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Palaeography
General features of the scripts represented in the Bajaur collection
Like in the case of the British Library collection we can discern a large number of scribes representing different writing styles. All of them belong to the late phase of Kharoṣṭhī (i.e. after 1 AD) and can be roughly divided into two distinct groups depending on their relationship to cursivity. Whereas in the first group we place writing styles which abstain from joining letters and write clearly distinct and separate signs, the second group is characterized by a varying degree of cursivity.
The following scribes can be ascribed to group A representing a more or less conventional Kharoṣṭhī with archaic features and clearly separated letters: 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17.
The second group comprises scribes using a cursive or semi-cursive Kharoṣṭhī with some more developed sign shapes and a clear tendency to join letters: 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19.
Table: Survey of the scribal hands of the Bajaur collection (PDF, 2,2 MB, April 2008)
Comparative palaeography and the date of the collection
With regard to the early shape of the letter ka our group A can be attributed to the scripts used in the British Library collection. The majority of them show the old shape of ka (Salomon 1999: 116f.). We must keep in mind, however, that the scripts of our group A are much less monumental and upright than those of the British Library collection. Most of them show a flowing style adjusting them well to group B. Moreover, if we compare the shape of the significant akṣaras throughout the whole collection, we see no major differences between both groups with exception of the letter ka, which could also simply serve as an indicator of cursivity which must not necessarily provide a chronological argument. The difference between both groups is mostly a stylistic one: between cursive/semi-cursive and non-cursive Kharoṣṭhī. It is almost indiscernible with regard to the shape of single letters. Thus it is quite probable, that despite their different attitude to cursivity the scripts of both groups belong to a more or less uniform palaeographical background of the same period.
The more cursive style of Kharoṣṭhī as represented by the second group with its more recent ka could be associated to the Senior collection scribe whose date can be fixed on the basis of historical data provided by the accompanying epigraph to 140 AD. But this date does not exclude the possibility that other cursive forms of Kharoṣṭhī could have been in use before that time.
If we take the degree of Sanskritisation as further evidence for dating our manuscripts they are also closely related to the above mentioned collections and rather different from the later Schøyen and Pelliot manuscripts which show a marked tendency towards Sanskrit orthography and are supposed to go back to a date from around the 2nd/3rd centuries AD.
To sum up, it seems permissible to date the Bajaur collection provisionally within the frame provided by the British Library and Senior collections, i.e. from the second half of the 1st into the first half of the 2nd centuries AD with a tendency towards the later part of this period.
But due to the highly conjectural character of every dating of a Kharoṣṭhī text based merely on palaeographical data we cannot exclude a more recent date which seems, however, most unlikely. Only own radio carbon data which are planned for the near future will hopefully give a more precise date.
Cf. Strauch 2007: 13-18, ch. 3.
Teachings
Winter term 2008: Ein Mahāyāna-Sūtra aus der Bajaur Collection of Kharoṣṭhī Manuscripts
Summer term 2008: Sanskrit-Texte des frühen Mahāyāna-Buddhismus
Winter term 2006: Buddhistische Texte aus Kharoṣṭhī-Handschriften
13 664 (HS) Harry Falk
