FOREWORD
The Lotus Sutra has been recognised as one of the most important documents belonging
to the Buddhist tradition since the very beginning of Buddhist studies in the West. Aslong ago as 1852 a translation of the Lotus Sutra by the famous French scholar É.
Burnouf, who may be considered the father of Buddhology in Europe, was publishedunder the title Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi. The manuscript of this translation wascompleted already in 1841. It was based on Nepalese tradition of the Sanskrit text of theSaddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Manuscripts from Nepal also form the basis of the firstcomplete edition of the Sanskrit text of the Lotus Sutra by Hendrik Kern and Bunyiu
Nanjio (Bibliotheca Buddhica, X, St. Pétersbourg 1908-1912).
The discovery of ancient Buddhist manuscripts in Xinjiang provides us with muchearlier testomonies of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Foremost among these finds is theso-called Kashgar manuscript of the Sanskrit text of the Lotus Sutra. It was found by
local inhabitants of the Khotan region and sold in pieces to members of various
American, Japanese, and European expeditions to Central Asia or to diplomatic
representatives from those countries. Several folios of this manuscript have been editedby scholars in Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia. In the Turfan collection inBerlin, H. Bechert, co-author of this foreword, identified nine folios of this manuscript
and published them in the Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, I.
Philologisch-historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1972, No. 1. The complete text of almost all
folios of this codex so far known was published in facsimile by Lokesh Chandra in theŚata-Piṭaka Series, 229 (New Delhi 1976). A careful edition of this material wassubsequently prepared and published by Professor Hirofumi Toda.
There have been many other discoveries of fragments of Central Asian manuscriptsof the Lotus Sutra in Sanskrit and other languages. The material in the present volume
was identified by various scholars, viz. the fragments in the Francke/Körber collection
kept in the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich, by R.E. Emmerick, co-authorof this foreword, the material in the Turfan collection housed in the Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin, by H. Bechert, and the material in the Hoernle collection held by the British
Library, London, by Professor A. Yuyama and Professor H. Toda. It is evident thatthese fragments taken together are a very va1uable source for the early tradition of theLotus Sutra, supplementing the evidence afforded by the so-called Kashgar manuscript.
We accordingly decided to apply to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for financial
support of the project of editing this valuable material.
We were most fortunate to be able to obtain Dr. K. Wille as the editor of theKhādaliq manuscript and are happy that this project has now been successfullycompleted so that the results of his work can be published in this splendid volume in theSoka Gakkai’s Lotus Sutra Manuscript Series.
We wish to express our thanks to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for thesupport of our project. We would also like to express our sincere thanks to Mr. Daisaku
Ikeda (President of the Soka Gakkai International) and Mr. Einosuke Akiya (Presidentof the Soka Gakkai) for kindly agreeing to include this work in the Soka Gakkai’s Lotus
Sutra Manuscript Series and to Mr. Yasuo Morita (chairman of the board of trustees),
Dr. Yoichi Kawada (director), Mr. Yoichi Ichikura (secretary-general), and Mr.
Noriyoshi Mizufune (researcher in charge of manuscript projects) of The Institute ofOriental Philosophy, Tokyo, for the implementation of our agreement. We would a1solike to express our gratitude to Professor Hirofumi Toda, who has cooperated with theSeminar für Indologie und Buddhismuskunde of the University of Göttingen for many
years and has contributed so much to the successful realization of this project.
Prof. Dr. H. Bechert
Seminar für Indologieund Buddhismuskunde
Universität Göttingen
January 20, 2000

Prof. Dr. R.E. Emmerick
Seminar für Geschichte undKultur des Vorderen Orients
Universität Hamburg