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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Kbaroşthi character till then had been known only from inscriptions in the outermost boundary of North-West India. Epigraphical comparison proved the date of the manuscript to be the second century. As to its contents, it was a recension of the Pāli Dhammapada in a Prakrit dialect, which was till then unknown in literary compositions. The manuscript was only a fragment. Another portion of the same manuscript was brought to Petrograd." The portion which was taken by a Russian traveller to St. Petersburg (now called Petrograd) was, as M. Senart says, deciphered and adjusted by Serge d'Oldenbourg, who later on placed the documents at his disposal. This courtesy on the part of the Russian setvant was all the more welcome to M. Senart at a time when he himself was engaged in daciphering and adjusting the fragments in the Rbins collection. On examination M. Separt found that Serge d'Oldenboury's documents filled some graps in the fragments of the Paris manuscript at which he was working. In Senart's edition, published in 1897 (Journal Asiatique), Serye d'Oldenbourg's docaments have been incorporated intact (see B, II. 1-15, pp. 24-31).
Since the publication of M. Senart's edition in 1897, several European scholars headed by Lüders have taken pains to make improvements on it and discuss the paleographic linguistic and literary importance of the Kharostht manuscript. We shall never forget the day when in going together through M. Senart's edition we were struck by some inaccuracies of both identification and adjustmer.t of the fragments as well as of particular verses, the first impression gradually deepening into settled conviction of certain drawbacks in the otherwise excellent work of a scholar whose name is io the very forefront of Oriental scholarship. At' an opportune moment we chanced upon two incomplete couplets in his arrangement, numbered as line I in his plate As and as
Nariman, Literary History, p. 227. . Le Manuscrit Kharoptht do Dhammapadu, Profaco.
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