
Picture-Aurel Stein Collection in British Library, London
Post No. 12,402
Date uploaded in London – – 11 August, 2023
Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com
Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge.
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https://www.pustaka.co.in/home/author/london-swaminathan
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Sanskrit in Muslim Countries- Part 2
First part was published yesterday.
The Sven Hedin collections
Sven Hedin, (February 19, 1865 – November 26, 1952), was Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer who led through Central Asia a series of expeditions.

Sven Hedin’s expeditions to Asia resulted in collections of material of the most varied kinds, today housed with a number of museums and institutions primarily, in Sweden, but also in other parts of the world. The collections span a range of materials; ethnographic (in a wide sense) and archaeological objects, botanical and zoological specimens, paleontological and paleobotanical collections, geological samples, collections of manuscripts, block-prints and books in Central and East Asian languages
To them are added similar collections related to scientists who worked with Sven Hedin during his last set of expeditions (1927-35)
Collections of written materials on wood and paper
Sven Hedin’s early expeditions to Central Asia resulted in the acquisition of written documents on paper and wood. The ones acquired in Khotan in 1896 have turned out to be “vintage” forgeries of Saka/Khotanese texts from Islam Akhun’s workshop. They are kept with the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm.
A document in Sanskrit simultaneously acquired has, on the other hand, been proven genuine. It is today to be found in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St. Petersburg.
During the Sino-Swedish Expedition (1927-35) minor collections of Saka/Khotanese, Uighur, and Xixia/Tangut documents, often fragments, were acquired, and are today kept in the Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm.
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Among the literary works in ancient Turkic, are some Tantric text, many Avadana literature.
Among the Jataka tales, we have Sasa Jataka. The Turkic title Tisatvustik is derived from Sanskrit Disaa- svastika narrating the story of Trapusa and Bhallika.
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Aurel Stein Collection
Aurel Stein discovered several hundred Kharosthi documents in Chinese Turkistan. These documents show affinity between local language Niya Prakrit and Sanskrit :
Maharaja – maharaya
Daasi- dajhi
Ustra – uta
Taksana -tacchamna
Bhojana – bhoyamna
(Niya Prakrit or Niya Gāndhārī is a Middle Indian language from the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. Having its origins in Northern Pakistan, it came to the southern oases of the Tarim Basin in present-day North-West China, where it was the administrative language of the Shànshàn kingdom, a short-lived state on the Silk Road. The language is named after the archaeological site Niya in the Shànshàn area, where over 750 documents were found, written in the Niya Prakrit language and in the Kharoshthī script.)
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In British Library
The collection contains over 45,000 manuscripts and printed documents on paper, wood and other materials from different sites along the Silk Road.
About the collection
Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) was a British-Hungarian explorer and archaeologist. Between 1900 and 1916 he carried out three expeditions to Central Asia, conducting excavations, as well as geographical surveys and photography.
The British Library Stein collection includes items of enormous international cultural significance. A few of its highlights are:
The Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 CE
The Sogdian Ancient Letters, dated to 313-314 CE
The Old Tibetan Annals, covering the period from 643 to 764 CE
In addition, the Stein collection also contains material in several other languages, such as Tangut, Khotanese, Sanskrit, Kuchean, Sogdian, Uighur, Turkic and Mongolian.
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From Tibet
A lot of Sanskrit translations in Tibetan monasteries gathering dust.
Ye Shaoyong, a prominent Chinese Sanskrit scholar, first came across the old yellowed palm leaves from Drepung, one of Tibet’s most important monasteries, he was intrigued by the letters on the page. The 14 palm leaves he found bore ancient writing, older than anything that the Sanskrit professor from Peking University had ever seen. That day in 2003, Ye stumbled upon one of the oldest undiscovered Sanskrit texts from India-a 2nd century text, the Mulamadhyamakakarika, one of the founding texts of Mahayana Buddhism that had, until Ye’s discovery, only ever been seen referenced in quotations in later commentaries.
Chinese scholars say this rare palm leaf is among hundreds-possibly thousands-that still lie in Tibet’s monasteries, carrying a trove of more than thousand-year-old information about Indian philosophical thought and history, from between the 2nd and 14th centuries.
So far, more than 500 bundles of palm leaves have been discovered-each containing thousands of lines of text-and Tibet’s monasteries could very well hold many more. Most of this text was hundreds of years ago copied in India and Nepal, and brought to Tibet.
The texts of Tibet
Among the hundreds of Sanskrit manuscripts, these five philosophical texts are in the first batch being edited, catalogued and translated.
1.Mulamadhyamakakarika
A text from the 2nd or 3rd century that, some scholars say, carries the most authoritative philosophical explanation of emptiness, a key premise of Mahayana Buddhism.
2.Lankavatara Sutra
One of the key texts for Buddhists that records a conversation between Buddha and a Bodhisattva, set in Lanka.
3.Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra
The ‘perfection of wisdom in 8,000 lines’ is one of the oldest surviving Sanskrit texts.
4.Pramanaviniscaya
A text written by Dharmakirti, an influential Indian scholar who was in Nalanda in the 6th century.
5.Bhadrakalpikasutra
A text found in Xinjiang dating back to 4th or 5th century. It’s one of the earliest teachings of the Buddha that became popular in China after being translated into Chinese by the Indian monk Dharmaraksha.
—subham–
Tags- Sanskrit collections, Muslim Countries, Tibet, British Library, Aurel Stein, Sven Hedin
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