Sanskritic civilization · Tantric studies · Newar & Nusantaran Buddhism
A few months ago, fragments of a “ninth-century Khotanese MS” were posted on an antiques trading bulletin board in China without further information or comment. The images are of high enough quality to study; they are reproduced (without the necessary flipping, in one case) below.
Some 30,000 books and manuscripts, including nearly 2,000 considered to be of “exceptional historical value”, have gone missing from the Bibliothèque Nationale, France.
The BNF contains important collections of Sanskrit manuscripts, including those gathered in Nepal and originally donated by Brian Houghton Hodgson. So much for the view that priceless South Asian artifacts, including manuscripts, are better off in European hands.
One of the BNF’s Buddhist MSS: the Udānavarga.
– Article: ‘Curator suspected of looting library’, The Guardian, June 28 2005.