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Chapter 3
The Transmission of Sanskrit Manuscripts
from India to Tibet: The Case of a Manuscript
Collection in the Possession of Atiśa
Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (980–1054)
Kazuo Kano
Hardly any Sanskrit manuscripts of Buddhist scriptures remain in India today,
even though such manuscripts have been discovered in surrounding regions.
Tibet in particular is one of the richest treasuries of precious Sanskrit manu-
scripts from as early as the 8th century. These became widely known to the
scholarly world in the 1930s thanks to discoveries by Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana
(1893–1963) in monasteries of Tsang (Tib. gTsang) province, in the Western
part of Central Tibet. He had little success, however, in accessing Sanskrit
manuscripts in monasteries of Ü (Tib. dBus) province, in the Eastern part of
the Central Tibet among which Retreng (Tib. Rwa sgreng) monastery1 was
especially famous for its rare manuscript collection. Retreng, the former cen-
tre of the Kadam tradition located about 120 km to the Northwest of Lhasa,
was founded by Dromtön Gyalwe jungne (Tib. ’Brom ston rGyal ba’i ’byung
gnas, 1008–1064) in 1056. The aim of the present paper is to trace the Sanskrit
manuscript collection once preserved at Retreng monastery by focusing on the
- I am grateful for English proofreading to Mr. Philip Pierce. The present paper is
an improved version of Kano Kazuo 加納和雄, “Atiśa ni yuraisuru retin ji kyūzō
no bonbun shahon: 1934 nen no chibetto ni okeru bonpon chōsa wo kiten to shite
アティシャに由来するレティン寺旧蔵の梵文写本―1934年のチベットにおける梵
本調査を起点として― [Rāhula Sāṅkrityāyana’s Visit to Rwa sgreng Monastery in 1934
and a Sanskrit Manuscript Collection in the Possession of Atiśa Once Preserved at Rwa
sgreng],” Indo ronrigaku kenkyū インド論理学研究 [Studies of Indian Logic] 4 (2012):
123–161. A very valuable study dealing with topics relevant to what I discussed in “Rāhula,”
was recently published in van der Kuijp, Leonard W. J., and McKeown, Arthur P., Bcom ldan
ral gri (1227–1305) on Indian Buddhist Logic and Epistemology: His Commentary on Dignāga’s
Pramāṇasamuccaya (Vienna: University of Vienna, 2013), xi–xvi. It seems, however, that my
article “Rāhula” was not known to the authors.
1 For historical sources on Retreng, see Kano, “Rāhula,” 123, n. 1.