14 STEN KONOW 



Having realized some money by their sale at Khotan, he had intermittently carried 

 on his burrowings for the last three years or so." Dr. Stein succeeded in finding 

 several manuscript leaves and fragments in Turkistano-Aryan language in the 

 Khadalik mound. He is of opinion that they have been deposited there as offerings. 



It seems to be very probable that the manuscript leaves which the Jewish 

 tradesman bought at Khotan were sold to them by the identical Mullah Khwajah 

 who later on conducted Dr. Stein to Khadalik, when we consider that Mr. Huntington 

 seems to have found fragments of the same manuscript at that very place. 



The abandonment of the Khadalik site must, according to Dr. Stein, have taken 

 place towards the end of the eighth century, and the manuscript fragments have 

 probably been deposited about that time. 



Fragments of another manuscript of the same text have been collected by Mr. 

 Petrovsky, late Russian Consul General at Kashgar, and are now in the Archaeologi- 

 cal Museum of St. Petersburg. There are altogether 173 manuscript leaves, and two 

 more have found their way to the Strassburg University Library. This manuscript 

 has apparently been of the same size and appearance as the fragments bought by 

 Dr. Ross. Professor Leumann ' informs us, pp. 11 and ff., that each leaf consists of 

 twelve lines, of which each forms one stanza just as in the case of the Calcutta folios. 

 It would then perhaps be natural to infer that all these leaves once belonged to one 

 single manuscript. Such a conclusion is however inadmissible. One of the folios 

 edited below, fol. 334, seems to be identical with fol. 334 of the Petersburg collection. 

 According to Professor Leumann the latter contains stanzas 102-113 of one of the 

 chapters of the work, and the former contains twelve stanzas numbered from 2, i.e. 

 102 to 3, i.e. 113, the tens and hundreds having been omitted. Moreover the Peters- 

 burg fol. 335 contains in stanza 109 the words kho purr a rnyanau paksd, in stanza 11 1 

 the word krtani, and in stanza 112 the words hamna hona, which are also found, in 

 the corresponding stanzas, in the Calcutta manuscript. There must therefore have 

 been at least two manuscripts of the work, both about alike in size and arrangement. 



Professor Leumann informs us that he has also seen fragments of about twelve 

 other manuscripts of the work in Dr. Hoernle's collection and among the St. Peters- 

 burg fragments. A single leaf has also been found by Dr. A. v. Lecoq in quite a 

 different part of Turkistan, near Karashahr. It is numbered 51 and contains only 

 5 lines to the page. It seems however to correspond to fol. 251 of the St. Petersburg 

 manuscript." 



Professor Leumann has dealt fully with the extent and form of the work con- 

 tained in these manuscripts. It must have contained about 5,300 stanzas distributed 

 over about forty chapters. Professor Leumann intends to publish the portion of the 

 manuscript described by him. When this edition appears, it will be possible to judge 

 about the nature of the text, whether it is a large compendium or a collection of 

 several minor texts. 



' See Ernst Leumann, Zur nordarischen Sprache und Literatur. Vorbemerkungen unci vier Aufsatze mit Glossar. 

 Strassburg 1912. Karl J. Triibner. 



8 See Zwei Handsckriftenblatter, etc. Von Sten Konow. 



