Sanskrit Manuscripts of the Serindia Collection (IOM RAS) as Sources on the History of Buddhism in Khotan

Abstract

This paper provides the information about the study of the Sanskrit manuscript fragments kept in the Serindia Collection of the IOM RAS. Among the Buddhist handwritten rarities discovered in the 19th—20th centuries in so-called Serindia Sanskrit manuscripts are of particular importance. Sanskrit originals of Buddhist texts preserved in Central Asian manuscripts represent what little remained of the vast Sanskrit written heritage of ancient and early medieval Buddhism. Sanskrit manuscripts are highly valuable historical sources for studying the history of spread of Buddhism throughout Central Asia and the process of reception of the Indo-Buddhist culture outside India in the first millennium AD. The article focuses on the study of Sanskrit manuscripts, which circulated in Khotan. Among the manuscripts, which constitute the Sanskrit part of the Serindia Collection, written monuments related to Khotan are represented most extensively both in terms of quantity of fragments and volume of preserved texts. A comprehensive study of this part of the Serindia Collection made it possible to classify Sanskrit manuscripts in relation to external characteristics and repertoire, to outline chronologically traceable stages of spread of Buddhism in Khotan and to work out the periodization of the history of Buddhism in this Central Asian subregion.