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Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the inner layer of birch bark, which was commonly used for writing before the advent of mass production of paper. Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries and in various cultures. The oldest dated birch bark manuscripts are numerous Gandhāran Buddhist texts from approximately the 1st century CE, believed to have originated in Afghanistan, likely by the Dharmaguptaka sect. Translations of the texts, mostly in Kharoṣṭhī, have produced the earliest known versions of significant Buddhist scriptures, including a ''Dhammapada'', discourses of Buddha that include the ''Rhinoceros Sutra'', Avadanas and Abhidharma texts. Sanskrit birch bark manuscripts written with Brahmi script have been dated to the first few centuries CE. Several early Sanskrit writers, such as Kālidāsa (c. 4th century CE), Sushruta (c. 3rd century CE), and Varāhamihira (6th century CE) mention the use of birch bark for manuscripts. The bark of ''Betula utilis'' (Himalayan Birch) is still used today in India and Nepal for writing sacred mantras. Russian texts discovered in Veliky Novgorod have been dated to approximately the 9th to 15th century CE. Most of those documents are letters written by various people in the Old Novgorod dialect. ==Gandhāran Buddhist manuscripts== (詳細はGāndhārī language are likely the oldest extant Indic texts, dating to approximately the 1st century CE. The birch bark texts were stored in clay jars and acquired by the British Library in 1994. They were written in Kharoṣṭhī and believed to be originally from Afghanistan due to similar birch bark manuscripts that were discovered in eastern Afghanistan. Since 1994, a similar collection of Gāndhārī texts from the same era, called the Senior collection, has also surfaced. The British Library birch bark manuscripts were in the form of scrolls, which were very fragile and already damaged. They were five to nine inches wide, and consisted of twelve to eighteen inch long overlapping rolls that had been glued together to form longer scrolls. A thread sewn through the edges also helped hold them together. The script was written in black ink. The manuscripts were written on both sides of the scrolls, beginning at the top on one side, continuing with the scroll turned over and upside down, so that the text concluded at the top and back of the scroll. The longest intact scroll from the British Library collection is eighty-four inches long.〔 The texts were likely compiled by the Dharmaguptaka sect and probably "represent a random but reasonably representative fraction of what was probably a much larger set of texts preserved in the library of a monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect in Nagarāhāra", according to leading scholar Richard Salomon.〔Richard Salomon. ''Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharosthī Fragments'', with contributions by Raymond Allchin and Mark Barnard. Seattle: University of Washington Press; London: The British Library, 1999. pg 181〕 The collection includes a variety of known commentaries and sutras, including a ''Dhammapada'', discourses of Buddha that include the ''Rhinoceros Sutra'', avadānas and abhidharma texts. The condition of the scrolls indicates that they were already in poor condition and fragments by the time they were stored in the clay jars. Scholars concluded that the fragmented scrolls were given a ritual interment, much like Jewish texts stored in a genizah.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Birch bark manuscript」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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