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ddhism in a single elegantly and often movingly written text what is surprising is that the text as it has been passed down in the tibetan tradition and as it is read in translation today is not the earliest version and is quite different from it we know this largely thanks to the excellent work of akira saito which is undeservedly difficult to get hold of during the 90s saito worked on four dunhuang manuscripts of the bodhicaryāvatāra showing how the early version that they contained differed quite radically from the familiar later version here i ll summarize his conclusions and add some of my own thoughts the four manuscripts are actually three 1 a complete copy comprising iol tib j 628 and pelliot tibétain 794 2 a copy with several missing pages now representing about 60 of the text iol tib j 629 3 a copy of the last chapter on the dedication of merit iol tib j 630 so what are the differences between this dunhuang version of the bodhicaryāvatāra and the one that was passed down through the centuries in tibet and is still being taught today most strikingly it is significantly shorter containing roughly 700 verses instead of 1 000 also chapters 2 and 3 of the longer version are combined together so that the dunhuang version has nine chapters instead of ten most of the missing verses come in the chapters on meditation and wisdom perhaps the most read and discussed chapters in the bodhicaryāvatāra further confirmation that the dunhuang bodhicaryāvatāra was the earlier version is found in the early 9th century library catalogue the ldan dkar ma which records the existence of this text with 600 verses saito suggests that it is given as 600 rather than 700 because the verses were estimated at 300 verses per volume and the text was in two volumes saito s close study of the differences in the wisdom chapter lead him to conclude that the familiar longer version of the bodhicaryāvatāra is an enlarged version of the dunhuang manuscript version with many verses added on criticism of other systems of thought including that of a supreme deity īśvara and the metaphysics of the sāṃkhya on the other hand some of the verses on non self have been cut from the older version the existence of different versions of the bodhicaryāvatāra was known in tibet buton was aware that a shorter version was listed in early library catalogues like the ldan dkar ma and he wrote though this bodhicaryāvatāra is described the three great catalogues as comprising 600 verses it actually has 1 000 many state that this bodhicaryāvatāra is not the same as the one with nine chapters said to be written by akṣayamati however apart from the difference arising from separating the chapter on the confession of sins and differences in the earlier and later translations i would say that they are the same text another major difference between the two versions which buton mentions is the name of the author which in the colophon to the complete dunhuang manuscript iol tib j 629 is not śāntideva but akṣayamati saito quotes from two sources that suggest this was an alternative honorary name for śāntideva here s that colophon note also that this colophon gives the names of two translators an indian perhaps sarvajñādeva sa ra bad nya de ba and a tibetan bande paltseg if we look at the colophon of the longer version of the text we can see that this is the first stage of its translation history the indian master sarvajñādeva and the tibetan translator paltseg edited and finalized a translation based on a text from kashmir after that the indian master dharmaśrībhadra the great translator rinchen zangpo and shakya lodro completed an amended translation by combining a text and its commentary from central india furthermore in a later period the indian master sumatikītri and the monk translator loden sherab completed a correctly amended translation which was excellent thus there is a gap of some two centuries between the work of the first translation team in the late 8th century and the second in the early 11th century it is not surprising that a significantly different manuscript version was in circulation by the time rinchen zangpo was travelling in india in search of books to translate incidentally the surviving sanskrit versions of the bodhicaryāvatāra are all the longer version writing much later still in the 17th century the tibetan scholar tāranātha claimed that there were three versions of the bodhicaryāvatāra a version from eastern india in 700 verses and two different versions from kashmir and central india in 1 000 verses tāranātha then tells a story of two monks being sent to śāntideva to ask which was the correct version to which the author replied that it was the one found in central india the same story is told by buton in his history of buddhism these look very much like post facto justifications that the version already accepted in the tibetan tradition was indeed the correct version i m inclined to agree with saito in his assessment that the version found in dunhuang is earlier and the longer ones that were passed down through the tibetan tradition were based on indian manuscripts that had been supplemented with new verses between the 8th and 11th centuries since the first translation was done quite soon after the time of śāntideva himself who lived in the 8th century the shorter version may represent something close to what the author first circulated the popularity of the text in india meant that it would have been copied multiple times and that it could have been adapted to the needs of the people using it resulting in multiple variously expanded versions circulating in india as we saw in the longer version there is new material in the chapter on wisdom disputing theists and metaphysical dualists and this would have been useful in religious debates i ve written a little bit in the past here on the concepts of originality and authenticity in buddhist texts it is difficult to hold on to the idea of an original and authentic text when one looks at the multiple versions on offer in printed and manuscript versions in manuscript culture in particular it is clear that texts were constantly trimmed augmented and supplemented commentary added in interlinear notes might be inserted into the main text in a later copy whole sentences might disappear due to a copyist s eye s skipping too far down the page at one end of the spectrum there are the scriptural texts that are preserved as much as possible from the innate malleability of manuscript culture as they represent the authority of the tradition and are not actually used much at the other end there are those works that are found to be useful in a variety of ways spread far and wide and are much changed in the process the latter was surely the case with the bodhicaryāvatāra in india later on in tibet as a prestigious text translated from the home of buddhism it became important to designate and preserve an original version though as we have seen due to the quirks of history and politics the version that came to be accepted as authentic in tibet was probably further from the original form than the version that was forgotten not that the shorter version is the original either unless a sanskrit manuscript turns up signed by śāntideva himself we d better not worry about that as for the authentic tibetan version if pressed i would go for the one that has been used with great success by generations of teachers and students the full title is bodhisattvacaryāvatāra literally meaning something like engaging in the activity of a bodhisattva references the above is based on the following works by saito akira saito 1993 a study of akṣayamati śāntideva s bodhisattvacaryāvatāra as found in the tibetan manuscripts from tun huang report of the grant in aid for scientific research published by miye university japan akira saito 2000 a study of the dūn huáng rescension of the bodhisattvacaryāvatāra report of the grant in aid for scientific research published by miye university japan saito s conclusions were discussed in kate crosby and andrew skilton trans 1996 śantideva the bodhicaryāvatāra oxford oxford university press the image at the top is from a 19th century painting see here 19 comments a turk far away from home august 6 2013 october 24 2013 by sam van schaik posted in buddhism china and tibet history manuscripts tibet uighurs detail from iol tib j 1410 there is a sutra from the dunhuang cave that is one of the few truly illuminated manuscripts from this collection that is to say it has small pictures of buddhas complementing the text as you can see from the image above they have either been damaged or perhaps were never completed anyway these illuminations are not the most interesting thing about this manuscript it is a copy of a chinese sutra the shorter sukhāvatīvyūha in tibetan script apparently the scribe who wrote the manuscript knew spoken chinese but not the written characters so used the tibetan alphabet instead but this was not a tibetan in a colophon the scribe writes that he comes from the country of the kyrgyz tibetan gir kis though he now lives in hexi the province that contains dunhuang and another scribble on the back of the page states that though this sutra is written in tibetan thu pod it was written by a turk brug i must say i don t understand the whole of the colophon which seems to be a mixture of tibetan turkic and chinese words but i detect the turkic name kahraman khang re man i could well be wrong but let s call him kahraman detail from iol tib j 1410 so why did kahraman born in the kyrgyz lands end up in dunhuang the uighur turkic empire ruled the northern steppes from the mid 8th to mid 9th century until they were destroyed by their enemies the kyrgyz from then onwards hundreds of uighur turks fled south across the mountains some settled in the turfan region where they established the kingdom of qocho and others ended up in hexi where they ousted the local chinese rulers and set up a kingdom based in ganzhou modern zhangye here surrounded by tibetan and chinese buddhists many of the turks learned to write in chinese or tibetan and adopted buddhism the uighur turks are the ancestors of the modern uighurs of xinjiang province over the following century the uighurs gradually converted to islam however the uighurs of hexi remained buddhists and today are considered a separate ethnic minority in china known as the yugur people if kahraman was a kyrgyz he would be have been living under the rule of his tribe s enemies the uighurs i suppose this is possible but perhaps he was not a kyrgyz after all but was just referring to his homeland as the land that is now ruled by the kyrgyz kahraman seems to have had a grasp of some basic buddhist principles from the colophon we can see that he was familiar with the idea that copying sutras accrues merit and that merit leads to good rebirths his colophon lists a dozen or so buddhist texts mostly by their chinese titles that he has written and then recited in a single day as an offering to the buddha the gods and nagas of the eight quarters and the protectors of the four directions by the merit of this he hopes that one day he will be able to return to his own country and that after he dies he will be born free of suffering not in hell and preferably in the god realms this sutra is a reminder that tibetan was the lingua franca of central asia for a long time and that it allowed people from various backgrounds to communicate with each other it also allowed them to participate in a shared system of religious values and practices centuries later the gansu uighurs had adopted tibetan buddhism along with other aspects of tibetan culture like sky burial and were firmly settled in the region it looks like kahraman was a first generation immigrant adopting the new languages and customs but still hoping to return home one day references a study of the manuscript iol tib j 1410 was published in 1927 by fw thomas and glm clauson mainly dealing with the tibeto chinese phonology thomas s reading of the colophon differs slightly from mine f w thomas and g l m clauson 1927 a second chinese buddhist text in tibetan characters j r a s april 1927 pp 281 306 and supplementary note pp 858 60 on the uighurs at dunhuang see moriyasu takao 2000 the sha chou uighurs and the west uighur kingdom acta asiatica 78 28 48 lilla russell smith 2005 uygur patronage at dunhuang leiden brill and for the uighur manuscript collections a good summary of recent research is this online paper by matsui dai there is not much written on the yugurs carl gustav mannerheim s article published in 1911 a visit to the sarö and shera yögurs is still one of the best accounts you can get a scan of it here apparently the term illuminated manuscript can refer to manuscript embellished with decorations or colours other than black check out michelle brown s excellent understanding illuminated manuscripts the british library 1994 an odd thing about the buddhas in this manuscript is that they are upside down in relation to the text something that has yet to be explained iol tib j 1410 colophon recto stag gi lo i dbyar gir kis yul du ha se to ab ga den chung shi gi khang re man gyis the u kyig shi chor lha tso i yid dam du bsngos te a myi da kyi bam po gcig dang par yang kyi bam po gcig dang kwan im kyi bam po gcig dang ta sim kyi bam po gcig dang phyogs bcu i mtha yas bam po gcig dang bkra shis bam po gcig dang de bur te ci u bam po bcig dang da la ji ci u bam po gcig dang bzang po spyod pa smon lam dang thor bshags la stsogs te gong nas smon pa di rnams yi dam du bris pa di gdugs gcig klag ching sangs rgyas dang lha klu sde brgyad dang phyogs bzhi i mgon po la mchod cing yi dam du bcas te lha tsho tshe lus la bsam pa thams cad grub ching yul du sngar phyin pa dang tshe slad ma la gar skyes kyang sdug bsngal dang bral ching na rag du myi rtung bar byin gyis skabs te lha yul du skye bar shog shig verso di yang de i tshe thu pod yang brug gis bris pa o gar song gar skyes kyang lha yul du skye bar smon no tagged dunhuang cave pictures of buddhas tibetan alphabet 7 comments captain bower s adventurous journey july 4 2013 july 21 2021 by sam van schaik posted in china and tibet history india and tibet india office records tibet uncategorized detail from the cover of hamilton bower s diary of a journey across tibet i first heard of captain hamilton bower as the man who made the first major manuscript find in the central asian deserts the bower manuscript which sparked off the whole international scramble for archaeological treasures by britain france russia and others at the time that he obtained this manuscript in 1889 bower had been sent on the trail of an afghan who had murdered a scottish explorer a couple of years later in 1891 bower was sent on another mission this time to tibet as a spy in disguise with another british officer and an indian pundit bower crossed into western tibet and proceeded towards lhasa but before he r...