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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
BUDDHISM IN KASHMIR
vajra, Mamtoti, Mangalaśūra, Aryadevendrabhūta. The scribe of the king's ms. is Āryasthirabuddhi and the collaborator Narendra Datta.
www.kobatirth.org
South
The discovery of the mss. was first announced by Sir Aurel Stein in the Statesman of the 24th July 1931. He reported that some "boys watching flocks above Naupur village, about two miles west of Gilgit Cantonment, are said to have cleared a piece of timber sticking out on the top of a small stone-covered mound. Further digging laid bare a circular chamber within the ruins of a Buddhist stupa filled with hundreds of small votive stūpas and relief plaques common in Central Asia and Tibet."
"In the course of the excavation a great mass of ancient manuscripts came to light closely packed in what appears to have been a wooden box." "The palaeographic indications of some of the mss. suggest that they may date back to the sixth century A.D."
M. Hackin also paid a visit to the spot and furnished us with the following information (Journal Asiatique, 1932, pp. 14-15):
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"The place of discovery is situated about 3 miles to the north of Gilgit in the mountainous region. There are four stūpas with square basements placed side by side, thus:
D
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
B
A
For Private and Personal Use Only
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This
The hemispherical domes of the stūpas A and B are well preserved and it is the third stupa C which has yielded the mss. stupa C has double basements, the lower of which measures 6 metres 60 cm. on each side and the next receding about 60 cm, on all the four sides. The height of this stūpa is 12 to 15 metres. The diameter of the chamber containing the ms. is 2 metres 40 cm. In the centre of the chamber there were the five wooden boxes, the fifth containing the other four in which were kept all the mss.'
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