2 
A. F. R. Hoernle — The Weber Manuscripts. 
[No. 1, 
with which the manuscripts are said to have been found. But, on enquiry, 
Mr. Weber wrote me that he was unable to obtain any further informa- 
tion. 
The place Kugiar will be found on any good map of Central Asia 
at 77° 12' long, and 37° 25' lat., about 60 miles south of Yarkand, 
at an altitude of 6450’. A straight line, drawn from Lch to Yarkand, 
very nearly passes through Kugiar ; it is a little to the left of that 
line, and lies just within the borders of the Chinese territory. 
I found the manuscripts enclosed, after the fashion of Indian manus- 
cripts, between two pieces of wooden boards. These are of unequal 
size, one measuring 9| by 2f inches, the other 7J by 2| inches. They 
are, each, pierced by one hole, which is not in the middle of the board, but 
towards one side ; in the larger board it is at a distance of 2^", in the 
smaller at 1|", from its narrow margin. Corresponding holes, on one 
side only, are in all the leaves of the manuscripts. This one-sided jjosi- 
tion of the string-hole is also observable in tho Bower Manuscripts, and 
it appears to be a peculiarity of Central Asian manuscripts. I do not re- 
member ever having observed it in any Indian manuscript. These have 
either one string-hole in the middle of the leaf, or they have two holes, 
one toward either narrow margin. Facsimiles of leaves with one hole are 
given in Dr. Mitra’s SansJcrit Notices, and such of leaves with two holes, 
in Mr. Bendall’s Catalogue of Buddhist Sanslcrit MSS. The famous 
Horiuzi Manuscript, which originally came from India, has two holes, 
as may be seen from the facsimiles published by Prof. Biihler in tho 
Anecdota Oxoniensia, Yol. I, Part III. On the other hand, the facsimile 
of the Central Asian manuscript, published by Mr. S. Oldenburg, in the 
Records of the Oriental Transactions of the Imperial Russian Archmolo- 
gical Society, Yol. YII, p. 81, 82, shows the peculiar one-sided hole. This 
practice of using an one-sided hole, therefore, would seem to be a mark 
by which a manuscript may be distinguished as coming from Central 
Asia. Another point to be noted is, that, like the Bower MSS., the 
Weber Manuscripts also are of the oblong shape, usual to Indian 
manuscripts, as distinguished from the square shaped Kashmirian. The 
square shape, indeed, appears to be an exceptional peculiarity of the 
Kashmirian manuscripts. All others, Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan and 
Central Asian are of an oblong shape. 
On examining the Weber Manuscripts, I found that they formed a 
collection of fragments of nine (or possibly eleven) different manuscripts. 
These are fragmentary in two ways. In the first place, not one of 
them is complete, a more or less large number of leaves being wanting 
both at the beginning and at the end. Secondly, every leaf is mutilated 
on the right or left or on both sides. On the other hand, they are, as a 
