VII. Tokharian Prātimokṣa Fragment

Extract

[This fragment, as well as a number of others, written in he Tokhari language and in Slanting Gupta characters, were forwarded to me from Simla by the Government of India, in April, 1907. In the forwarding letter it was stated that they had been “found at Jigdalik and Kaya, near Kuchar”, by a man of Kuchar, called Sahib Ali. From Sahib Ali's report it appears that Jigdalik lies one day's march from Baï, and that the manuscript fragments were dug out by him from what he calls “a house”, situated in “the hills” near Jigdalik. The term “house” is applied by the natives of Eastern Turkestan to what we call a stūpa, or shrine, see Sir Aurel Stein's Ancient Khotan, vol. i, p. 483. The name Jigdalik, as M. Pelliot informs me, is not uncommon in Chinese Turkestan, and signifies simply a place of oleasters. The Jigdalik fragments will be published in my projected series of volumes of Manuscripts from Eastern Turkestan; but as there will still be some delay in the issue of the first volume, I gladly accept the hospitality of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society to give an early specimen of Professor Sylvain Lévi's careful edition of them. A glossary of the fragment, as well as linguistic notes, by Professor Meillet, are now in my hands, and will be published with the fragment itself and its facsimile in the forthcoming first volume of my series.—R. H.]