PK LC 10
| Known as: | PK LC 10 |
|---|---|
| Cite this page as: | Adrian Musitz. "PK LC 10". In A Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts (CEToM). Created and maintained by Melanie Malzahn, Martin Braun, Hannes A. Fellner, and Bernhard Koller. https://cetom.univie.ac.at/?m-pklc10 (accessed 21 Jun. 2025). |
Edition | |
| Editor: | Adrian Musitz |
Provenience | |
| Collection: | Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds Pelliot Koutchéen (Paris) |
Language and Script | |
| Language: | TB |
| Linguistic stage: | late |
| Script: | classical |
Text contents | |
| Text genre: | Non-literary |
| Text subgenre: | Letter |
| Verse/Prose: | prose |
Object | |
| Material: | on paper |
Transliteration
| a1 | śā saṃ wä rpau sa ma nta |
|---|---|
| a2 | ti rṣe yo tko la¯ ¯t yṣu wa |
| a3 | rsa pre ks̝aṃ • tu ye si pa¯ ¯st |
| a4 | ka rso¯ ¯r ste ta ne sa ṅka nma |
| a5 | plo rī ya ceṃ ypa rwe ka rya |
| a6 | kā¯ ¯r ya ma ṣṣa nte • plu wa¯ ¯s |
| a7 | we si śa¯ ¯k me ña tse ne wai pa |
| a8 | rā ce koṃ mne plo ri ya [c]eṃ se |
| a9 | ce yna¯ ¯s pi to «†t»«k»o ro mñe tā |
| a10 | kaṃ tu po ai ske me • se¯ ¯[s̝]· |
| a11 | ye sī we ssa sta ma le wä |
| a12 | nta re tā kaṃ tu¯ ¯ś we¯ ¯s ā |
| a13 | rwe¯ ¯r ne se¯ ¯m • ko ka le – |
| a14 | ·[i] ñce¯ ¯k skā ya¯ ¯ñ ka rnā ·[i] |
Transcription
| a1 | śāsaṃ wärpau samanta- |
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| a2 | tirṣe yotkolat yṣuwa- |
| a3 | rsa prekṣäṃ • tu yesi päst |
| a4 | kärsor ste tane saṅkanma |
| a5 | plorīyaceṃ yparwe kärya- |
| a6 | kār yamaṣṣante • pluwas |
| a7 | wesi śak meñatsene wai pa- |
| a8 | rāce koṃmne ploriyaceṃ se |
| a9 | ceynas pito koromñen1n2 tā- |
| a10 | kaṃ tu po aiske-me • se ṣ(p) |
| a11 | yesī wessa stamale wä- |
| a12 | ntare tākaṃ tuś wes ā- |
| a13 | rwer nesem • kokale(s)n3 |
| a14 | (m)iñcek skāya-ñ kärnā(ts)i |
Translation
| a1+ | The one having undergone instruction asks the director of Samantatir with friendliness.n4 |
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| a3+ | You have knowledge of it, |
| a4+ | the saṅghas here first agreed to musicians.n5 |
| a6+ | Send us musicians on day of the month ten and on the *parāce-day!n6 |
| a8+ | Whatever their fee (and) koromñe is, we give them all of it; |
| a11+ | And whatever matter may need to be tended to by us for you, we are ready for it. |
| a13+ | Try ton7 buy one of the wagons for me. |
Commentary
Philological commentary
| n1 | The 'ko' in koromñe looks like the scribe first wrote 'to' and then corrected himself. This is especially noteworthy, since we have toromñe in PK LC 39, which appears to be an uncorrected mistake for koromñe. |
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| n2 | This looks like a late form of a putative *korauñe or even *kaurauñe. This would suggest an adjective *kore, which seems to be related to koro, whch Adams explains as 'herd-animal; movable chattel (??)' (possibly related to Khotanese *ggūra- 'mule', cf. Dragoni 2022: 115. |
| n3 | It looks like 'le' has a virāma-stroke, so the restoration kokale(ci) (going back to Pinault 2008: 392 is very doubtful. There also doesn't seem to be a trace of an i-diacritic, which should be visible judging from the height of the other akṣaras. Taking these facts into account, a more plausible restoration would be kokale(s) or kokale(ś). I have decided that the genitive plural reading is better: 'Try to buy any of the wagons'. If we read it as an allative, it would not be clear what is meant: 'Buy something for the wagon'. This new reading has one problem. We would need to accept that skāya-ñ is an imperative singular when we would much rather expect a plural skāyas-ñ (like in a6 pluwas). |
| n4 | The interpretation in Ching 2017: 242 is impossible. Yotkolat is an oblique and cannot be the subject of the clause. We should interpret śāsaṃ wärpau not as 遵照指示, but as a term describing an initiate, the phrase śāsaṃ wärp- being equivalent to Chinese 受戒. |
| n5 | käryakār certainly is Sanskrit kriyākāra-, which Edgerton 1953 translates as 'resolution, agreement'. He further says that it is used 'commonly as object of a form of kṛ', which would square perfectly with the use of yām- here. This sentence thus means that the saṅghas first of all made an agreement to hire musicians. |
| n6 | Ching 2017: 241 mentions that parāce could be the equivalent of 婆罗遮, a holiday clebrated in Kucha according to the 酉阳杂俎. However, this spelling of the holiday is exclusive to this particular text. All other sources have 苏幕遮 or something of that nature, which would not really fit parāce phonetically. During the holiday, people were wearing masks, doing dances and pranking bystanders by spraying them with muddy water or trapping them with snares. This allegedly warded off demons (cf. the 一切经音义 commentary on 大乘理趣六波罗蜜多经). This kind of pranking seemed to have been notorius. It was also enhanced by the kinds of masks that people were wearing. The first chapter of the 归依三宝品, discussing the effects of old age, says: 又如苏莫遮帽覆人面首，令诸有情见即戏弄 'Also like when the Sumozhe-cap covers a persons head and face, it makes all beings view it as a mockery.' For a full discussion, cf. Ching 2017: 235ff. |
| n7 | For miñcek as 'somehow', cf. Peyrot 2018: 78-80 |
References
Edition
Ching 2017: 242; Adams 2012: 9; Pinault 2008: 392; Peyrot 2018: 78-80
Bibliography
Adams, Douglas Q. 2012. “Another look at three Kuci-Prākrit–Tocharian B bilinguals.” Tocharian and Indo-European Studies 13: 7–55.
Ching, Chao-jung. 2017. 吐火罗语世俗文献与古代龟兹历史 – Tocharian secular texts and the history of Ancient Kucha. Beijing: Peking University Press.
Dragoni, Federico. 2022. “Watañi lāntaṃ: Khotanese and Tumshuqese loanwords in Tocharian.” Leiden: Universiteit Leiden. https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A3283440/view.
Edgerton, Franklin. 1953. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit grammar and dictionary. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Peyrot, Michaël. 2018. “Interrogative stems in Hittite and Tocharian.” Indogermanische Forschungen 123: 65–90.
Pinault, Georges-Jean. 2008. Chrestomathie tokharienne. Textes et Grammaire. Leuven/Paris: Peeters.
