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Four Gandhari Samyuktagama Sutras continues the study of Gandharan Buddhist texts and is the first investigation of a scroll from the Senior Collection of Kharosthi manuscripts. The Senior Collection, which is named after its owner, Robert Senior (Glastonbury, U.K.), consists of twenty-four birch bark scrolls or scroll fragments with at least forty-one Buddhist texts written in the Gandhari language and Kharosthi script. Senior scroll number 5, one of the best preserved of all Kharosthi manuscripts, contains four short sutras that give a first-hand account of meditation practice in Gandhara in the middle of the second century A.D. The first sutra, which has no direct parallel in other Buddhist literatures, presents a description of four visualization exercises, three of which are unique to the Gandharan tradition. The second sutra is a teaching of non-self, which is also found in Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan. The third and fourth sutras, also available in Pali and Chinese, emphasize the role of meditation in progressing toward enlightenment. This volume details the textual background of the Samyuktagama, a major collection of Buddhist scriptures arranged by topic, and places Gandhari Samyuktagama Sutras in this context. Andrew Glass compares the sutras with the parallel versions in Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan and presents a transcription and reconstruction of the text, together with an English translation. He also covers the paleography, orthography, phonology, and morphology of the text and offers a detailed analytic commentary on each sutra. Mark Allon discusses the significance of the Senior Collection to the ongoing textual studies. Appendices provide editions and translations of the parallel texts in Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan. There is also a complete word index to the Gandhari text, as well as Chinese-Gandhari and Tibetan-Gandhari indexes. For more information go to the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project web site at http://www.ebmp.org/

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Three Gandhari Ekottarikagama-Type Sutras continues the Gandharan Buddhist Texts studies of the first-century A.D. birch bark scrolls in the British Library's Kharosthi manuscript collection. It describes the text found on two fragments which constitute the lower part of a scroll and consists of the remnants of three sutras. All three sutras are relatively short and have an association with the number four, which suggests that they are from a Gandhar- Ekottarikagama, a collection of short discourses grouped according to numerical principles and one of the major collections of writings in the Buddhist canon. The first sutra records a discussion in which a brahman asks the Buddha four questions. The second su-tra, like the third, depicts the Buddha preaching to monks. The structure of this sutra is based on the four postures: walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. The Buddha’s discourse in the third sutra concerns the four efforts (or abandonings). The book describes the condition of the scroll and its reconstruction; examines in detail the literary and textual background of the sutras, comparing them with other extant versions and parallels in other languages; and presents a transcription of the extant text, a reconstruction, and an English translation. It includes chapters on the paleography, orthography, phonology, and morphology of the text, and offers a detailed analytic commentary. For more information go to the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project web site at http://www.ebmp.org/

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This volume continues the detailed examination of the British Library Kharosthi scrolls--extremely fragile and brittle fragments of manuscript on birch-bark rolls. Although their provenance is uncertain, there are strong indications that they came from Hadda in eastern Afghanistan and were most likely written in the early first century A.D. during the reign of the Saka rulers, making them the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts. Fragments 16 and 25 are two long, relatively narrow fragments that obviously belong to the same scroll. Two texts were written on the scroll, each by a different scribe. The first text, referred to as the Gandhari London Dharmapada, represents an anthology of verses well known in the Buddhist tradition. The second text is a series of stories concerning previous births of the Buddha and of some of his disciples. For more information go to the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project web site at http://www.ebmp.org/

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