Gandhari

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The Gandhari is a Middle Indian language or a dialect that was found in the northwest of the Indian cultural area, in Gandhara , at least in the period of the 1st century BC. Was in use until the 4th century AD. It was usually written in the Kharoshthi script . The special importance of this dialect lies in the fact that it is the language of the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts and perhaps also the oldest written Indian language at all, because, after all, the writing of previously oral teachings only began in the above period. The Buddhists were in a sense the forerunners of this new approach. According to the current state of research, the emergence of the new soteriological current of Mahayana falls within the same period . Research into the entire corpus of Gandhari writings, which is being carried out by scholars at a number of institutions (particularly the University of Washington , the University of Sydney , the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and the Université de Lausanne ), has led to new insights into these hope for an important epoch in the history of Buddhism .

To the history of the naming

In 1943, the English linguist Sir Harold Walter Bailey first proposed the term Gandhari to name the dialect that had previously been called "Northwestern Prakrit". In his opinion, the following documents should have been included under this term: the inscriptions of the Indian emperor Ashoka in Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra, the so-called Khotan Dharmapada , a collection of documents found in Niya and other scattered evidence of this Middle Indian dialect in other languages. This definition had to be revised, especially since the discovery of numerous manuscripts (in addition to the only known Khotan Dharmapada) since 1994. The current interpretation of the term is mainly based on the script in which the Gandhari documents were usually written, the Kharoshthi. But this delimitation also has its exceptions. At least two fragments have been preserved, which are written in more or less classical Sanskrit . After all, no examples are known to date of documents that were written in the Gandhari language, but in a script other than Kharoshthi.

The Gandhari scripture corpus

From these considerations, a Gandhari corpus results as follows:

  • Inscriptions: over 500, starting with the Ashoka inscriptions in Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra that date from 250 BC. Span until the 3rd century AD, using stone and metal as support materials
  • Coin legends: found from the Gandhara core area to Central Asia, 2nd century BC BC to AD 2, different dynasties use the Gandhari ( Saks , Parthians and Kuschanas ), often with bilingual legends in Gandhari and Greek, which is why the coins played a special role in the deciphering of the Karoshthi by James Prinsep in particular 1830s too
  • Buddhist manuscripts: over 200 fragments in 8 collections, 1st century BC BC to 3rd century AD, on birch bark and palm leaf
  • Documents of secular content: legal and administrative texts, almost 1,000 finds, written on wood, leather or other materials, 2. – 7. Century AD

End of the Gandhari and its role as a template for translation

The Gandhari period ended at the latest when it was replaced by Sanskrit as the written language. Around 500 AD, the Gandhari was apparently completely forgotten. It is ignored in the important indigenous linguistic research in India - a circumstance that is difficult to understand from today's perspective, given the decisive role that Gandhari played for Buddhism, which, for its part, was able to outlast time. This was made possible, among other things, by the fact that contemporary Buddhist pilgrims traced their religion back to the origins and made translations of the existing texts into their own languages. Here, too, the Gandhari seems to have played a key role. It is possible that the template for the important Chinese version of the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita by Lokaksema was written in this very language. Lokakshema's text from the end of the 2nd century AD had been considered the earliest evidence of Mahayana Buddhism before the Gandhari manuscripts were discovered.

literature

  • Andrew Glass: A Preliminary Study of Gāndhārī Lexicography. Ph. D. Field Exam, October 2002.
  • Sten Konow : Kharoshṭhī Inscriptions with the Exception of Those of Aśoka. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum 2.1, Calcutta, 1929.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Glass, Andrew: A Preliminary Study of Gandhari Lexicography. 2002, p. 4.
  2. ↑ GĀNDHĀRĪ LANGUAGE ( English ) iranicaonline.org. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
  3. ↑ Article by Oskar von Hinüber in: http://www.badw-muenchen.de/aktuell/akademie_aktuell/2013/heft1/00_aa_2013_01_otal.pdf
  4. ↑ Article by Harry Falk and Seishi Karashima in: Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / iriab.soka.ac.jp
  5. ↑ http://www.badw.de/aktuell/akademie_aktuell/2013/heft1/0113_09_hartmann.pdf