Nepalese ms destruction

[John Huntington]

Dear Jonathan and others,

About eighteen  months months ago, in Dang, a  "mid-western" Nepalese
city about  160 km from the Indian border,  The "Maoists" burned  the
western branch of the Sanskrit University to the ground. It contained
an estimated 12,000 Sanskrit manuscripts, and they refused to let any
one go near to try to save it. In context, I have to suspect the act
as very anti-traditionalist, although it is very hard to know the
motives for some of the actions of the "Maoists." Because it was so
far form Kathmandu, very little was reported at the time and I have
heard nothing sense.

For me it was personally very devastating. The Bamiyan destruction
had taken place several months before and for several months I had
gone through being interviewed over and over about the great Buddhas
which I had loved dearly. Dina (Bangdel) and I were in the middle of
the Circle of Bliss catalog reconstructing and learning to  interpret
Newar Buddhism from Newar Sanskrit manuscripts.  and Dina came in one
morning saying, "You'll never guess what happened."  We tried to find
out as much more as we could but the few news reports and the fact
that no one was killed led the destruction to be pretty much a
non-event in the international news.

Simply enough, from the past ten years in Newar Buddhist studies,
and proven once again by our recent work with the Newar priests who
came to the "Nepal at LACMA" events, I know that there are
"one-of-a-kind" manuscripts of which no one knows of another copy.
How many such "one-of-a-kind" mss were in this Sanskrit University
can never be known.

What we need is a door-to-door survey of Vajracharya priests' and
Shakyas' personal collections throughout the KV and a similar one for
Hindu materials which I am personally far less familiar with.

Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news if you didn't already know

John (and Dina)


>>, the
>>burning of the Sanskrit college in Nepal with its estimated 12,000
>>uncataloged manuscripts,
>
>
>What?!
>
>With fear and trepedation: details please!
>
>PS: briefly: my note was not intended as a request for less such
>information, but only directed against (my perceived) widening of the
>discussion into one of general cultural trends, and the consequent
>redirection of the discussion away from Indology and Indological
>matters.
>--
>Jonathan Silk
>Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
>Center for Buddhist Studies
>UCLA
>290 Royce Hall
>Box 951540
>Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540
>phone: (310)206-8235
>fax:  (310)825-8808
>silk at humnet.ucla.edu