New Manuscript Evidence for Suprabhātastava by Śrīharṣadeva: The Drepung Texts Critically Examined

Abstract

The Suprabhātastava is one of the two hymns ascribed to King Śrīharṣadeva (c. 590–647 CE), who ruled over Kannauj. There are five modern editions of this text, which roughly follow eight extant Sanskrit manuscripts and a Tibetan translation. Recently, scholars discovered two unknown Sanskrit manuscripts of the text in Drepung Monastery. One of them has unique contents and readings. For this reason, the present article compares the said manuscript with other extant versions. In this respect, the article demonstrates that the newly discovered manuscripts belong to a different transmission lineage. Moreover, the article discusses the authorship and genre of the Suprabhātastava.