འདལ་བ་གཞ intro.13

intro.13

For centuries the Vinayavastu, and indeed much of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, was known only through these Tibetan and Chinese translations, or from thematic excerpts like the Divyāvadāna,⁸ and all Sanskrit manuscripts of the full text appeared to have disappeared without a trace. Then, in 1931, a cowherd from a small village near Gilgit dug up one of many mounds dotting his community’s pasturelands. He was looking for wood, which could sometimes be found at such sites, but instead stumbled upon a large chamber littered with coin-like clay tablets. Thinking he had disturbed a grave, he grew scared and fled. Word of his find spread quickly and before long a more intrepid local went in search of treasure. What he found was a wooden chest of Buddhist manuscripts dating from the fifth or sixth century ce, which wound up in the hands of the district headman in whose possession Sir Aurel Stein found them. After two further excavations and much work by both European and South Asian scholars, Nalinaksha Dutt edited and published the finds as The Gilgit Manuscripts.⁹ Most of the vinaya manuscripts enshrined in the reliquary near Gilgit come from the Vinayavastu.¹⁰