Richard Salomon: "Exploring New Discoveries of Buddhist Literature in Gāndhārī"

Abstract: 

The seminar will focus on the study of two recently discovered Gāndhārī manuscripts: (1) the unpublished *Bahubuddhaka-sūtra  scroll in the collection of the Library of Congress and (2) the fragment of the Aṣṭasāhasrika-Prajñāpāramitā recently published by H. Falk and S. Karashima. The relationships of these texts with their various parallels in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan will be addressed within the broader context of the significance of the rediscovery of Gandhāran Buddhist literature.

Bio:

Richard Salomon (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1975) is Professor of Asian Languages and Literature (Sanskrit) and William P. and Ruth Gerberding University Professor at the University of Washington. He also serves as director of the University of Washington’s Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project. His  specialties include Sanskrit language and literature, Indian Buddhist textual studies, Indian epigraphy and paleography, early Indian history, Gāndhārī language and Gandhāran studies, and the world history of writing. He has published five book and many articles in these fields, including Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages (1998), Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments (1999), and Two Gāndhārī Manuscripts of the “Songs of Lake Anavatapta” (Anavatapta-gāthā) (2008).