An Unpublished Fragment SI 4645 of the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra from the Serindia Collection of the IOM, RAS
Abstract
The article provides a study of a newly discovered manuscript fragment from the Serindia Collection (IOM, RAS), containing the Sanskrit text of the Lotus Sutra. Currently, the group of the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra manuscripts from the Serindia Collection comprises 28 items. Some folios and fragments among them remain unpublished. The goal of the article is to introduce to the specialists a previously unpublished fragment of the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra. This manuscript fragment is preserved in the Oldenbourg sub-collection (part of the Serindia Collection), call mark SI 4645. According to the documents from the IOM RAS archive, this fragment was acquired by Serguei F. Oldenbourg in Kizil-Karga during his first expedition to Eastern Turkestan (1909-1910). The text of the manuscript is an excerpt from the 4th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, which contains “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”. The article provides facsimile reproduction of the fragment SI 4645 accompanied by transliteration and translation into Russian. It also outlines the physical features of the manuscript, provides a brief description of the text of the fragment SI 4645 and offers its comparison with the other well-known texts of the Lotus Sutra. The comparison of the fragment with several texts representing two Sanskrit “editions” (versions) of the Lotus Sutra shows that the fragment SI 4645 stands closer to the Gilgit-Nepalese “edition” of the Sutra, while the majority of the Lotus Sutra manuscripts from the Serindia Collection reveal features of the Central Asian “edition”.
About the Author
Artem V. Mesheznikov
Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the RAS
Russian Federation
Competing Interests:
Russian Federation
Artem V. Mesheznikov - Junior Research Fellow, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Saint Petersburg.
Competing Interests:
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
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For citation:
Mesheznikov A.V. An Unpublished Fragment SI 4645 of the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra from the Serindia Collection of the IOM, RAS. Orientalistica. 2021;4(2):419-433. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31696/2618-7043-2021-4-2-419-433
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