66 siglinde dietz
Its provenance is unknown. The jar in which the fragments were con-
tained is dated to the year twelve of an unspeci ed era. This era must
be the Kanika era, i.e., early second century AD.^100 The inscription
refers to a gift of the Dharmaguptaka school. A study and catalogue
of this collection is currently being prepared by M. Allon.^101
3.) The University of Washington scroll kept at the University of
Washington Library in Seattle consists of eight fragments of a single
birch bark scroll which apparently belonged to an abhidharma text or
another scholastic commentary. While its provenance is unknown, it
can be dated to the rst or second century AD.
4.) The Pelliot fragments in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
at Paris^102 are eight miscellaneous fragments of palm leaf folios. The
text of one of these fragments utilises Sanskrit in Kharo h script.
The fragments contain narrative and doctrinal texts which are not
yet identi ed. They originate from Subashi and Khitai Bazaar, near
Kucha, Xinjiang, and can be tentatively dated to the second to third
century AD. These fragments were published by R. Salomon 1998.
The language of fragment 1 is more or less standard Sanskrit, that of
fragments 2 and 3 is Sanskritised Gndhr. Script and language of the
eighth fragment seem to be somewhat more archaic than those of the
others and it could, therefore, be a little older than the just mentioned
fragments.^103 Salomon^104 draws the conclusion that the variation in the
Sanskrit-Kharo h language of these fragments shows the important
role which these kinds of manuscripts played in the early translations
of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. This nicely con rms the above
mentioned Gndhr hypothesis of D. Boucher to the effect that the
Chinese translators worked on the basis of oral recitation of Indic texts
that were heavily Prakritised.^105
5.) The Schøyen Kharo h fragments are kept in a private collection
in Norway. These 135 small fragments of palm leaf folios are the rem-
nants of several dozen different manuscripts of diverse contents. They
(^100) At the XIVth Conference of the International Association of Buddhist Studies
(London, 2005), Mark Allon presented the results from a radiocarbon test of the Senior
manuscripts which, when combined with the data from the inscription favours a date
for Kanika in the late 120s AD, and rules out the traditional date of 78 AD.
(^101) Salomon 2003, p. 74.
(^102) Salomon 1998.
(^103) Salomon 1998, p. 149.
(^104) Salomon 1998, p. 151.
(^105) Boucher 1998, p. 471.