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Rāma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

Present difficulties have induced me to publish in the form of an article the text of the Khotanese Rāma poem. It is of interest to both Indian and Iranian scholars, not least perhaps to our confrères with whom we are not at present in contact. It is hoped to publish a commentary and translation in a subsequent paper.

A description, with short summary, of the contents of the poem was given in a lecture to the American Oriental Society in Baltimore, April, 1939, and will be shortly published in the Journal of that Society. Reference for the present may be made to that account.

The text is contained in three MS. rolls numbered 2801, 2781, 2783, written on Chinese paper, in cursive Khotanese script, and now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale. I first read them in December, 1937, and subsequently obtained photostatic copies. I wish once again to thank Professor Paul Pelliot for his permission to use them.

Type
Papers Contributed
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1940

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References

page 364 note 1 I take the opportunity to refer to the somewhat misleading remarks on p. 595. The alleged mistakes were taken from uncorreeted first proofs and do not represent the original MS. of my paper. Note too that on p. 598 and 609 the Chinese = (in Brāhmī script) ha:*bhuä has been confused with the different Chinese = (in Brāhmī script) gatä, ga. I should add that no ”quasi-t“ exists: the variant forms are due to the hands of different scribes. The use of -t- beside -v- is a further example of the inverse historical spelling familiar in many languages, as in Latin, Old Singhalese, Old Javanese, or Middle Persian.

page 369 note 1 viṃ crossed out.

page 369 note 2 ttrra, scribal error or variant sign for ttu.

page 371 note 1 ttrrv- error or variant form of .

page 371 note 2 ttrrv- error or variant for .

page 371 note 3 See Footnote (1).

page 373 note 1 One lost akṣara.

page 373 note 2 Blurred ra.

page 373 note 3 ttrrv- error or variant for

page 374 note 1 Poesiblv ahvarña.

page 375 note 1 sūpīrayām with ra struck out.

page 375 note 2 Perhaps tta.

page 376 note 1 ttrrv- error or variant for .