. Hartmann had discovered another fragment of this verysame manuscript, viz. the catalogue number SHT 4303, the newly restored fragments
were classified under the same number. The single fragment already put between glass
sheets some time ago bears the siglum T4 Chotän 7 (= fourth Turfan expedition;Khotan) indicating the place where it was found. Since the German Turfan expeditions
never worked on the southern Silk Road we can thus infer that the manuscript fragments
had not been found, but purchased by the fourth Turfan expedition (1913-1914). InMarch 1991 twenty more pairs of glass sheets with fragments as well as fourunmounted pieces were returned to the library in Berlin after restoration. When revising
all the Sanskrit fragments of the Turfan collection in Berlin, within the framework of
the Katalogisierung der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, I found additional
fragments of the same manuscript. Among these was also one which was photographed
by J. Deguchi during his stay in Berlin in 1933/34 and published in 1949 as facsimile.
This piece bearing the siglum T4 Chotän 8 was thought to have been lost. The Sanskrit
section of the Turfan collection is now housed in the Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung as a deposit of theBerlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
A paper by R.E. Emmerick gives a survey of the Central Asian manuscript
fragments belonging to the Francke/Körber collection in the Staatliches Museum fürVölkerkunde, Munich, which in the year 1914 were bought in Khotan. In this paper
Professor Emmerick mentions his having identified some of them as belonging to theSaddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. This identification gave me the idea that these fragments
could possibly be folios of the same manuscript as those in Berlin. In March 1994 I
visited Professor Emmerick and was able on that occasion to examine his photographsof the said fragments. The examination fully confirmed my assumption. As a result,

Professor Bechert and Professor Emmerick applied to the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft for financial support to edit the fragments belonging to thismanuscript along with fragments belonging to other Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtramanuscripts housed in German collections. The project was supported by the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft from March 1995 until February 1997, and I was able to work
part-time on it. During this time I continued to discover more fragments belonging to
the same manuscript in the Stein and Hoernle collections, London, and only recently(November 1997) I received through the good offices of K. Matsuda a xerox copy ofanother fragment, which he had discovered in London. Since it is well-known that thereare several Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra manuscript fragments in St. Petersburg as well, I
seized the opportunity while visiting the Institute of Oriental Studies (St. PetersburgBranch) at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in August 1996 to ask theSupervisor of the Manuscript Department, Dr. M.I. Vorob’ëva-Desjatovskaja about this.
But unfortunately, according to her information no fragment of this particularmanuscript can be found in the various collections of the institute. Therefore the known
fragments of our Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra manuscript are obviously distributed overfour collections.
I would like to express my thanks for the support during my work with theoriginals as well as the supply of photographs and microfilms to Dr. H.-O. Feistel(Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung, Turfansammlung,Berlin), Dr. M. O’Keefe (British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections,London) and Dr. B. Richtsfeld (Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, München). It is
my pleasure to acknowledge here the valuable help of Mr. Noriyoshi Mizufune, who isresponsible for manuscript projects at The Institute of Oriental Philosophy, Tokyo, as
well as that of all the members of the institute who have been associated with the final
stage of this publication. I am grateful to the Soka Gakkai for including this edition inthe Lotus Sutra Manuscript Series. Last but not least I thank Prof. Dr. H. Bechert whoencouraged me to take on this work, Prof. Dr. R.E. Emmerick for correcting my English
as well as providing me with valuable suggestions, and my wife Anne Peters for helping
me to produce the final copy.
Klaus Wille
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen
Katalogisierung der Orientalischen
Handschriften in Deutschland-Arbeitsstelle GöttingenSeptember 8, 1999