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The Spitzer Manuscript is the oldest surviving philosophical manuscript in
Buddhist Sanskrit Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS) is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts, such as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. BHS is classified as a Middle Indo-Aryan language. It is sometimes called "Bu ...
, and possibly the oldest Buddhist Sanskrit manuscript of any type related to
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
discovered so far. The manuscript was found in 1906 in the form of a pile of more than 1,000 palm leaf fragments in the Ming-oi,
Kizil Caves The Kizil Caves ( zh, t=克孜爾千佛洞, s=克孜尔千佛洞, l=Kizil Caves of the Thousand Buddhas; ug, قىزىل مىڭ ئۆي, translation=The Thousand Red Houses; also romanized Qizil Caves, spelling variant Qyzyl; Kizil means 'red') ar ...
, China during the third Turfan expedition headed by
Albert Grünwedel Albert Grünwedel (31 July 1856 – 28 October 1935) was a German indologist, tibetologist, archaeologist, and explorer of Central Asia. He was one of the first scholars to study the Lepcha language. Life Grünwedel was born in Munich in 1856, t ...
. It is named after Moritz Spitzer, whose team first studied it in 1927–28. The calibrated age by Carbon-14 technique is 130 CE (80–230 CE). According to Indologist Eli Franco, palaeographical features suggest a date closer to 200–230 CE. The text is written in the
Brahmi script Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...
(Kushana period) and some early
Gupta script The Gupta script (sometimes referred to as Gupta Brahmi script or Late Brahmi script)Sharma, Ram. '' 'Brahmi Script' ''. Delhi: BR Publishing Corp, 2002 was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of the Indian subcon ...
. The Spitzer Manuscript was found near the northern branch of the Central Asian Silk Road. It is unique in a number of ways. Unlike numerous Indian manuscripts whose copies survive as early translations in Tibet and China, no such translations of the treatises within the Spitzer Manuscript have been found so far. The manuscript fragments are actually copies of a collection of older Buddhist and Hindu treatises. Sections of Buddhist treatises constitute the largest part of the Spitzer Manuscript. They include verses on a number of Buddhist philosophies and a debate on the nature of Dukkha and the
Four Noble Truths In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit: ; pi, cattāri ariyasaccāni; "The four Arya satyas") are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones". Four_Noble_Truths:_BUDDHIST_PHILOSOPHY_Encycl_...
._The_Hindu_portions_include_treatises_from_the_Nyaya-Vaisheshika.html" "title="Nyaya.html" ;"title="Four Noble Truths: BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY Encycl ...
. The Hindu portions include treatises from the Nyaya">Four Noble Truths: BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY Encycl ...
. The Hindu portions include treatises from the Nyaya-Vaisheshika">Vaiśeṣika Vaisheshika or Vaiśeṣika ( sa, वैशेषिक) is one of the six schools of Indian philosophy (Vedic systems) from ancient India. In its early stages, the Vaiśeṣika was an independent philosophy with its own metaphysics, epistemolog ...
, Tarkasatra (treatise on rhetoric and proper means to debate) and one of the earliest dateable table of content sequentially listing the ''parva'' (books) of the ''Mahabharata'', along with numerals after each ''parva''. This list does not include Anushasana Parva, Anusasanaparvan and Virata Parva, Virataparvan. Studies by the Indologist Dieter Schlingloff on these Spitzer Manuscript fragments suggest that more ancient versions of the ''Mahabharata'' were likely expanded and interpolated in the early centuries of the common era. According to Indologist and Sanskrit scholar John Brockington, known for his ''Mahabharata''-related publications, the table of contents in the Spitzer Manuscript includes book names not found in later versions, and it is possible that the ''parvas'' existed but were with different titles. The epic known to the scribe of Spitzer Manuscript may have been in the form of a different arrangement and titles. The final portion of the Spitzer Manuscript is devoted to dialectics. In addition to the ''Mahabharata'', the Spitzer Manuscript refers to or includes sections from the ''
Arthashastra The ''Arthashastra'' ( sa, अर्थशास्त्रम्, ) is an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, political science, economic policy and military strategy. Kautilya, also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya, is ...
'' and the ''
Manusmriti The ''Manusmṛiti'' ( sa, मनुस्मृति), also known as the ''Mānava-Dharmaśāstra'' or Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitution among the many ' of Hinduism. In ancient India, the sages often wrote the ...
'' (juridical chapters) – a tradition of collecting Hindu texts that is found in ancient Buddhist monasteries' collections such as the Kharosthi-script manuscripts of the Bajaur Collection discovered in Buddhist ruins of Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan since the 1990s, states Harry Falk and Ingo Strauch. The decayed Spitzer Manuscript does not survive in the form it was discovered in 1906, and portions of it were likely destroyed during World War II. Of what survives, predominant portions are now at the
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin This is a list of the state libraries (german: Landesbibliothek) for each of the Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany. These libraries hold the right for legal deposit for the publications in their respective state. Landesbibliothek ...
(Berlin State Library) in Germany and cataloged as SHT 810. Some surviving fragments are now at the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...
, and are cataloged as Or 15005/6–8, Or 15005/17–21 and Or 15005/30–32.


See also

*
Bower Manuscript The Bower Manuscript is a collection of seven fragmentary Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. treatises found buried in a Buddhist memorial stupa near Kucha, northwestern China. Written in early Gupta script (late Brahmi script) on birch bark, it is var ...
*
Weber Manuscript __NOTOC__ The Weber Manuscript, also called Weber Manuscripts, is a collection of nine, possibly eleven, incomplete ancient Indian treatises written mostly in classical Sanskrit that were found buried within a Buddhist monument in northwestern China ...


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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spitzer manuscript Buddhist manuscripts Sanskrit texts