Jens Wilhelm Borgland

I propose to make available for the first time the Sanskrit text of the naihsargika section of Gunaprabha's auto-commentary on the Vinaya-sutra, the Vinayasutravrttyabhidhanasvavyakhyana through the study of a unique and hitherto unstudied Sanskrit manuscript. The project will make important contributions to the study of the development of Buddhist monastic law and Sanskrit-Tibetan lexicography. Presenting the first English translation of this section of the VSS, I will analyse how the core rules regarding the allowed property of Buddhist monks, as well as social relations between monks and nuns, were interpreted in 7th c. Indian Buddhist monastic law.

This project brings together an international collaborative team with expertise in Buddhist manuscripts, palaeography, and the Mulasarvastivada vinaya (MSV) in order to sort, transcribe, study and catalog a set of unique eighth century birch bark manuscript fragments presently held in the Schøyen Collection in Oslo. The manuscript contains various portions of the MSV Bhaisajyavastu (‘Chapter on Medicine’) and Uttaragrantha (‘The concluding/superior scripture’), part of the former and the entire body of the latter having until recently been considered lost in Sanskrit.This collaborative project will for the first time make the preserved Sanskrit text of these sections available for editing, translation, comparison, and in-depth study.