Manuscripts of the Sanskrit “Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra” (SI 2949/1, SI 2955/13) in the Collection of M.M. Berezovsky (IOM RAS)

The Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra (“The Sūtra of the Great Parinirvāṇa”) is one of the most sacred works of Northern Buddhism, which was popular not only in its historical homeland in India, but also abroad, especially in the cultural traditions of the northern and southern oasis-cities of Serindia (modern-day Xinjiang, PRC). Evidence for this is found in the Sanskrit part of the Serindia Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOM RAS), which contains fragments of two known variations of this text: the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna versions of the Mahaparinirvāṇa. This article introduces two newly found fragments stored at the Serindia Collection, within the M.M. Berezovsky (1848–1912) subcollection. The fragments under study (SI 2949/1 and SI 2955/13) were acquired during M.M. Berezovsky’s expedition to the northern oasis of Kucha (1905–1907), both are written on paper in North Turkestan Brāhmī, and can be dated to the 8th–9th cc. As has been established through comparison with some excerpts from Chinese Vinaya and the Sanskrit text from the Turfan Collection in Berlin, these fragments are not associated with Mahāyāna and, apparently, they formed part of the canon of the Hīnayāna Mūlasarvāstivāda school. This is consistent with the established scholarly view regarding the dominance of Hīnayāna in the northern subregions of Serindia (Kucha, Turfan), in contrast to the southern oases (Khotan), where the Mahāyāna tradition prevailed. This article includes description of two fragments, analysis of their content, transliteration, comparison with the Sanskrit and Chinese texts, translation and facsimile.