the spread of buddhism in serindia 99- It is true that most manuscripts in Gndhr belong to the
Dharmaguptakas, but virtually all schools—inclusive Mahyna—used
some Gndhr. Von Hinüber (1982b and 1983) has pointed out incom-
pletely Sanskritised Gndhr words in works heretofore ascribed to the
Sarvstivdins and drew the conclusion that either the sectarian attribu-
tion had to be revised, or the tacit dogma Gndhr = Dharmaguptaka
is wrong.^112 Conversely, Dharmaguptakas also resorted to Sanskrit.^113 - As a matter of fact, the inscriptions of the rst century AD, irre-
spective of all sectarian af liation, document a massive trend towards
Sanskritisation of Gndhr , before Buddhism reached Central Asia.^114
This is true also for the Dharmaguptaka inscriptions. It would conse-
quently be very surprising that the Dharmaguptakas would have clung
to “pure” Gndhr in (all) their manuscripts, while they Sanskritised
the inscriptions.^115 - There is in fact a memory barrier around 550 AD: the period
prior to literacy in vernaculars is very poorly known. This period cor-
responds both in Kucha and in Khotan to Kharo
h ’s falling into disuse,
whereby most of the early records and manuscripts became obsolete.
A duality or multiplicity of scribal traditions, the ones in Gndhr
and Kharo
h , the others in Sanskrit and Brhm , with interminglings,
including non-Buddhist works,^116 was replaced by a predominance of
one tradition in each city.
3.1. Khotan
Given the above data, it is no surprise that for the beginnings of
Buddhism in Khotan most authors quote legends.^117 These can in no
way be used in historical reconstructions: it is at best impossible to assess
what degree of truth lies in them as long as no primary evidence either(^112) See also Nakatani 1984, pp. 141f., and von Hinüber 1989a, p. 358.
(^113) Waldschmidt 1980, pp. 164–168; von Hinüber 1989a, p. 354 and Chung & Wille
- Cf. also KI 510, mentioned in note 129. 114
Fussman 1989a, pp. 485–487. See also also von Hinüber 1989a, pp. 350–354.
(^115) Even if some manuscripts in Gndhr continued to be copied after the extinc-
tion of the language: the text of the Khotan Dharmapada can be dated ca. 50 BC, the
manuscript between 100 and 250 AD (Fussman 1989a, pp. 436–438, 464). 116
The majority of the earliest Kucha manuscripts is profane: medical texts, kvya
poetry, Mahbharata, Kmastra, and so on. “Mixed” manuscripts (with partly Buddhist
contents) nevertheless suggest that they were copied by Buddhists (see Franco 2004).
(^117) Stein 1907, vol. 1, pp. 223–235; Lamotte 1958, pp. 281–283; Emmerick 1967,
pp. 23–25; 1992, p. 2; Skjærvø 1999, pp. 276–283.
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