The Seven Princes

Extract

The following few pages, dedicated to Dr. L. D. Barnett in memory of many A kindnesses, may call up for a brief moment the forgotten princes, the acaryas, Buddhist teachers, who in the tenth century on their way between Khotan and China were plundered and distracted by the Turks who met them on their way. They are religious teachers and have no enemies, said their guides to the Turks. The short text forms part of the Buddhist legacy of India to Central Asia. The Stein MS. Ch 00269 contains, after some incomplete phrases in lines 0–8, the drafts of three letters: 9–23 concern a certain Prabhākaravardhana; 24–108 and 108–120, here edited and translated, give the letter of the messengers, written in Sacū (1. 84), and the letter of the seven princes. Lines 75–80 were quoted in BSOS 8. 883 (twelve years ago) for their importance for the Tokharian problem. The companion piece to this MS. is P 2741 at the Bibliotheque Nationale, of which an edition has been given in this same volume XII of the BSOAS. Both were prepared for the press as long ago as 1942, but it has not been possible hitherto to publish them.