[INDOLOGY] "Buddhist Manuscript Discoveries at Mes Aynak: A Tricky Philological In Situ-ation" Charles DiSimone, May 11 2021

[Charles DiSimone]

With all apologies for cross posting, this may be of interest to some
members of the list.

Dear Friends,

I am sorry to inform you that Ingo Strauch has had to cancel his upcoming
talk: “Newly discovered Śāradā documents from a private collection in the
UK”, on short notice which was to be the eighth and final lecture in the
Ghent Center for Buddhist Studies Spring Lecture Series (Permanent Training
in Buddhist Studies (PTBS)) generously sponsored by the Tianzhu Foundation.
Due to this absence, I will fill in with a talk on a somewhat similar theme
that may be of interest to those who had planned to attend the scheduled
lecture. The lecture will be on May 11, 2021 at 19.00 Belgian time. All
lectures in this series will be held remotely over Zoom. Interested parties
are welcome to attend the series or individual talks. To register for this
talk and get the Zoom link, or if you would like to be informed of future
talks in our next lecture series (Spring 2022), please write to CBS at ugent.be.
Please note, due to a recent cyber attack in Belgium, even if you
registered for previous talks you should still register once again to
attend.



*Buddhist Manuscript Discoveries at Mes Aynak: A Tricky Philological In
Situ-ation*

*Charles DiSimone*

*Ghent University*



The ancient city of Mes Aynak, located about 40 km from Kabul in
Afghanistan, sits atop the largest deposit of copper in the world. It has
been an important location for copper mining and smelting from at least the
late Bronze Age until perhaps around the 6th century CE and was
continuously inhabited for several centuries thereafter. In addition to
being a location of copper production, the area was the center of a strong
Buddhist influence housing a monastic complex and multiple temples, but it
also held multiple Zoroastrian shrines. New manuscript discoveries have
been uncovered over the last few years in the course of the archeological
excavation of the site. The manuscript material uncovered so far indicate
the cosmopolitan nature of the area with Buddhist material in Sanskrit
spanning both Mahāyāna and Śrāvakayāna (Mainstream) Buddhist thought as
well as the presence of Bactrian documentation, a language that was not
typically used in the transmission of Buddhist textuality. In this talk I
will discuss this new manuscript evidence, which holds unique challenges to
study, focusing on an analysis of seven groups manuscript fragments found
at the site copied on birch bark folios in the Gilgit/Bamiyan Type I script
dating from between the 6th–7th centuries of the Common Era.

*Bio*

*Charles DiSimone *is an FWO Postdoctoral Researcher at Ghent University.
He received his doctorate from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and
has held positions at the Buddhist Digital Resource Center, LMU Munich, and
Mahidol University. His research primarily focuses upon the applications of
philological, codicological, and critical analysis of Buddhist *sūtra*
manuscripts
and literature, both Mahāyāna and Mainstream. Recent publications include
research on scribal practices in the Gilgit area and Greater Gandhāra and a
forthcoming book on the (Mūla-)Sarvāstivāda *Dīrghāgama *manuscript (Wisdom
2021).

Dr. Charles DiSimone
Department of Languages and Cultures
Ghent University
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