Divination and oracles

The Bower Manuscript

by Hamilton Bower

First published:
4th century
Language: Sanskrit
Content type: ManuscriptPrimary source

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Description

Description from Digital Bodleian — Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Incomplete, damaged with loss of text. The Bower Manuscript The so-called Bower Manuscript, one of the oldest surviving Sanskrit manuscripts, dated between the fourth and the sixth century. This birch-bark manuscript consists of ‘a combination of two manuscripts, a larger and a smaller’. It was written in early Gupta script by four different scribes and contains seven different texts on topics ranging from medicine to divination. The manuscript was recovered from stūpa or vihāra near Kucha in modern-day China, close to the main group of caves of the Min-Oi of Qum Tura. It was presented to Major-General Bower, H.H. Bower by a Turkic treasure-seeker in 1888.

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Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Divination and oracles.

Divination and oracles
Controlled discovery queries from digital-bodleian matched “divination”. Retained metadata contains “Divination” in the description.
- “divination”· via Digital Bodleian — Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
- “Divination”· in description

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Editions

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Edition	Date	Publisher	Language	ISBN	Access	Links
Digital Bodleian digitized manuscript Birch bark; paper; Digital Bodleian completeness: complete; 156 digitized image(s); ff. 54, xxi.; Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Sansk. c. 17 (P)	5th-6th century	—	Sanskrit	—	Public reader	Digital Bodleian — Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (opens in a new tab) Digital Bodleian — Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (opens in a new tab) Digital Bodleian — Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (opens in a new tab)