Writings: BuddhismThe Bamiyan manuscripts in the Schoyen Collection6 of 10

Writings: Buddhism

The Bamiyan manuscripts in the Schoyen Collection

The Bamiyan manuscripts are thousands of Buddhist leaves and fragments, mostly in Sanskrit, reportedly from a cave near Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Dealers sold them mainly in London from 1996, and no excavation record exists. Handwriting dates them from the 2nd to the 8th or 9th century CE. In 2002 a report said Norway's Schoyen Collection appeared to hold the bulk.

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Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    The Tibetan and Tiantai accounts consulted (the second turning, the select gatherings, the five periods) give no date for the earliest Mahayana sutras. The translation project 84000's history section adds that there is evidence these scriptures first began to appear in writing in the first centuries BCE and CE.

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    around the beginning of the common era for the earliest Mahayana sutras (Luis Gomez; the bar spans 100 BCE to 100 CE, this site's reading of those words); Gregory Schopen argues that this date was fixed mostly by convention, from Chinese evidence of the late 2nd century CE

  3. This copy made

    the 2nd to the 8th or 9th century CE by handwriting (Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann); the 2nd to the 7th century CE (the Schoyen Collection)

  4. This copy found

    No excavation record exists, and the years given for the find differ between sources.

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

The Bamiyan manuscripts are Buddhist books, mostly in Sanskrit, the classical language of ancient India, with some in related Indian languages.12 They are written on palm leaf, birch bark, and leather, and none is a scroll.2 They survive as leaves and fragments. The Schoyen Collection's own undated account, which refers to events up to 2007, counts about 5,000 leaves and fragments and 7,000 micro-fragments, or tiny scraps, from a library that once held up to 1,000 manuscripts.3 The Art Newspaper reported in 2002 over 5,000 folios and sizable fragments from 1,400 manuscripts, plus over 8,000 small fragments.1

The works identified include monastic codes, mostly of the Mahasamghika-Lokottaravada school, an early school of Buddhism. They also include sutras of Mahayana, the "Great Vehicle," some known before only from Chinese and Tibetan translations. Many fragments match no known text.2

How the copy was dated

The dating rests on paleography, the comparison of letter shapes with writing that can be dated elsewhere. Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann date the fragments, judging from the paleography, from the 2nd to the 8th or even the 9th century CE.2 The Schoyen Collection gives the 2nd to the 7th century.3 The Art Newspaper reported in 2002 that the texts come from a span of about 600 years, from around 100 to 700 CE.1 Harrison dates one manuscript, MS 2385, to about the 6th to 7th century on handwriting. It holds a Diamond Sutra, and it is presumed to have come from Afghanistan, possibly the Bamiyan area.4

This entry draws no radiocarbon date for the Bamiyan leaves. A 2006 chapter by Mark Allon, Richard Salomon, and others reports radiocarbon dating of Kharosthi fragments of the Schoyen and Senior collections; only its library record was read.5

An undated trade news report on tests of those collections, which began in 2004, gives three Schoyen texts between the 1st and 5th centuries CE. It says radiocarbon dates when the bark grew, not when the writing was done, though the bark date gives a very good indication of the writing date. The report calls the tested items birch-bark scrolls and does not say which Schoyen texts they were, while Harrison and Hartmann write that the Bamiyan group has no scrolls.62 For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The date strip marks the earliest Mahayana sutras, and reads Gomez's words about the beginning of the common era as 100 BCE to 100 CE, this site's reading. The collection's other texts have their own dates.

Tibetan and Tiantai accounts

The translation project 84000 holds that Mahayana tradition counts the Perfection of Wisdom sutras as teachings the Buddha gave in his second turning of the wheel of Dharma. It adds that traditional accounts speak of even longer versions concealed in non-human realms, the last of them retrieved by the teacher Nagarjuna from the ocean depths. The same page's history section adds that there is evidence these scriptures first began to appear in writing in the first centuries BCE and CE.7

The Dalai Lama, in a 2014 talk on Tibetan Buddhism, holds that the Buddha gave these teachings before select gatherings, not in public.8 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions describes a Tiantai classification that places the Perfection of Wisdom teaching in the fourth of five periods of the Buddha's life, lasting 22 years.9 These accounts themselves give no date.

The historians' view

Gregory Schopen argues that the only evidence for placing the emergence of Mahayana around the beginning of the common era came from China, where Mahayana sutras were translated by the late 2nd century CE and so were composed before then. He adds that the texts seem to presuppose a development that could easily have taken a century or more, and that the placement rests mostly on convention.10

Luis Gomez, a scholar of Buddhism, argues that Mahayana sutras began to be composed probably around the beginning of the common era.11 Paul Harrison holds that Buddhists could accept a teaching as the word of the Buddha if it was meaningful, accorded with the dharma, and led toward liberation, and that this is how some Buddhists came to accept the Mahayana sutras.12

How it was found

The find has no excavation record. The Schoyen Collection says the manuscripts came from caves at Bamiyan in 1993 to 1995.3 Jens Braarvig, who headed the publication of the leaves, said in 2002 that reports suggested local people sheltering from the Taliban found them in a deep cave in a cliff. It was a few kilometers from the two giant Buddha statues. The same report dates the first group to 1996.1 Braarvig said that no archaeologist had examined the cave. He called the unknown find-spot deplorable from a scientific point of view, since the leaves have lost their context.1

Harrison and Hartmann write that in 1996 the collector Martin Schoyen acquired 108 fragments that reportedly came from a cave in Bamiyan. Most were sold in London and some through dealers in Japan. Fragments in different collections join, which shows a common source.2 The route to the market is contested. The Art Newspaper reported that the manuscripts were smuggled out of Afghanistan, though dealers and collectors outside Afghanistan committed no legal offense.1 The Schoyen Collection says it bought them legally in London to save them from destruction. It adds that it returned items that might have come from Gilgit to Pakistan.3

What it shows, and what it does not

Harrison and Hartmann write that the leaves hold Indian Buddhist works of several kinds. Most monastic codes identified belong to the Mahasamghika-Lokottaravada school, which fits reports by the Chinese traveler Xuanzang on the Bamiyan monks. There are Mahayana sutras as well. They read the many unidentified fragments as support for the view that only a tiny fraction of the Buddhist literature once in India has survived.2

It does not show where each leaf lay. Some fragments in different collections can be joined, but the sources used here give no full reconstruction of which leaves belong together. Braarvig believes nearly all come from one monastic library, yet the collection is described as extremely diverse.12 Nor does it give one secure date. The ranges rest on handwriting, and the sources used here report no radiocarbon result tied to the leaves in Brahmi script, the group's main script, from Bamiyan.

Sources

  1. The Art Newspaper. Oslo: Buddhism's "Dead Sea Scrolls" for sale to Norway. The Art Newspaper, 2002. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  2. Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann. Introduction (in From Birch Bark to Digital Data). From Birch Bark to Digital Data, Recent Advances in Buddhist Manuscript Research, ed. Harrison and Hartmann (Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, Vienna), 2014, pp. vii to xx; sections 4, 7, 8, and 9. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  3. The Schoyen Collection. Introduction: Buddhism Collection. The Schoyen Collection (the holder's own website). Accessed 2026-11-05.
  4. Paul Harrison. Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita, A New English Translation of the Sanskrit Text Based on Two Manuscripts from Greater Gandhara. Buddhist Manuscripts, volume III (Manuscripts in the Schoyen Collection), ed. Braarvig and others (Hermes Publishing, Oslo), 2006, pp. 133 to 141 (the introduction). Accessed 2026-11-05.
  5. Mark Allon, Richard Salomon, Geraldine E. Jacobsen, and Ugo Zoppi. Radiocarbon dating of Kharosthi fragments from the Schoyen and Senior manuscript collections. In Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schoyen Collection, volume III, chapter 13 (Hermes Publishing, Oslo); library record at ANSTO, 2006, pp. 279 to 291; catalog record only. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  6. Lab Online (Westwick-Farrow Media), reporting on ANSTO. Carbon dating early Buddhist texts. Lab Online. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  7. 84000 Translating the Words of the Buddha. Perfection of Wisdom (Kangyur section overview). 84000, Overview; Themes, Narratives, Style, and Significance; history of the texts. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  8. Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Explaining Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism at Shuchi-in University. dalailama.com, 2014. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  9. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Five Periods and Eight Schools. Oxford University Press, via Encyclopedia.com, entry. Accessed 2026-11-05.
  10. Gregory Schopen. Mahayana. Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2004. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  11. Luis O. Gomez. Buddhism: Buddhism in India. Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  12. Paul Harrison. Canon. Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2004. Accessed 2026-10-28.