Report On Kanjur Of Ta Pho

Author(s): Ernst Steinkellner
Publisher: Ernst Steinkellner

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The list of texts given by Tucci (36), now however, can already be somewhat augmented. We noted the following additional Sūtras and Tantras: Angulimālīyasūtra, Astamandalakasūtra, Kasyapaparivarta, Khar sil gyi mdo, Gandavyūha, Guhyasamājatantra, Purnapramukhāvadāna, Pradipadaniyasūtra, Prasenajidgatha, Phal po che bzun bar 'gyur ba'i gzuns, Mahāparinirvanasūtra, Ratnakuta, Lalitavistara, Srimāladevīsimhanādasūtra, Samādhiraja, Sumāgadhāvadāna, Suvarnaprabhāsa, Suvikrāntadevaputrapariprcchā, Sūtrasamuccaya.
In terms of quantity, the texts represented in these manuscripts show a rather uneven distribution. Our general impression is that c. 20-30% of the whole collection consists of old manuscript remains, i.e. material from the earliest period of monastic activities in the area, the 11th and 12th centuries. Nearly all of these remains contain texts of the yum kind, i.e. 'Bum, Ni khri and brGyad ston pa. Also in the more modern layers of the collection, the preponderance of yum texts is obvious. Roughly about 50-60% of the whole collection consists of manuscripts with yum texts. The remaining portion consists mainly of Sūtra texts of various kind that could be taken to represent the mDo man section of a later-day bKa' 'gyur.
Other kinds of texts are extant only in comparably insignificant numbers, and the impression that they entered the library as remnants to be disposed of is particularly prominent with regard to these remains of manuscripts which normally comprise only one to five folios. Not more than 102 folios could be preliminarily identified as containing Vinaya texts (37). A first survey by Dr Panglung resulted in separating 14 different bKa' 'gyur texts and 20 different commentaries from the bs Tan 'gyur or of possibly Tibetan provenance. A few leaves of medical texts and a now already identified dictionary (38) corroborate the impression that this sort of material indicates that such texts were not a major part of the original holdings in the library. These folios must have been added to the collection after having been already broken up and rendered useless. This impression is finally strengthened by the extant fragments of manuscripts with texts from the bs Tan 'gyur. Again, we have no more than c. 100-110 folios remaining from such manuscripts (39).
(36) Tucci 1935: 89 (cf. above, fn. 5) and the Mahāyānasangraha from plate XLIVa. From among these texts, we did not find at this first glance fragments of the Bodhicaryavatāra, Satyadvayāvatāra and Samkşiptamandalasūtravrtti.
(37) These Vinaya folios are stored now in LII.
(38) These folios are examined more closely by Dr Panglung in this volume. In a paper delivered at the 6th Seminar of the Int. Association for Tibetan Studies at Fagernes, 21-28.8.1992, Dr Panglung was able to identify this 'dictionary' as a fragment of a new version of the sGra shyor bam po gris pa.
(99) These folios are now stored in V. A first tentative identification yields: an Abhidharma commentary, a Bodhicaryavatara commentary, some Pramana texts, a Madhyamaka text, a few leaves of Siksasamuccaya, Abhidharmasamuccaya, Abhisamayalankārāloka and Uttaratantra. I shall publish a detailed list of these possibly bs Tan 'gyur materials in due time. Dr Tauscher presented his investigation of some fragments with the texts of Dharmakirti's Sambandhapariksa, -vrtti and tika at the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies at Fagernes, 21-28.8.1992.
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