Exploring Sanskrit Buddhist Canon
Min Bahadur Shakya
Director
Nagarjuna institute of Exact Methods
Chakupat, Lalitpur
Contents:
Introduction:
Exploring Sanskrit Buddhist canon
Restoration of lost Sanskrit Buddhist literature and its importance
Digitization of Sanskrit Buddhist canon
Conclusion
I. Introduction:
We know that the various editions of Tibetan Kanjur contain the translation of the most of the important texts of
Sanskrit Buddhist canons. In the catalogue index of Tibetan Kanjur prepared by Dharma Publishing there are more than 1000 Sanskrit titles in it.
Among them only 10 percent are available in original Sanskrit.
The canons of other schools of the Hinayana are largely identical to the Pali canonical tradition of the Theravada; however, they are however compiled in other languages or dialects
The Vinaya Pitaka is found without too much variation in almost all schools.
The Sutta pitaka shows more variations, however, none of them being of a fundamental nature. In Sanskrit it is mostly referred to as the Agama Pitaka. The large body of literature concerning Agama texts is available only in
Chinese Translations. Often Agama texts are longer than Sutta texts.
Concerning the Abhidhamma Pitaka there is no agreement with Abhidharma literature in Sanskrit. This could be explained by the later date of the redaction.
A lot of Sanskrit texts have been lost and only are extant in their Chinese and or Tibetan translations.
Besides the Theravada school, the only other school with a completed (i.e. closed) canon is the Mulasarvastivada school.
A great number of fragments are still being discovered, mostly in Sanskrit or Central Asian languages (Sogdian,
Tokhari, Khotanese,).

II.
Nepal, Central Asia, Gilgit, Beijing-China, Tibetan Autonomous regions, Japan, UK/USA, will be dealt with.
Nepal has the largest repository of Buddhist Sanskrit literature dealing with different aspects of Mahayana creeds and practices. The monk scholars as well as Vajracharya Pandits have contributed in producing and preserving Buddhist manuscripts
It was not until the advent of Sir Brian B. Hodgson (1824-1842 AD.) a British diplomat in Nepal, discovered a great number of Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts in Nepal.
The existence of these Sanskrit Buddhist Manuscripts before his time was unknown, and his discovery entirely revolutionized the history of Buddhism, as Europeans knew it in the early part of this century. Copies of these works, totaling 381 bundles of manuscripts have been distributed so as to render them accessible to European scholars.
Of these 86 eighty-six manuscripts comprising 179 separate works, many were presented to
Asiatic Society of Bengal: 1
85 to the Royal Asiatic Society of London;
30 to the Indian Office Library;
7 to the Bodleian Library, Oxford;
174 to the
Société Asiatique, and to
French scholar Eugene Bernouf.
The last two collections have since been deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale of France.
It is in Nepal that most of the Sanskrit Buddhist documents have been found. Most of the manuscripts originally preserved in Nepal have been carried out of the country by the pioneers of the modern Indology.
At present following organizations are working hard for the preservation of these Sanskrit
Buddhist mss in Nepal.
1. National Archives: It has recently published a catalogue of all the important Sanskrit
Buddhist texts numbering 1800.
2. Nepal German Mss.Preservation Project : NGMPP has published a catalogue of all microfilmed mss from National archive and the center’s collection.
3. Asha Archives In collaboration with the Buddhist Library of Japan, Nagoya, the
Asha Archives has recently completed the digitalization of its 7025 titles of manuscripts. All the manuscripts including their paintings and illuminations are available on CD-ROM (368 cd's) The Collections in this archives there are several valuable collections of palm leaf, loose leaf pothi and folded manuscripts .
1 A summary of contents of 85 Mss was published as Sanskrit Buddhist literature of Nepal by Rajendra Lal Mitra in
1882 published by The Asiatic Society of Bengal,Calcutta.

4. Keshar Library: .Keshar Library has preserved valuable Buddhist Mss which is worth mentioning dating back as early as 13th century..
II. Central Asia:
As we discussed, the discovery of Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts in Nepal has revolutionized the history of Buddhism and its academic study.
In the beginning of the 20th century, from a series of missions in Central Asia Prof.A.F.
Rudolf Hoernle, Prof. Stein Konow, Prof. A. Stein and others have reported an existence of number of Sanskrit Buddhist Manuscripts, Prakrit,Uigurs,Sogdian, Tokhania and others in
Central Asia
2
.. As much as 33 Sanskrit Buddhist texts were published in fragments or some in full text. The Central Asia Manuscripts belong to all the major form of Buddhism.
Some of these important texts are as follows:
1. Samgiti Sutra-Dirghagama
2. Atanatia sutra-Dirghagama
3. Upali Sutra-Madhyamagama
4. Suka Sutra-Madhyamagama
5. Pravarana Sutra-Samuktagama
6. Candropama Sutra-do
7. Sakti Sutra-do
8. Ratnarasi sutra-Ratnakuta Class
9. Ratnadhvaja Sutra-Mahasannipata class
10. Candragarbha Sutra-do
11. Bhadrapala Sutra-do
12. Mahaparinirvana Sutra-Nirvana class
13. Suramgama samadhi sutra and several others.
In 1931 Several Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts were discovered in a Stupa near Gilgit in
Kashmir. The Manuscripts were written in 5th or 6th century A.D and are some of the earliest manuscripts discovered at the times. Most of these mss. are known through Chinese and Tibetan translations and not in their original Sanskrit.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Nalinkasa Dutta who edited and published a series of rare texts worthy of praise and admiration. These titles are
1. Samadhiraja sutra –
2.Vajrachedika Prajnaparamita
3.Maitreyavyakarna
4.Ajitasenavyakarana
5.Hayagrivavidya
6.Mulasarvastivadavinaya vastu
7.Arya Buddhabaladhana sutra
2 The report was published in the text" Manuscript remains of Buddhist literature found in Eastern Turkestan" published by Sri Satguru Publication-Delhi , 1988 and first Oxford edition at 1916

8.Ekadasamukham
9.Sri mahadevi vyakaranam
10.Sarvatathagata adhisthana vyuha and so forth.
3
IV.
Another important discovery is the Schoyen's collections
"THE STOLEN (AFGHANI) DEAD SEA SCROLLS OF BUDDHISM/SCHØYEN
COLLECTION"
Buddhist manuscripts smuggled out of Afghanistan now in Norwegian collection of Buddhist manuscripts from Afghanistan acquired by Martin Schoyen are now kept in his private manuscript collection 4 . The Norwegian media has written quite a bit about the Schoyencollection in the course of the last few months. The coverage was initially positive, but lately more critical views regarding the collection have been aired. The Egyptian authorities, through their ambassador, are now considering a claim on the return of Egyptian objects in the collection.
The current debate in Norway concerning the Schoyen-collection The Norwegian collector
Martin Schoyen is the formal owner of the alleged largest private collection of ancient manuscripts in the world.
3 Gilgit Manuscripts four volumes-9 parts published by Sri Satguru Publications,
4 http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.19/index.html#2179
Parts of the collection are presented on a web-page (in English) by the Norwegian
National Library: http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/

I) Sutra: a) Agama:
1. Camgisutra,
Qualities of Devadatta, and of a Kavikumaravadana, -
-Jens-Uwe Hartmann
2. Fragments from the Mahaparinirvanasutra, Klaus Wille
3. Fragments of a Sanskrit Version of the Andhasutta, of a Sutra on the Three Bad Moral
Siglinde Dietz b) Mahayana:
4.
New fragments from the Astasåhasrikå Prajñaparamita of the Kusana period,
Lore Sander
5. Candrottaradarikavyakara, -Jens Braarvig, Paul Harrison
6. Fragments of the Saddharmapundarikasutra, Hirofumi Toda
Andrew Skilton 7. Samadhirajasutra,
8.
Larger Sukhåvativyuha,
Paul Harrison, Jens-Uwe Hartmann,
Kazunobu Matsuda
9. Another Fragment of the Ajåtasatrukaukrtyavinodanasutra,
Paul Harrison, Jens-Uwe Hartmann
II) Vinaya:
1. Mahåsånghika-vinaya, Seishi Karashima
2. Manuscript Remains of a Karmavacana Collection:
III) Abhidharma:
1. Three Fragments Related to the Sariputra-Abhidharma, Kazunobu Matsuda
IV) Miscellaneous:
1. 2nd century Abhidharma Commentary, Lambert Schmithausen,
Lore Sander, Jens Braarvig
2. A Sanskrit Fragment Mentioning King Huviska as a Follower of the Mahayana,
Richard Salomon
Stefan Baums
5. Poetical Texts
4. Jyotiskavadana,
Buddhastotras by Matrceta,
The Jatakamala of AryaSura,
Haribatta’s Jatakamala,
Jens-Uwe Hartmann
Jens-Uwe Hartmann
Michael Hahn
IV. Discovery of Buddhist Manuscript in Tibetan Autonomous regions
In year 2004, Prof. ERNST STEINKELLNER published his extensive article"
-
from ROYAL NETHERLANDS ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES,
Amsterdam.
Here is the summary of his article.
The Tibetan kingdom reached the apex of its power and extension by the end of the 8th century A.D. and the new religion was officially adopted by king Khri-srong I lde-btsan (755-797AD)for his people in 779

AD. The first monastery, bSam-yas, was founded in A.D. 775_ with the help of the famous Indian scholar
SantaraksI ita who ordained the first Tibetan monks in A.D. 779
Translating the scriptures and scholastic treatises, mainly from Sanskrit, but also from Chinese, was considered to be a major task during this period. The following kings, particularly
Khri-gtsug lde-btsan alias Ral-pa-can (A.D. 815-841), _ continued this policy. The list of works deposited in the palace of lHan-kar. As mentions seven hundred and twenty-two texts translated and seven texts under preparation.
All these translations were done by teams consisting of Indian, Tibetan and
Chinese monastic scholars. For the translations of Sanskrit texts these teams must have been working on the basis of manuscripts brought from the Indian Buddhist realm.
What happened to these original materials after they were translated into Tibetan, we can only guess.
They were certainly treated carefully and with the highest respect and in all probability safely kept in the royal palaces and the early temples, much in the same way as they were kept in later times.
The so-called ‘‘later spread of the doctrine’’was initiated by the fervently Buddhist kings of the Western
Tibetan kingdom. It began with king Ye-ses-’od’s strong efforts to re-establish the links to authoritative
Buddhist traditions. Young Tibetans were sent to neighboring Kashmir and its monasteries to learn the language of the Holy Scriptures, to translate, and to acquire Sanskrit manuscripts to be translated in the new royal realm.
Rin-chen bzanI -po, the leading figure of this period, reportedly worked on one hundred and sixty-eight translations. Another Indian scholar of renown was invited to Western Tibet. Atisa (A.D. 982-1054) who subsequently went to Central Tibet to continue his missionary work. Monastic centres soon began to develop again
Again Tibetans went to India and Nepal, and Indian scholars, monks and practitioners were invited to
Tibet. Manuscripts were imported once more and translated in much the same way they had been during the old kingdom.
Clearly the influx of Indian Buddhists and Buddhist material from the 11th century onwards was also substantially enhanced by the fact that Muslim raids swept through Northern India with steadily increasing pressure during this period.
The great centers of Buddhist learning as for example in the Pala realm, were destroyed near the turn to the thirteenth century, and with them their libraries"_: Odantapura, Vikramasila , Somapura, and
Jagaddala. Nalanda ,"_ founded before the middle of the _th century, was already a ruin when the Chag lotsaba Chos rjes- dpal alias Dharmasvamin visited. The libraries had long ago been turned to ashes, and
Dharmasvamin could not take a single manuscript back home.
All the manuscripts he brought back to Tibet were acquired in Nepal. Now we have to imagine Indian refugees who went with their most precious treasures, consisting again, mainly of manuscripts, to Nepal and even further to Tibet for safety.
Sanskrit Manuscripts in Sakya Monastery:

In Sa-skya, the Sanskrit manuscripts were kept in the so-called Phyag-dpe lhakhan (’Manuscript-
Chapel’). In this context Sankrityayana’s vivid description of his first visit to these treasures was outstanding and marvelous. Thanks to Indian genious- a man called Rahula who brought a great deal of Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts from these Tibetan monasteries and has been preserved at
Bihar Research Society.
The list is given at the appendix.
K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute
In this aspect K.P.Jayaswal Research Institute has done a commendable job in publishing important texts which were received from Tibet from Rahula’s expedition in Tibet. I'd like to express my special thanks and offer my obeisance to these scholars who worked on this project of publication of these texts. Among these outstanding scholars of international repute Prof.
Karunesh Shukla is one of them who edited and worked on Shravaka bhumi text energetically and thoroughly. Other Scholars are as follows: Gustabh Roth, Padmanabha Jain, Ananta Lal
Thakur, Nalinaksa Dutta, and so on.
V. New Sanskrit Buddhist texts from Japan
Vimalakîrtinirdesa and Jñânâlokâlamkâra
Sanskrit texts collated with Tibetan and Chinese translations
The
Vimalakîrtinirdesa
("The Teaching of Vimalakirti") is one of the most well known
Mahayana sutra among Buddhist countries in Asia. The complete Sanskrit text had been considered lost until a delegation team of Taisho University found out the complete and beautiful palm-leaf manuscript at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region. The news of the discovery of the manuscript was released in the end of 1999.
The Sanskrit manuscript of the
Vimalakîrtinirdesa
is preserved together with the
Jñânâlokâlamkâra mahâyânasûtra
in the same bundle. This mahayana sutra is one of the important sources for the study of the Tathâgatagarbha philosophy, for it is often cited in the
Ratnagotravibhâga.
The bundle of both important Sanskrit manuscripts are reproduced as the facsimile edition.
Apart from these two imporant texts, there is other such as

Siddhaikaviramahatantra Chapter II

Siddhaikaviramahatantra Chapter III by Nobuo Otsuka. by Hideaki Kimura.

The Script of the Sravakabhumi Manuscript by Koshin Suzuki.

On the inserted verses among the citation from Prajnopayaviniscayavidhi IV in
Samputodbhavatantra II-ii by Keiya Noguchi.

Dakarnavamahayoginitantra Chapter 15 by Takashi Maeda.

Vajra-dhatu-mukh'akhyana-deguri-vidhih IV by Mitsutoshi Moriguchi.

Index to the Hetuvidya Text of the Yogacarabhumi by Hideomi Yaita/ Masahiro Takano.

Dvadasanga-pratityasamutpadah by Takayasu Kimura.

Project history: The British Library / University of Washington Early Buddhist Manuscripts
Project was founded in September 1996 in order to promote the study, editing, and publication of a unique collection of fifty ‐ seven fragments of Buddhist manuscripts on birch bark scrolls, written in the Kharo ṣṭ hī script and the Gāndhārī (Prakrit) language that were acquired by the
British Library in 1994.
The manuscripts date from, most likely, the first century A.D., and as such are the oldest surviving Buddhist texts, which promise to provide unprecedented insights into the early history of Buddhism in north India and in central and east Asia. Research findings and translations are being presented in publications of the University of Washington Press .
VII. People's Republic of China
RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF SANSKRIT MANUSCRIPTS & BUDDHIST LITERATURE AT PEKING UNIVERSITY
The Research Institute of Sanskrit Manuscripts and Buddhist Literature were established under the Department of Oriental Languages of the School of Foreign Languages and are currently under the direction of Professor Dr. Duan Qing.
Missions of the Research Institute include:
- Compilation, cataloguing and research on the palm leaves manuscripts preserved in the National Archive of Ethnic Cultures in Beijing.
- Extensive investigation, compilation and research on palm leaves manuscripts found across China.
- Project of the compilation of a Sanskrit-Chinese dictionary.
- Establishment of a trilingual lexicon database (Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese) based on comparative research on manuscripts and Buddhist scriptural texts.
- Training of Tibetan scholars who intend to specialize in palm leaves manuscriptology.
As an effort to promote studies of Buddhist texts around the world, the Research Institute will publish periodically in the internet facsimiles of Sanskrit palm leaves, together with transliteration and trilingual comparative texts (Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese). Such valuable
Sanskrit textual resources will thus be made readily available to Indologists and Buddhist scholars worldwide.

Since the discovery of the Dunhuang Manuscript Cave in 1990, a new academic discipline - "Dunhuang
Studies" sprang up, attracting international attention. As so much attention has been focused on
Dunhuang, let us not forget that there is yet another Manuscript Cave, that is, a substantial collection of
Sanskrit Manuscripts preserved in Tibetan and other parts of China. As they are now made available to us, these manuscripts deserve our serious attention. Our endeavor to compile and conduct research on them is an on-going and long-termed project, demanding supports in various ways, financially and technically from interested parties worldwide.
It is believed that there had been a separate Sanskrit Buddhist canon in older period but it does not exist now. Because due to the destruction of Nalanda and Vikramashila monasteries and its libraries a great deal of Sanskrit texts had been lost.
Most of the agama literature, Mahayana Sutras, and Shastras are not extant now and is available only in fragments.
In this context the works of individual scholars are praise worthy. There are galaxies of scholar authors in
India who are worthy to mention and are commendable for their outstanding restoration works.
In this aspect Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, has done a commendable job in restoring a number of Sanskrit texts from Tibetan sources.
A bulk of shastra literature of the Buddhists has already been restored into Sanskrit and some of them are waiting for publication. Their next venture is the restoration of lost Mahayana sutra literature from Tibetan or Chinese.
In this act of restoration works, scholars from Vishva-bharati Shanti niketan, Adyar Library, Delhi
University, K.P.Jayaswal Research Institute and others are worthy of mention.
The Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods (NIEM) is a non-profit, educational foundation.
Our goal is to promote research into the vast Sanskrit Buddhist Canon. The scriptures and treatises, which make up this canon, encompass over a hundred thousand pages.
The Sanskrit Buddhist Canon CD-ROM Project will make all these texts available at low cost and in computer readable form.
Over the past 12 years, NIEM has established a solid basis in scholarship and organization.
We are accelerating our work by broadening our support and applying the latest in computer technology. We need the financial and moral support of all those who recognize the importance of Buddhism for today's world. Through this support, we hope to complete the
Sanskrit Buddhist Canon CD-ROM project in 5 years. It is the nature of this project than the more support we receive; the faster it can be completed.
Significance of the Project

•
Electronic access to Sanskrit Buddhist texts, with all its profound implications for enhancing the power, scope and subtlety of research, has been a desideratum of the field for quite some time. Clearly, the conversion of the Buddhist canons into machinereadable format is an idea whose time has come.
We will begin with the published editions of the Sanskrit Buddhist texts published from the beginning of this century.
About 200 Sanskrit Buddhist texts are available to day in printed form.
•
The availability of all the Sanskrit language texts on CD-ROM will be an important milestone in Buddhist scholarship, and the inclusion of the English preface will make this
CD-ROM immensely useful to educators and non-specialists. We are trying to publish and disseminate these texts in electronic media.
First Phase Plan of work
In year 2003, University of the West, Los Angeles under the generous sponsorship of Most
Venerable Master Hsing Yun and under the active initiatives of Prof. Lewis Lancaster
Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Project (SBCP) began with the initial grants for the input of 50
Mahayana sutras to be completed in the year 2005.
Our second phase (2006)
It will be the input of about 100 Shastra titles. The input of Shastra titles such as works of
Acarya Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Asanga, Vasubandhu has already commenced and will be completed at the end of year 2007.
For the list of completed titles
See www.nagarjunainstitute.com and subsequent updates.
I appeal to outstanding Sanskrit Buddhist scholars and academics to put a concerted effort in restoring these texts which are available only in Chinese and Tibetan languages.
The scholars around the world especially Sanskrit scholars from Indian subcontinent who were the up keepers of Sanskrit heritage are requested to help and support this venture by providing the texts and expertise. Your support definitely will make this venture a successful one.