Birch bark manuscript

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A birch bark manuscript from Kashmir of the Rupavatara, a grammatical textbook based on the Sanskrit grammar of Pāṇini (dated 1663)

Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the outer layer of birch bark, which was commonly used for writing before the mass production of paper. Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries and appears in various cultures. The oldest such manuscripts are the numerous Gandhāran Buddhist texts from approximately the 1st century CE, from what is now Afghanistan. They contain among the earliest known versions of significant Buddhist scriptures, including a Dhammapada, discourses of Buddha that include the Rhinoceros Sutra, Avadanas and Abhidharma texts.

Sanskrit birch bark manuscripts written with Brahmi script have been dated to the first few centuries CE. Several early Sanskrit writers, such as Kālidāsa (c. 4th century CE), Sushruta (c. 3rd century CE), and Varāhamihira (6th century CE) mention its use for manuscripts. The bark of Betula utilis (Himalayan Birch) is still used today in India and Nepal for writing sacred mantras. Russian texts discovered in Veliky Novgorod have been dated to approximately the 11th to 15th centuries CE.[1] Most of those documents are letters written by various people in a local dialect, Old Novgorodian.[2] The Irish language's native writing system Ogham, sometimes called the "tree alphabet", was traditionally attributed to the god Ogma who wrote a proscription on birch to Lugh, warning him; the text of this proscription can be found in the Book of Ballymote. The first letter of Ogham is beith; beithe means "birch".

Gandhāran Buddhist manuscripts

Main article: Gandhāran Buddhist texts
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Gandhara birchbark scroll fragments (c. 1st century)

Buddhist manuscripts written in the Gāndhārī language are likely the oldest extant Indic texts, dating to approximately the 1st century CE. They were written on birch bark and stored in clay jars. The British Library acquired them in 1994. They were written in Kharoṣṭhī and were believed to have originated from Afghanistan, because similar birch bark manuscripts had been discovered in eastern Afghanistan.[3] Since 1994, a similar collection of Gāndhārī texts from the same era, called the Senior collection, has also surfaced.[4]

The British Library birch bark manuscripts were in the form of scrolls. They were very fragile and had already been damaged. They measured five to nine inches wide, and consisted of twelve- to eighteen-inch long, overlapping rolls that had been glued together to form longer scrolls. A thread sewn through the edges helped to hold them together. The script was written in black ink. The manuscripts were written on both sides of the scrolls, beginning at the top on one side, continuing with the scroll turned over and upside down, so that the text concluded at the top and back of the scroll. The longest intact scroll from the British Library collection is eighty-four inches long.[3]

The texts were likely compiled by the Dharmaguptaka sect and probably "represent a random but reasonably representative fraction of what was probably a much larger set of texts preserved in the library of a monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect in Nagarāhāra", according to Richard Salomon.[5] The collection includes a variety of known commentaries and sutras, including a Dhammapada, discourses of Shakyamuni Buddha that include the Rhinoceros Sutra, avadānas, and abhidharma texts.[6]

The condition of the scrolls indicates that they were already in poor condition and fragments by the time they were stored in the clay jars. Scholars concluded that the fragmented scrolls were given a ritual interment, much like Jewish texts stored in a genizah.[3]

Sanskrit and Brāhmī manuscripts

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Sarasvati in Walters museum holding a manuscript
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A Kashmiri manuscript on birch bark (c. 17th century)

The bark of Betula utilis (Himalayan Birch) has been used for centuries in India for writing scriptures and texts in various scripts. Its use was especially prevalent in historical Kashmir. Use of bark as paper has been mentioned by early Sanskrit writers such as Kalidasa (c. 4th century CE), Sushruta (c. 3rd century CE), and Varahamihira (6th century CE). In Kashmir, early scholars recounted that all of their books were written on Himalayan birch bark until the 16th century.[7]

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The Bower Manuscript on birch bark (c. 450 CE)

A fragment of a birch bark scroll in Sanskrit, in the Brāhmī script, was part of the British Library Gandhara scroll collection. It is presumed to be from North India, dating to sometime during the first few centuries CE.[8] Birch bark manuscripts in Brāhmī script were discovered in an ancient Buddhist monastery in Jaulian, near Taxila in the Punjab in Pakistan, and dated to the 5th century CE.[9]

The Bakhshali manuscript consists of seventy birch bark fragments written in Sanskrit and Prakrit, in the Śāradā script. Based on the language and content, it is estimated to be from the 2nd to 3rd century CE. The text discusses various mathematical techniques.[10][11]

A large collection of birch bark scrolls were discovered in Afghanistan during the civil war in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, possibly in the Bamiyan Caves. The approximately 3,000 scroll fragments are in Sanskrit or Buddhist Sanskrit, in the Brāhmī script, and date to a period from the 2nd to 8th century CE.[8]

The Bower Manuscript is one of the oldest Sanskrit texts on birch bark in the Brāhmī script. It includes several texts covering subjects including a medical treatise and proverbs. It was discovered in Kucha (currently in Aksu Prefecture in Xinjiang, China), an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the northern Silk Road, and is estimated to be from around 450 CE.[12]

The Gilgit Manuscripts were Buddhist texts discovered in the Gilgit area of Pakistan in 1931 and include various sutras, including the Lotus Sutra, along with folk tales, medicine, and philosophy. They are dated to approximately the 5th to 6th centuries AD, and were written in Buddhist Sanskrit in the Śāradā script.[13][14][15]

Manuscripts containing the Devīkavaca text, a hymn praising the goddess Durga, were thought to protect the person who carries them from evil influences like an amulet or charm.[16] An example of one of these texts in Devanagari script from Nepal is held at Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 1578).

Birch bark is still used in some parts of India and Nepal for writing sacred mantras.[7][17] This practice was first mentioned c. 8th or 9th century CE, in the Lakshmi Tantra.[18]

In Indian sculpture, a birch bark manuscript is easily identified by the droop. A palm leaf manuscript is stiff.

Other regions

For birch bark manuscripts from other regions of the world, see:

Notes

  1. ↑ Drinka, Bridget (16 February 2017). Language Contact in Europe: The Periphrastic Perfect through History. Cambridge University Press. p. 329. ISBN 978-0-521-51493-4. 
  2. ↑ Feldbrugge, Ferdinand J. M. (2 October 2017). "Novgorod Birch-Bark Documents". A History of Russian Law: From Ancient Times to the Council Code (Ulozhenie) of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich of 1649. BRILL. pp. 288–290. ISBN 978-90-04-35214-8. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Salomon, Richard (April 1, 1997). "A preliminary survey of some early Buddhist manuscripts recently acquired by the British Library". The Journal of the American Oriental Society. American Oriental Society. 117 (2): 353–358. doi:10.2307/605500. JSTOR 605500. 
  4. ↑ Richard Salomon; Andrew Glass (2000). A Gāndhārī Version of the Rhinoceros Sūtra: British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragment 5B. University of Washington Press. p. xi. Retrieved 15 July 2012. 
  5. ↑ Richard Salomon. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharosthī Fragments, with contributions by Raymond Allchin and Mark Barnard. Seattle: University of Washington Press; London: The British Library, 1999. pg 181
  6. ↑ Salomon, Richard (1999). Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97769-8. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Müller, Friedrich Max (1881). Selected essays on language, mythology and religion, Volume 2. Longmans, Green, and Co. pp. 335–336fn. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Patrick Olivelle (13 July 2006). Between the Empires: Society in India 300 Bce to 400 Ce. Oxford University Press. pp. 356–7. ISBN 978-0-19-530532-6. Retrieved 15 July 2012. 
  9. ↑ Kurt A. Behrendt (2003). Handbuch Der Orientalistik: India. The Buddhist architecture of Gandhāra. Brill. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-90-04-13595-6. Retrieved 15 July 2012. 
  10. ↑ John Newsome Crossley; Anthony Wah-Cheung Lun; Kangshen Shen; Shen Kangsheng (1999). The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art: Companion and Commentary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-853936-3. 
  11. ↑ "The Bakhshali Manuscript". Treasures of the Bodleian. University of Oxford Bodleian Library. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011. Retrieved 16 July 2012.  Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  12. ↑ David Diringer (1953). The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval, and Oriental. Courier Dover Publications. p. 361. Retrieved 16 July 2012. 
  13. ↑ Gyan Marwah. "Gilgit Manuscript — Piecing Together Fragments of History". The South Asian Magazine. Haryana, India. Retrieved 2009-06-11. 
  14. ↑ "Gilgit Manuscript". Memory of the World Register. UNESCO. Archived from the original on 2008-09-22. Retrieved 2009-06-11.  Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
  15. ↑ "India: Rare Buddhist manuscript Lotus Sutra released". BBC News. 2012-05-03. Retrieved 17 July 2012. 
  16. ↑ "Devīkavaca". Cambridge Digital Library. Retrieved 12 February 2013. 
  17. ↑ Wheeler, David Martyn (2008). Hortus Revisited: A 21st Birthday Anthology. London: Frances Lincoln. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-7112-2738-5. 
  18. ↑ Gupta, Sanjukta (1972). Laksmi Tantra a Pancaratra text; Orientalia Rheno-traiectina; v.15. Brill Archive. p. xxi. ISBN 9004034196. 

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