Conservators Vania Assis (EXPM - Keeping History Alive) and Mary Hamilton French (Boston Public Library) conserve a birch bark scroll in the Islamabad Museum, Islamabad, Pakistan. Photo: Mark Allon.

The oldest known Buddhist manuscripts to survive into the present were written roughly two thousand years ago in ancient Gandhara, a historical region that corresponds to present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. These early birch bark scrolls offer precious insights into Gandharan culture and the history of early Buddhism; for an introductory resource, see this ArcGIS StoryMap by David Morris et al (2021). 

Collaboration with Gandhari Manuscript Project

We are delighted to announce that as of July 2024, Hidden Stories is partnering with the University of Sydney, Australia in support of the Gandhari Manuscript Project (GMP), which was established for the purpose of conserving, photographing, studying, and publishing the Gandhari birchbark manuscript collection held at the Islamabad Museum, Islamabad, Pakistan, and is covered by an agreement between the (Federal) Department of Archaeology and Museums (DOAM), Islamabad, Pakistan, and the University of Sydney, Australia, which was signed in December 2022 at the Islamabad Museum. PI Mark Allon (University of Sydney) describes the collection and its significance as follows:

The Islamabad Museum Collection consists of birch bark scrolls and scroll fragments containing Buddhist texts in the Gandhari language and Kharoshthi script that are thought to originate from northern Pakistan. Although the collection is yet to be fully conserved, a rough estimate of 50 to 60 scrolls or scroll fragments would make it the largest collection of Gandhari manuscripts known to date. Based on a preliminary study of the palaeography and language of select manuscripts and on the results of the radiocarbon dating of samples from the collection, it is likely that they date to between the 1st century BCE and the 2nd century CE, making them the oldest Buddhist and South Asian manuscripts yet discovered. The collection contains a great variety of text types that bear witness to the rich Buddhist literary culture of ancient Gandhara (present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan), some with parallels preserved in other languages, the majority apparently without parallel. This includes early discourses of the Buddha, texts concerned with the monks’ disciplinary codes (Vinaya), important Mahayana works, a previously unknown biography of the Buddha, and a monastic ledger listing gifts to a monastery by an important Kushan king, Wima Kadphises.

The conservation project and the housing of these manuscripts at the Islamabad Museum offer several major benefits to Pakistan. They set a precedent for the reversal of the common scenario where such materials are taken out of the region as part of the antiquities trade and will form the basis for their repatriation to Pakistan of manuscripts that have been taken out of the country. The conservation space the Gandhari Manuscript Project is building at the Islamabad Museum and our training of Pakistani conservators will enable Pakistan to conserve other ancient manuscripts. Finally, the collection will form the basis for training Pakistani students in languages required to read, study, and publish these manuscripts and thereby access their rich Buddhist heritage.

Hidden Stories funding will help to support the conservation of the manuscripts at the Islamabad Museum by the GMP’s manuscript conservators Vania Assis (EXPM - Keeping History Alive) and Mary Hamilton French (Boston Public Library), beginning in Summer 2024.