Fragment 8 (Frame 14)

1. General condition: The relatively well preserved sheet of birch bark contains a single text, which is covering the lower quarter of the obverse. The three remaining quarters of the obverse and the whole reverse are blank. The manuscript was folded in the middle. It belongs to the class of smaller scrolls with an unusually wide format (cf. Salomon 1999: 98f.). The arrangement of the verses on one line with a small space between the (half/quarter?) verses corresponds to that of other Gāndhārī verse texts written in this format.
2. Measurements:   21,5 cm x 19 cm
                               4 lines on r
                               41 a/l
3. Hands: Scribe 8
4. Contents: Four verses praising the Buddha Śākyamuni.

Content

Four verses praising the Buddha Śākyamuni

Some of the best preserved fragments contain hitherto unknown collections of verses. One of them – fragment 8 – is supposed to belong to the well represented and heterogeneous genre of Buddhastotra: Buddha praising verses compiled into texts of varying size. The text of fr. 8 comprises altogether only four verses built along a yena ... tasa construction.

Cf. Strauch 2007: 36, ch. 4.3.1.1.