2019, Vol., No.25

불교학리뷰 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.5

pISSN : 1975-2660
https://journal.kci.go.kr/crbs

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.