Periodic Reporting for period 4 - HisTochText (History of the Tocharian Texts of the Pelliot Collection)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-04-01 bis 2024-03-31
The major issue of the project HisTochText was the assessment of the manuscript culture of Buddhism during the first half of the first millennium CE, in Central Asia, precisely in the Tarim Basin, in present-day Xinjiang, China. This issue is linked to the rise of literacy among local peoples, to wit the “Tocharians” who spoke two related languages (Tocharian A and Tocharian B) of Indo-European descent. These peoples were originally illiterate, they acquired their written culture after their conversion to Buddhism, and underwent strong influence of the Indo-Buddhist culture coming from the West, that is from Gandhāra (province centred on Peshawar, in present-day Pakistan, and covering part of present-day Afghanistan), around the turn of CE. This main issue has relevant consequences for understanding the propagation of Buddhism in Asia, along the oases which border the net of roads making the so-called Silk Road, in the intermediate region between the Iranian and Indian worlds, in the West, and the Chinese world, in the East. The past history of the Silk Road is exemplary for understanding the contacts of peoples, languages, cultures, religions, technologies, which belong to the agenda of geopolitics and international relations until present time. In addition, the multi-disciplinary methodologies and results of HisTochText can encourage students and scholars of different countries and institutions to keep working in cooperation on the archives containing the discoveries (manuscripts, artefacts) issued from the expeditions of the beginning of 20th century CE which brought to light new facets of the Silk Road.
The overall objectives of the HisTochText project were oriented along different axes and resorted to complementary methodologies: philology, linguistics, digital humanities, manuscriptology, investigation of the materiality of documents. The basis of the documentation consisted in the Sanskrit and Tocharian manuscripts issued from the expedition led by Paul Pelliot in the Tarim Basin in 1906-1908, and kept in the Pelliot collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Paris. These manuscripts have been found in Buddhist sites of the Kucha region, and can be dated roughly between 5th and 8th century CE. Therefore, they may provide a consistent picture for the epoch of the flourishing of Buddhism in a specific area of Central Asia.
The overall objectives of the HisTochText project were oriented along different axes and resorted to complementary methodologies: philology, linguistics, digital humanities, manuscriptology, investigation of the materiality of documents. The basis of the documentation consisted in the Sanskrit and Tocharian manuscripts issued from the expedition led by Paul Pelliot in the Tarim Basin in 1906-1908, and kept in the Pelliot collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Paris. These manuscripts have been found in Buddhist sites of the Kucha region, and can be dated roughly between 5th and 8th century CE. Therefore, they may provide a consistent picture for the epoch of the flourishing of Buddhism in a specific area of Central Asia.
All the outlined axes have been implemented and finalized during the final period of the project.
1. Cataloguing of Sanskrit and Tocharian manuscripts, which involved fine-grained material description, including more parameters than previous descriptions of these manuscripts of the BnF, and of comparable collections from Central Asia. This was completed by the digitization of photographic glass plates of Tocharian manuscripts (Pelliot Koutchéen) of the collection, and of a bulk of tiny fragments which had not been surveyed before, in sum 1712 items.
2. Edition of the Tocharian manuscripts of the Pelliot collection of the BnF. The resulting transliterations, transcriptions and translations of the manuscripts were implemented on the CEToM database (Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts, https://cetom.univie.ac.at(öffnet in neuem Fenster)) hosted by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Cooperation with the scholars of Vienna University, Department of Linguistics. Specific goals were the edition of several sets of manuscripts and fragments, which are quite difficult to read, through resorting to high-resolution photographs.
3. Investigation of the materiality of manuscripts, in collaboration with researchers of the Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation (CNRS USR 3224, MNHN), and with scholars specialized in the history of the paper in Asia. Use of multispectral imaging techniques and spectroscopy. Macroscopic and microscopic observations.
4. Dating of documents by C-14 investigation. The target was a set of wooden tablets in Kharoṣṭhī script, yet undeciphered, in comparison with wooden tablets in Brāhmī script and Tocharian B language, known as caravan passes, all found in the Kucha region. The latter are dated with the help of external historical references to the second quarter of the 7th century CE.
5. 1) In order to cover the stock of Buddhist narrative texts which are well represented in the Tocharian (A and B) corpus, a database of Tocharian narratology, called “TochStory” has been devised, and implemented online. 2) The Tocharian (A and B) manuscripts are most often in fragmentary shape. The texts are composed with formulas and fixed phrases which pertain to general Buddhist terminology and phraseology. In order to cover this dimension of the Tocharian religious literature, a database has been constructed, called “TochPhrase”, which gives standard phrases in both Tocharian A and B, classified according to the lemmas of the lexicon.
1. Cataloguing of Sanskrit and Tocharian manuscripts, which involved fine-grained material description, including more parameters than previous descriptions of these manuscripts of the BnF, and of comparable collections from Central Asia. This was completed by the digitization of photographic glass plates of Tocharian manuscripts (Pelliot Koutchéen) of the collection, and of a bulk of tiny fragments which had not been surveyed before, in sum 1712 items.
2. Edition of the Tocharian manuscripts of the Pelliot collection of the BnF. The resulting transliterations, transcriptions and translations of the manuscripts were implemented on the CEToM database (Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts, https://cetom.univie.ac.at(öffnet in neuem Fenster)) hosted by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Cooperation with the scholars of Vienna University, Department of Linguistics. Specific goals were the edition of several sets of manuscripts and fragments, which are quite difficult to read, through resorting to high-resolution photographs.
3. Investigation of the materiality of manuscripts, in collaboration with researchers of the Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation (CNRS USR 3224, MNHN), and with scholars specialized in the history of the paper in Asia. Use of multispectral imaging techniques and spectroscopy. Macroscopic and microscopic observations.
4. Dating of documents by C-14 investigation. The target was a set of wooden tablets in Kharoṣṭhī script, yet undeciphered, in comparison with wooden tablets in Brāhmī script and Tocharian B language, known as caravan passes, all found in the Kucha region. The latter are dated with the help of external historical references to the second quarter of the 7th century CE.
5. 1) In order to cover the stock of Buddhist narrative texts which are well represented in the Tocharian (A and B) corpus, a database of Tocharian narratology, called “TochStory” has been devised, and implemented online. 2) The Tocharian (A and B) manuscripts are most often in fragmentary shape. The texts are composed with formulas and fixed phrases which pertain to general Buddhist terminology and phraseology. In order to cover this dimension of the Tocharian religious literature, a database has been constructed, called “TochPhrase”, which gives standard phrases in both Tocharian A and B, classified according to the lemmas of the lexicon.
Macroscopic and microscopic observations allowed to differentiate the qualities of paper. Through the analysis of a corpus of 61 samples through microscopy the proportion of recycled fibers and fresh fibers in the paper could be defined. On a corpus of 16 micro-samples of manuscripts, the chemical analysis of the ink was pursued by using an innovative technique. The main components of the ink were identified. The sources of these products could be found in the past environment of the region. The raw materials used in the manuscripts were available in the Kucha region. The paper was produced locally in the vicinity of monasteries, not imported from abroad. The C-14 dating of a sample of 11 fragments of wooden tablets written in Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī scripts has succeeded in assessing that the Kharoṣṭhī script was used in Kucha in the 3rd century CE, at the same epoch as the Niya documents, and until the beginning of the 5th century CE, parallel to the prevailing use of the Brāhmī script. The results of the multi-disciplinary investigations will be published in the final collective volume, in the series “Studies in Manuscript Cultures”, published by De Gruyter: The Buddhist library of Duldur-Akhur. Material and philological studies on manuscripts from the Kucha region, Tarim Basin. This is the first comprehensive survey of this dimension of Buddhism in the Tocharian area. The results of the three major philological aims of the project are books which have been accepted for publication by Brill (now De Gruyter Brill) publishers: 4.1. A dramatic “Life of the Buddha” in Tocharian B. Edition of manuscript PK AS 12 of the Pelliot collection, by Michaël Peyrot and Georges-Jean Pinault. Decisive text for the history of Tocharian B language and of Buddhist drama. 4.2. Fragments d’une traduction en koutchéen archaïque du Buddhacarita de Vajrapāṇi, édités et commentés à l’aide du Fo benxing jing, by Athanaric Huard and Bai Yu. Discovery of the Tocharian B version (known by fragments of the BnF and of the Berlin collection) of a lost Sanskrit poem, known in its entirely by a Chinese translation, to be compared with the Buddhacarita by Aśvaghoṣa. 4.3. A Tocharian A handbook of dice divination and incantation. Edition of fragments of the Pelliot collection, by Athanaric Huard, Kilian Laclavetine, Anne Michelin, Georges-Jean Pinault. Exceptional text in Tocharian A found near Kucha, comparable to the Bower Manuscript in Sanskrit, compendium of magic and medicine.