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This article examines aspects of the production of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Dīrghāgama (Collection of Long Discourses) manuscript produced in or around the area of Gilgit in Pakistan that was discovered in last decade of the 20th century. The manuscript was the product of a long copying tradition and the only extant witness was copied by a scriptorium consisting of several scribes. The techniques used by a pair of scribes referred to as Scribe C and Scribe D are discussed demonstrating their unique collaboration to copy this manuscript. Interlinear marks left by these scribes on birch bark folios will be discussed with the hope that in pointing out such marks, which appear to be relatively unique to a particular scribe, we will be able to identify the work of certain scribes across manuscripts. The second portion of the article discusses the phenomenon of repair made to the birch bark folios of the Dīrghāgama manuscript as well as pointing out similar instances of repair in other manuscripts from the Gilgit area. These repairs to manuscripts raise questions concerning the production of birch bark folios and how they were selected and used by Buddhist manuscript traditions in Gilgit in the first millennium of the Common Era.

The study of the Avadānaśataka was placed upon a firm philological foundation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but more manuscripts have since become available, prompting questions about the history of this Buddhist narrative collection. The present article mainly considers what new light one such manuscript, Nepal German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP) MS E-1554/24, may shed upon this history and other issues related to the study of this work. It argues that evidence remains inconclusive for establishing the hypothesis that NGMPP E-1554/24 is the direct source for Cambridge University Library (CUL) MS Add 1611, the primary witness for the principal modern edition of the work, but the essay also engages a series of broader questions about how we use manuscripts, what questions those manuscripts can answer, and how scholars interested in Buddhist narrative literature could best spend their time. It calls for scholars to direct efforts toward making works of Buddhist narrative literature like the Avadānaśataka and the Kalpadrumāvadānamālā more widely accessible, and establishing the intertextual relationships between them and other works of Buddhist narrative literature. This will require a compete new translation of the former, an edition and translation of the latter, and indeed a reconceptualization of the task at hand.

The Sanskrit education has seldom been the main source of interest in the circle of professional Sanskritists worldwide, inculding Korea. However, confronting the drastic change of social settings around higher education makes more serious consideration and discussion of Sanskrit education timely. This paper, concentrating exclusively on Sanskrit course books, points out some structural problems that are hardly avoidable for any Sanskrit course book. And a short genealogy of Sanskrit grammar books is introduced and contextualized, in order to reveal the historical contexts of the widely used Sanskrit course books, and their specific features that deal with structural and practical problems of didactic presentations of the language. On the course, the meaning and stance of W. D. Whitneyʼs grammar book, used in western academia, is clarified and discussed to contextualize the Sanskrit Primer of Perry, which is an English translation of Bühlerʼs Leitfaden, but declared a separate publication based on Perryʼs subjective estimation. This marks a paradigm shift in the preparation of a course book that, at least nominally, departs from the Pāṇinian tradition. Nowadays, textbooks show various attempts to find the optimal educational focus, while respecting and adopting advantageous aspects of the Indian traditions. So far, Korean textbooks (worth mentioning) have not yet developed, and so English publications are widely used in college level Sanskrit courses in Korea. Critical reviews of some frequently used English textbooks are included and mention is made of the practical applicability for Korean students of those individual materials. The latest trend of textbooks that reflect the changes in the media environment is introduced and the need for an open attitude to cope with this trend is raised.

Wonhyo (元曉, 617-686) composed Neungga-Jongyo (楞伽宗要) before his commentary on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (henceforth AFM) and he has a deep understanding of the thought of the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra (henceforth LAS). When he annotated the AFM, Wonhyo mainly referred to the LAS for the interpretation of the Gateway of the Mind as Arising and Ceasing (xinshengmie men 心生滅門). This means that Wonhyo based his interpretation of the Theory of Mind and Cognition (心識說) in the AFM, on the LAS. This can specially be confirmed by the intensive citation from chapter two and chapter six of the existing Sanskrit text of the LAS. Chapter two of the LAS is the section which explains the unique theory of mind and cognition and chapter six is the section which explains the sameness between the Tathāgatagarbha and the ālayavijñāna for the first time. This paper examines the specific aspects of the citation of the LAS. It focuses on the citation of phrases from the LAS, which are used to comment on the two sentences of the Gateway of the Mind as Arising and Ceasing in the AFM. As a result, Wonhyo changed the meaning of the text by partially quoting from a longer sentences and paragraphs and interpreting differently from the original concept of the Sanskrit text defferently. On the one hand, he used a terminology which was added only to the Chinese translations of the LAS that are not found in the original Sanskrit text. And the other hand, by relying on the context of the Chinese translations of LAS, which are completely different from the original Sanskrit text, and by selectively citing from a long paragraph, the initial meaning is lost. He then used these Chinese translation as evidence in his arguments. Through this citation method, the scriptures of the LAS have digressed from the context of the original text, and have been diversely transformed, reinterpreted or even distorted. For example, the word originally meaning the relative generic feature (jātilakṣaṇa) is translated to mean the ‘True Nature of Things (zhenxiang 眞相)’, which in turn is used to mean the ‘True Aspect of the ālayavijñāna (zhenshi 眞識)’ in contrast to the ‘Deluded Mind (wangshi 妄識)’. And the word meaning the continuity within the process of reincarnation, is transformed to mean of ‘the Not-Arising and Not-Ceasing (busheng bumie 不生不滅)’, instead of the Arising and Ceasing (shengmie 生滅). And finally, the term defining the Samādhi, is translated into the ‘Singleness of Mind (yixin 一心)’, and then used as evidence of the possession of two aspects of the ‘Singleness of Mind’, which are the Gateway of the Mind as Suchness (xin zhenru men 心眞如門) and the Gateway of the Mind as Arising and Ceasing. Wonhyo’s citation of LAS might be an example of the East Asian transformation process relating to the understanding and interpretation of the Sutra compiled in India.