The Earliest Colophons in the Buddhist Northwest

Bibliographic Data

ID20049573
AuthorsStefan Baums (0000-0002-9734-1834, corresponding author)
Year2022
Pages13-42
Publication date2022-12-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueSyntax of Colophons (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherDe Gruyter (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/9783110795271-002
OpenAlexW4313440225
ISBN9783110795271
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited5

The oldest known colophons in South Asia are preserved in the rock edicts of Aoka in the northwestern script Kharoh. The production of epigraphic colophons continues in the northwest throughout the period of use of the Kharoh script and Gndhr language, and from the first century CE onwards also becomes visible in the manuscript record of this region. The present article discusses in detail the reading and interpretation of the three preserved Gndhr manuscript colophons. It proposes a new reading for the Khotan Dharmapada colophon revealing the true name of its scribe, and suggests a new physical understanding of the Gndhr Prajpramit scroll bringing the placement of its colophon in line with that of the Dharmapada colophon at the top of the recto of both scrolls. The article concludes by showing how the early Gndhr practice of colophons is continued in the administrative documents of the Krorayina kingdom as well as in the Buddhist manuscripts from Gilgit, and it places it in a wider historical arc from the Aramaic colophons of the fifth century BCE to the Bactrian colophons of the sixth century CE

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Buddhism · Colophon · Linguistics · Literature · Sanskrit · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Classics · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophy

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