BuddhistRoadPaper 1.2 "Toward A Typology of Chödrup’s (Tib. Chos Grub, Chin. Facheng 法成) Cursive Handwriting: A Palaeographical Perspective"

In this paper, I focus on the palaeography of a collection of eight Tibetan manuscripts hypothesised to have been written by the same scribal hand. The eight manuscripts—IOL Tib J 217, IOL Tib J 686, IOL Tib J 687, IOL Tib J 625, IOL Tib J 588, IOL Tib J 619, P. T. 770, and P. T. 783v—are closely related, not merely in light of their sophisticated cursive handwriting, but also by virtue of their common textual genre (being summaries or commentaries rather than direct scriptural translations) and thematic content: these Tibetan texts were all based on Chinese sources and attributed to Gö Chödrup (fl. first half of the 9th c., Tib. ’Gos Chos grub, Chin. Wu Facheng 吳法成), either directly or indirectly. Moreover, many manuscripts produced by the imperial Tibetan copying project contain editorial records written in the same hand; these records indicate that Chödrup acted as the final proofreader. Therefore, we can now more confidently attribute this hand to Chödrup himself. By establishing a typology of this handwriting and offering a table of how syllables are written by this hand in the appendix, this paper contributes to a better reading of manuscripts containing this type of script and can potentially provide a benchmark for further recognition of works written in the same hand.

Chinese Translation

本文重点从古文字学的角度探讨了八份藏文写本, 这些写本被认为是出自同一个抄者之手. 这八份写本 (IOL Tib J 217, IOL Tib J 686, IOL Tib J 687, IOL Tib J 625, IOL Tib J 588, IOL Tib J 619, P. T. 770和P. 783v) 密切相关, 不仅因为它们以熟练的草书写成, 还因为它们相同的文本体裁 (是总结或注疏而非直接经文翻译) 和主题内容: 这些藏文写本都基于汉文材料, 且都直接或间接的被归属于吴·法成 (9世纪上半叶在世. 藏: ’Gos Chos grub). 此外, 许多出自西藏皇帝抄经项目的写本也都包含有出自此笔迹的编辑记录, 而法成的名字也被明确提及—这些记录表明, 法成也担任了此项目校对者. 因此, 我们可以更有把握地认为这位抄者即是法成本人. 本文试图建立这种笔迹的类型研究, 并在附录中提供这种手写体字母或字母组合的书写形态, 其有助于更好地阅读包含有这种字体的手稿, 并有可能为进一步识别用这种笔迹书写的文本提供一个基准.