The University of Washington
Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project

The University of Washington Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project was founded in September 1996 in order to promote the study, editing, and publication of a unique collection of twenty‐nine fragments of Buddhist manuscripts on birch‐bark scrolls, written in the Kharoṣṭhī script and the Gāndhārī language, that were acquired by the British Library in 1994. Additional Gāndhārī manuscripts have since come to light, and the Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project is now in charge of research on a total of fifty‐five major fragments (in the British Library, the Senior collection, the University of Washington Libraries, and the Library of Congress) as well as numerous smaller fragments (primarily in the Schøyen collection and the Bibliothèque nationale de France). These fragments date from the first to third centuries AD, and as such are the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts. They promise to provide unprecedented insights into the early history of Buddhism in northern India and in Central and East Asia. Research findings and translations are being presented in publications of the University of Washington Press.

University of Washington’s Department of Asian Languages and Literature