Buddhist Hymns. A New Collection

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The publication „Buddhist Hymns. A new collection” makes a previously unknown Sanskrit manuscript accessible to scholars for the first time. The manuscript is presented in a diplomatic and a critical edition. It is described in detail in the introduction; special attention is paid to the palaeography, and comprehensive script tables are given. An alphabetica.1 index of verses and a bibhography is also contained in the work. The manuscript is the remnant of a formerly more extensive collection of Buddhist hymns. Of the five praise hymns it contains, one, the Jambhalastotra attributed to Candragomin, was previously unknown; two hymns (Radhasvamins Visesastava and Candragomins Desanastava) were previously known only from translations into Tibetan. Now they have become available for the first time in the original Sanskrit language. Two other hymns (Devatisayastotra and Suprabhatastava) are already known in Sanskrit, but the manuscript edited here provides important new readings; thus, it is to be regarded as an important contribution to their textual criticism. The manuscript was written in Bengal in the 13th/14th century. The texts in it were composed in the first half of the first millennium. The original manuscript is kept at the Tibetan monastery of Drepung. A facsimile has been reproduced in a Chinese multi-volume edition of manuscripts from Tibet. However, this publication has not yet been distributed outside the People’s Republic of China, and probably will not be further distributed for the foreseeable future. The facsimile served as the basis for our work. As a source edition, our publication provides new and hitherto unknown textual material for the study of Buddhist religious and Indian literary history.