Weber Manuscript

The Weber Manuscript, also called Weber Manuscripts, is a collection of nine, possibly eleven, incomplete ancient Indian treatises written mostly in classical Sanskrit that were found buried within a Buddhist monument in northwestern China in late 19th-century. It is named after the Moravian missionary F. Weber who acquired the set from an Afghani merchant in Ladakh, and then forwarded it to the German Indologist and philologist Rudolf Hoernlé in Calcutta. The manuscripts consist of 76 page-leaves, written in Northwestern Gupta and Central Asian Nagari (Turkestanic Brahmi, slanting Gupta) scripts. They were copied before the end of 7th-century, likely in the 5th-century or the 6th–century. The original texts that were copied to produce these manuscripts were likely considerably older Indian texts, at least one between 3rd-century BCE and pre-2nd-century CE. The Weber Manuscript is notable for having been written on two types of paper – Central Asian and Nepalese, attesting to the spread of paper technology outside of interior China and its use for Indian religious texts by the 5th– or 6th-century.

The Weber Manuscripts include fragments of:

• a manuscript of a Sanskrit dictionary (kosha),
• an astronomical treatise based on the movement of the moon with Vedic terms and 28 nakshatras (lunar zodiacs),
• a goddess Parvati stotra with Rudra and Shiva–related Hindu mythology treatise in the style of Puranas,
• an eulogistic text on Vedic rishi Angirasa but with some Buddhistic terms,
• a Buddhist dharani and sorcery treatise in a "barbarous mixture of Pali and Sanskrit" according to Hoernle,
• a Buddhist treatise on snake charm (dharani) that praises the Buddha and claims the charm was taught by the Buddha to Mahayaksha Manibhadra, includes a list of names of some Nagas (snakes)
• another Buddhist treatise on snake charm (dharani) quite similar to the previous treatise in content, also includes a list of names of some Nagas
• a treatise for treating some disease by fasting, penance, then preparing and taking a prescription, includes medical charms
• an unclear text in a different language but with Sanskrit words, possibly a Buddhist tantric work

The scribes were likely Buddhist because the Weber Manuscript was discovered in the ruins of a Buddhist monastery, the treatises include verses that praise the Buddha though the predominant language isn't Pali, is either mostly accurate classical Sanskrit or occasionally a crude mix of Pali and Sanskrit. Even the Sanskrit dictionary includes a phrase ksatriyair Buddha-nirjitaih, or "Kshatriyas conquered by Buddha", which suggests that the author was probably Buddhist.

The Weber Manuscripts are currently preserved in the collections of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.