Mesheznikov A. Sanskrit Manuscripts of the Serindia Collection (IOM, RAS) as Sources on the History of Buddhism in Khotan // Manuscripta Orientalia. — December 2023. — Vol. 29. — No. 2. — P. 13–24.
This paper provides the information about the study of the Sanskrit manuscript fragments kept in St. Petersburg within the Serindia Collection of the IOM, RAS. Among the Buddhist handwritten rarities in multiple languages discovered in the XIX–XX cc. in so-called Serindia (the eastern part of Central Asia including the oases of the Tarim Basin area, which corresponds with the current-day XUAR of China) Sanskrit manuscripts are of particular importance. Sanskrit originals of Buddhist texts preserved in Central Asian manuscript fragments represent what little remained of the vast Sanskrit written heritage of ancient and early medieval Buddhism. Sanskrit manuscripts found in different subregions of Serindia 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, which is directly related to the formation of the Serindian manuscript tradition. The article focuses on the study of Sanskrit manuscripts, which circulated in the southern oases of the Tarim Basin with its center 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, involving a description of the paleographic and codicological features, identification and analysis of the contents of texts, 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.
26–27 сентября 2023 г. в ИВР РАН пройдет Международная конференция, посвященная 160-летию со дня рождения академика С.Ф. Ольденбурга (1863-1934) «Эпоха Сергея Федоровича Ольденбурга в Российской академии наук».
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