A Gilgit manuscript at the British Library

The Gilgit manuscripts, which were found in the village of Naupur in the 1930s (now in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan), are one of the most finds of important Asian manuscripts. The cache was first discovered in 1931 by locals in an ancient ruin, which may have been the residence of a Buddhist monk. They are thought to be the remnants of a Buddhist library, dating from the 5th to 7th centuries AD.

The explorer Aurel Stein, who was passing through the area at the time the manuscripts were first discovered, reported the find in a newspaper article, and several excavations followed. The majority of the Gilgit manuscripts are now held the the National Archives in New Delhi and Shri Pratap Singh Museum in Srinagar (see this essay for more details). The British Library also has a small selection of the manuscripts.

In a letter, Stein wrote:

Meanwhile I have sent some well preserved leaves of two mss. which had been secured from the hands of villagers to Dr. Barnett at the British Museum as a temporary deposit. I have left it to him either to examine them himself or to pass them into competent hands. Kindly put yourself into touch with him, in case you thought it desirable to take up this limited task.

The two manuscripts mentioned by Stein are:

(1) Or.11878A: Eleven folios of a birchbark manuscript containing the major part of the Saṅgharakṣitāvadāna (Divyāvadāna XXIII), and a part of the monastic regulations of the Mulasarvāstivāda school of Buddhism.

(2) Or.11878B: Seven folios of a manuscript containing the Sanskrit text of the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka).

While the vast majority of the Gilgit manuscripts are made from birch-bark, the pages containing the Lotus Sutra (pictured above) are made from paper. The white appearance of the paper is caused by the use of gypsum to 'size' the paper before it was written on. The manuscript had probably travelled west from one of the Buddhist kingdoms of the Silk Road, such as Kucha, where many manuscripts of this type have been found.

References

Shayne Clarke, Gilgit Manuscripts in the National Archives of India: Facsimile Edition. Volume I. Vinaya Texts. National Archives of India and IRIAB, Soka University, 2014.

Oskar von Hinuber, "The Gilgit Manuscripts: An Ancient Buddhist Library in Modern Research." In Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann (eds.), From Birch Bark to Digital Data: Recent Advances in Buddhist Manuscript Research, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 2013. 79-135.

Noriyuki KUDO, "Gilgit Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra Manuscript in the British Library, Or.11878B–G." In Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University 28 (2015), 197-213.