By no means doodles or scraps: reading manuscripts IOL Tib J 3 and 218 as bilingual Dunhuang Vinaya works

Abstract

Abstract Under the sway of the dominant “waste” theories on the nature of Dunhuang manuscripts, we tend to default to the conclusion that IOL Tib J 3 and 218 contain independent Chinese and Tibetan texts joined in the process of recycling discarded manuscripts. However, this paper demonstrates that the texts from these two manuscripts constitute coherent Vinaya compositions. The three layers of the handwriting of these two manuscripts were not written randomly, but exhibit clear-cut functions: while the larger Tibetan script, which was produced in a previous project, was used to write Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya commentaries, the smaller Tibetan script and the Chinese script were created as parts of the same bilingual project to provide different textual sources on the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya texts. The Chinese and the Tibetan text in the smaller script, proceeding from the high-level bilingualism of Dunhuang Buddhist communities, display a robust thematic affinity in many cases.