《鲍威尔写本》文献考述

A Textual Research on the Bower Manuscript

新疆库车出土的梵文桦树皮写本《鲍威尔写本》,开启了中亚考古学的现代模式。其形制是“梵夹装”,是我国书籍装帧形式的发展历程中的一个标本,其书体对于鉴别同时代的梵文文本有一定参考价值。《鲍威尔写本》医学文书是现存年代最古老的印度梵文医典,对于印度医学史流派传承研究和佛教医学史发展研究具有重要的史料价值。《鲍威尔写本》记载的最古老的骰子占卜辞,为研究探讨印度与我国新疆、西藏地区骰子占卜之间的历史互动关系提供了参考资料。《鲍威尔写本》提供了最早的《孔雀明王经》梵文文本,为研究此经典的起源提供了实证材料,对于研究佛教早期密教化发展过程以及早期密教对中华文明影响都有着重要意义。

The Bower Manuscript unearthed in Kuqa,Xinjiang started the modernization of Archaeology in Central Asia.Its form is “Pothi”,a specimen in the development of book binding form in China.Its style has certain reference value for identifying contemporary Sanskrit texts.Bower Manuscript is the oldest extant Indian Sanskrit medical book.It is of great significance to study the inheritance of schools of Indian medical history and the development of Buddhist medical history.The oldest dice-divination recorded in the Bower Manuscript provides references for the historical interaction between dice divination in India and Xinjiang and Tibet,China.It provides the earliest Sanskrit text of the Mahā-mayūrī-vidyā-rājan,which provides empirical materials for studying the origin of this classic.It is also of great significance for studying the development process of early Esotericism of Buddhism and the influence of early esotericism on Chinese civilization.