The Spread of Buddhism

82 xavier tremblay

2.2.2. The Kua Reign

Buddhism in Bactria

Not a lot is known about the  rst Buddhist missions to Bactria. At

 rst, the missions were purely oral: the early libraries (especially the

British Library Kharo

h fragments) did not contain many stras, but

rather canvases for predication.^19 Also, we cannot know from where the

monks came in Bactria: from Gandhra to be sure,^20 but probably also

from the Central Gangetic parts of India. The absence of preserved

Bactrian Buddhist texts prior to the  fth century^21 and of manuscripts

from Termez written in the Kharo

h script obscures any conclusion.

However, in Bamiyan, the manuscripts of the Schøyen collection

include, besides more than 130 Kharo

h fragments (at least thirty of

which may be Mahynic), thousands of Brhm fragments of the third

century (MSC I, pp. 1ff.) and more frequently the fourth or  fth, on

palm-leafs. This clearly shows that the Schøyen manuscripts belong to

a tradition that was at least originally independent from Gandhra. In

the third century, Kharo

h was still in use in Gandhra, and palm-

leafs, possibly blank,^22 had to be imported from Central India.

It is unclear whether the “Western” translators of Buddhist treatises into

Chinese who were given the family name Zhi (for “Yuezhi ”, i.e.

Kua) were in fact Bactrian, and even if they were really of Bactrian

ascendancy, whether they considered themselves to be Bactrian.^23

(^19) Salomon 1999a, p. 24 and Sander 1991, pp. 141f. Stras were mostly learnt by
heart: Faxian, T.2085.51.864b17–19, 21 (Giles 1965, p. 64): “Fa-hsien’s object was to
get copies of the Disciplines; but in the various countries of Northern India these were
handed down orally from one Patriarch to another, there being no written volume
which he could copy. Therefore he extended his journey as far as Central India [.. .];
as to the other texts, the Eighteen Schools have each one the commentary of its own
Patriarch.” Xuanzang praised the monks of Kashgar thus: “Without understanding
the principles, they recite many religious chants; therefore there are many who can
say throughout the three Pi akas and the Vibhsh” (T.2087.51.942c20–21; Beal, 1884,
book 12, p. 307). Buddhaya as impressed the Chinese by reciting and translating the
Dharmaguptakavinaya by heart. See Gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks),
T.2059.50.334b15–19; Shih 1968, p. 89. Cf. Lévi 1915; Lamotte 1958, p. 164. 20
The Indian loanwords in Bactrian and Sogdian point to a Gndhr origin.
(^21) The Ayrtam inscription from the fourth year of Huvika (ca. 110 or 140),
engraved on behalf of a dignitary named odia (< *Fu-daƒah-?), is too fragmentary
to be understood; whereas it was en graved around a stpa, it mentions a 
(“temple to the gods”).
(^22) Cf. Sander 1991, p. 138. At least one case of palm-leafs brought in from and written
in Gandhra or the Tarim Basin can be made out: the Kharo
h fragment of the Mahpari-
nirv 23 a on palm-leaf in the Oldenburg collections. See Litvinsky et al. 1996, p. 435.
This uncertainty concerns also  gures like the Buddhist monk from Termez of the
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