Ten Newly Identified Fragments of the Sanskrit Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra (SI 6780) in the Serindia Collection (IOM, RAS)

The present paper deals with ten previously unpublished Sanskrit fragments that have been identified with the Buddhist text of the Mahāyāna tradition — Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra, or Lotus Sūtra. These fragments have had no call numbers until recently and were found among the non-inventoried materials of the Serindia Collection (IOM, RAS), which were set aside for restoration. The fragments are written in the South Turkestan Brāhmī type of script, which was in use for recording Sanskrit texts in the Southern Serindia in the 8–9 centuries A.D., primarily in Khotan, one of the largest Buddhist centers in Central Asia in the 1st millennium A.D. The largest part of Sanskrit texts in the Serindia Collection is presented by the manuscripts from Khotan, which, according to contents, reflect the popularity of Mahāyāna texts in the Southern Serindia, with the Lotus Sūtra texts in Sanskrit being especially popular, numbering over 30 storage units. The fragments under study, which are currently stored in the Serindia Collection under the call number SI 6780, contain extracts from three chapters of the Lotus Sūtra: Chapter XVIII (Anumodanāpuṇyanirdeśa-parivartaḥ — “The Chapter Describing the Religious Merit [Obtained through] Joyful Participation [in Dharma]”), Chapter XIX (Dharmabhāṇakānṛśaṃsa-parivartaḥ — “Benefits of a Dharma Preacher”) and Chapter XX (Sadāparibhūta-parivartaḥ — “[Bodhisattva] Sadāparibhūta”). This paper includes a description of the fragments, their transliteration and comparison with two currently known Sanskrit Lotus Sūtra versions, as well as a Russian translation, and a facsimile.