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Bower Manuscript

The Bower Manuscript
The Bower Manuscript is a late 5th or early 6th-century collection of Sanskrit texts (above) in early Gupta script. Discovered near Kucha (China), it includes an ancient Indian medical treatise (33 leaves), and several other treatises (23 leaves). Samples of both are shown above.

The Bower Manuscript is a collection of seven fragmentary Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit[1] treatises found buried in a Buddhist memorial stupa near Kucha, northwestern China.[2][3] Written in early Gupta script[4] (late Brahmi script[1]) on birch bark, it is variously dated in 5th to early 6th century.[5][6] The Bower manuscript includes the oldest dated fragments of an Indian medical text, the Navanitaka.[2][7]

The seven treatises included in the collection three on Ayurvedic medicine, two on divination by dice, and two on incantations (Dharani) against snake bites.[8] The collection had at least four scribes, of which three were likely Buddhists because the second, the sixth and the seventh treatises open by invoking the Buddha and other Buddhist deities.[2][9] Two invoke Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, and other Hindu deities.[9] The discovery of the manuscript in remote China near Central Asian region is considered evidence of the spread and sharing of ideas in ancient times between India, China and Central Asia.[10] It also contains excerpts of the Bhela Samhita, a medical text whose damaged manuscript is in Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu.[11] The medical fragments of the Bower manuscript have much in common with other ancient Sanskrit medical treatises such as those by Caraka, Ravigupta, Vagbhata and Kashyapa.[8]

The manuscript is named after Hamilton Bower – a British Lieutenant who bought the manuscript in March 1890 while on a mission to chase an assassin who was charged with hacking Andrew Dalgleish to death. The fragmentary manuscript was analyzed, edited, translated, and published by Calcutta-based Rudolf Hoernle. The Bower Manuscript is preserved in the collections of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.[12]

  1. ^ a b "The Bower Manuscript, One of the Earliest Treatises on Indian Medicine, Written on Birch Bark".
  2. ^ a b c Gushtaspshah Kaikhushro Nariman; Moriz Winternitz; Sylvain Lévi and Eduard Huber (1972). Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 276–278. ISBN 978-81-208-0795-2.
  3. ^ Yoeli-Tlalim, Ronit (2021). Reorienting histories of medicine : encounters along the silk roads. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. chapter 2. ISBN 978-1-4725-1249-9. OCLC 1191456473.
  4. ^ A.F. Rudolf Hoernle (1912), The Bower Manuscript, Facsimile leaves, Nagari transcript, Romanised transliteration and English translation with notes, Calcutta, Aditya Prakashan (Reprinted 2011), OCLC 7083012;
    The Bower Manuscript, AF Rudolf Hoernle (1914), Volume XXII of the New Imperial series of the Archeological Survey of India, British India Press, Chapter 3, Quote: "It is now generally known as Gupta script because its prevalence coincided with the rule of the early Gupta Emperors in whose epigraphic records it is employed." (p. 25)
  5. ^ Callewaert, Winand M. (1983). Bhagavadgītānuvāda: A Study in the Transcultural Translation. New Delhi: Biblia Impex. p. 17. OCLC 11533580.
  6. ^ L Sander (1987), Origin and date of the Bower Manuscript, a new approach, in: M Yaldiz and W Lobo (eds.): Investigating the Indian Arts, Museum für Indische Kunst, Berlin, pp. 313–323
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference rh2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b D. Wujastyk 1998, p. 197.
  9. ^ a b A.F. Rudolf Hoernle (1891), Remarks on Birch Bark MS, Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1891, Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, pages 57–61;
    Bower Manuscript Translations: Parts III-VII, A.F. Rudolf Hoernle, pages 197, 209–210
  10. ^ Mirsky, Jeannette (October 1998). Sir Aurel Stein: Archaeological Explorer. University of Chicago Press. pp. 81–82. ISBN 978-0-226-53177-9.
  11. ^ Hoernle, A. F. Rudolf (July 1910). "The Bhela Samhita in the Bower Manuscript". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland: 830–833. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00040107. JSTOR 25189734. S2CID 163536742.
  12. ^ D. Wujastyk 1998, p. 196.

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