1897.] 
227 * 
Central Asian Manuscripts. 
(1) The first set consists of long oblong leaves measuring 11 x2| 
inches. Two of these leaves are shown on Plates VIII and IX. There 
is a third leaf of this set which is nearly perfect. Besides, there are two 
small fragments. The total is five pieces of manuscript. The material 
of this manuscript is Daphne paper of coarse texture, but rather 
thick. It is inscribed on both sides. The characters are Brahmi 
of the North-Indian (Gupta) type, written in a clear and bold, 
thick hand. The language is Sanskrit. The purport, so far as may be 
judged from the fragmentary state of the manuscript, is the teaching 
of incantations. One point should be noted: the leaves are numbered 
on their obverses (left-hand margin), as may be seen from the trans¬ 
literations given below. One leaf (Plate VIII) is clearly number¬ 
ed 11 (or it may be 17), i.e., the numeral 10, with the numeral 1 
(or 7) below it. Another leaf (Plate IX), I take to be numbered 
19; but the numeral is not quite distinct. On the remaining frag¬ 
mentary leaves the numbers are either lost or quite illegible. Professor 
Biihler, in his notice of the Weber MSS., in the Vienna Oriental 
Journal, Vol. VII, p. 261, calls attention to this point, and seems 
disposed to suggest, that Central Asian manuscripts paginated in this 
manner are in some way connected with South-India, because the practice 
of numerating the leaves on their obverses is, in India, peculiar to the 
South, while in the North they are numbered on the reverses. 16 The 
difficulty, to my mind, about this suggestion is that there is nothing 
else in these manuscripts suggestive of South-India. If they had been 
written in South-India and thence carried away into Central Asia, 
they would exhibit a Southern Indian style of writing throughout; or, 
if a Southern Indian Buddhist had migrated into Central Asia, and there 
written the manuscripts, it does not seem probable that he would have 
retained his South-Indian method of pagination, while adopting, in all 
other respects, the North-Indian type of writing which prevailed, more 
or less modified, in his adopted country. Anyhow, paginating the 
obverses of leaves seems to have been a not uncommon practice in 
Central Asia, however it may have originated. Another instance of the 
same practice will be noticed further on (see page 247). The fact of the 
leaves of this set being numbered proves that the existing leaves are 
connected and are the remnants of a larger work. From the sporadic 
occurrence in this manuscript of the serpentine form of the medial e (in 
manase, fl. 116 3 ), 17 its date may be referred to the 5th century A.D. 
See my remarks on the subject on p. 215. 
18 See also Professor Biililer’s Indische Palseographie, § 36, p. 86, on pagination. 
11 Here and subsequently throughout this paper, a and b mean obverse and 
reverse respectively ; the raised numbers refer to the lines. 
