Bower Manuscript

The Bower Manuscript is a late 5th or early 6th-century collection of Sanskrit texts (above) in early Gupta script. Discovered near Kucha (China), it includes an ancient Indian medical treatise (33 leaves), and several other treatises (23 leaves). Samples of both are shown above.

The Bower Manuscript is a collection of seven fragmentary Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit^[1] treatises found buried in a Buddhist memorial stupa near Kucha, northwestern China.^[2][3] Written in early Gupta script^[4] (late Brahmi script^[1]) on birch bark, it is variously dated in 5th to early 6th century.^[5][6] The Bower manuscript includes the oldest dated fragments of an Indian medical text, the Navanitaka.^[2][7]

The seven treatises included in the collection three on Ayurvedic medicine, two on divination by dice, and two on incantations (Dharani) against snake bites.^[8] The collection had at least four scribes, of which three were likely Buddhists because the second, the sixth and the seventh treatises open by invoking the Buddha and other Buddhist deities.^[2][9] Two invoke Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, and other Hindu deities.^[9] The discovery of the manuscript in remote China near Central Asian region is considered evidence of the spread and sharing of ideas in ancient times between India, China and Central Asia.^[10] It also contains excerpts of the Bhela Samhita, a medical text whose damaged manuscript is in Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu.^[11] The medical fragments of the Bower manuscript have much in common with other ancient Sanskrit medical treatises such as those by Caraka, Ravigupta, Vagbhata and Kashyapa.^[8]

The manuscript is named after Hamilton Bower – a British Lieutenant, who bought the manuscript in March, 1890 while on a mission to chase an assassin charged with hacking Andrew Dalgleish to death. The fragmentary manuscript was analyzed, edited, translated and published by Calcutta-based Rudolf Hoernle. The Bower Manuscript is preserved in the collections of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.^[12]