SHT 1030

Known as:	SHT 1030
Cite this page as:	"SHT 1030". 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-sht1030 (accessed 13 Dec. 2025).
Provenience
Main find spot:	Murtuk
Expedition code:	T III M 145
Collection:	Berlin Turfan Collection
Language and Script
Language:	Skt.; TA
Text contents
Text genre:	Literary
Text subgenre:	Gloss
Verse/Prose:	prose
Object
Material:	ink on paper
Form:	Poṭhī
Size (h × w):	7.8 × 17 cm
Number of lines:	5

Images

Images from idp.bbaw.de by courtesy of the International Dunhuang Project Berlin, the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Orientabteilung.

Transliteration

a2	nā keṃ ka
a4	plā

Transcription

a2	n1 n2 nākeṃ ka{pśañi}
a4	n3 plā

Translation

a2	the body of a snake
a4	speech

Commentary

Linguistic commentary

*	As for a4, Schmidt (Wille 2000: 187) offers no interpretation of the gloss. It seems the most likely that plā stands simply for plā〈c〉 'speech', only the first akṣara being noted as with ka〈pśañi〉 above. Another option would be that plā is to be identified with the word plā, of which the meaning is not fully settled, but which might mean 'complaint' (Peyrot 2012: 91-2). However, accordingto the context, plā〈c〉 is expected, possibly combined with a verb like yām- 'do'; compare the translation of the Tibetan version, with the correspondences with the Sanskrit text in original italics (Vogel and Wille 2000: 67): “While they were talking to one another, the exalted One in turn came to this region.” Note that the gloss is found very far to the left, i.e. only under the akṣara ma, which suggests that it glosses only very roughly the meaning of the root. As suggested by Georges-Jean Pinault (p.c.), the reason for the gloss may be the semantic discrepancy betwen the noun mantra'magic formula', etc., and the verb mantraya- 'speak'.
n1	This gloss was essentially deciphered by Schmidt (Wille 2000: 187): nākeṃ is an adjective derived from nāk 'snake'. However, the following ka was left without interpretation. In Peyrot's view (Peyrot 2014: 137), ka must be an abbreviation, since no TA word may end in -a. As bhogena refers here to the body of a snake, ka is probably to be understood as ka〈pśañi〉 'body'. Compare in particular the translation from the Tibetan version of this passage of the Nāgakumārāvadāna by Vogel and Wille (Vogel and Wille 2000: 67, in which the corespondences withthe Sanskrit text are italicised in the original: “he saw (that) the whole room (was) filled with the coiled body of a serpent-demon.” If this interpretation is correct, nākeṃ would be a nom.sg.fem., identical to the regular nom.sg.masc. of this class of adjectives. Although this ending is indeed expected from *-eñña, it was so far not attested.

As for a4, Schmidt (Wille 2000: 187) offers no interpretation of the gloss. It seems the most likely that plā stands simply for plā〈c〉 'speech', only the first akṣara being noted as with ka〈pśañi〉 above. Another option would be that plā is to be identified with the word plā, of which the meaning is not fully settled, but which might mean 'complaint' (Peyrot 2012: 91-2). However, accordingto the context, plā〈c〉 is expected, possibly combined with a verb like yām- 'do'; compare the translation of the Tibetan version, with the correspondences with the Sanskrit text in original italics (Vogel and Wille 2000: 67): “While they were talking to one another, the exalted One in turn came to this region.” Note that the gloss is found very far to the left, i.e. only under the akṣara ma, which suggests that it glosses only very roughly the meaning of the root. As suggested by Georges-Jean Pinault (p.c.), the reason for the gloss may be the semantic discrepancy betwen the noun mantra'magic formula', etc., and the verb mantraya- 'speak'.

This gloss was essentially deciphered by Schmidt (Wille 2000: 187): nākeṃ is an adjective derived from nāk 'snake'. However, the following ka was left without interpretation. In Peyrot's view (Peyrot 2014: 137), ka must be an abbreviation, since no TA word may end in -a. As bhogena refers here to the body of a snake, ka is probably to be understood as ka〈pśañi〉 'body'. Compare in particular the translation from the Tibetan version of this passage of the Nāgakumārāvadāna by Vogel and Wille (Vogel and Wille 2000: 67, in which the corespondences withthe Sanskrit text are italicised in the original: “he saw (that) the whole room (was) filled with the coiled body of a serpent-demon.” If this interpretation is correct, nākeṃ would be a nom.sg.fem., identical to the regular nom.sg.masc. of this class of adjectives. Although this ending is indeed expected from *-eñña, it was so far not attested.

Philological commentary

n2	glosses Skt. bho[g](e)[n](a) (instr.sg.) 'coil (of a snake)'.
n3	glosses Skt. mantrayaṃti 'they speak'.

References

other

Peyrot 2014: 133, 137-8; Wille 2000: 187; Malzahn 2007b: 304

Online access

IDP: SHT 1030

Bibliography

IDP

“The International Dunhuang Project: The Silk Road Online.” n.d. http://idp.bl.uk.

Malzahn 2007b

Malzahn, Melanie. 2007b. “A preliminary survey of the Tocharian glosses in the Berlin Turfan Collection.” In Instrumenta Tocharica, edited by Melanie Malzahn, 301–19. Heidelberg: Winter.

Peyrot 2012

Peyrot, Michaël. 2012. “Tocharian ‘eat’ and the strong imperfect in Tocharian A.” In Linguistic developments along the Silk Road: Archaism and Innovation in Tocharian, edited by Olav Hackstein and Ronald I. Kim, 834:85–119. Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Wien: Verlag der ÖAW.

Peyrot 2014

Peyrot, Michaël. 2014. “Notes on Tocharian glosses and colophons in Sanskrit manuscripts I.” Tocharian and Indo-European Studies 15: 131–79.

Vogel and Wille 2000

Vogel, Claus, and Klaus Wille. 2000. “The final leaves of the Pravrajyāvastu portion of the Vinayavastu manuscript found near Gilgit. Part 2: Nāgakumārāvadāna and Lévi text.” In Sanskrit-Texte aus dem buddhistischen Kanon: Neuentdeckungen und Neueditionen. Vierte Folge., edited by Jin-il Chung, Claus Vogel, and Klaus Wille, 11–76. Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der Buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden, Beiheft 9. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Wille 2000

Wille, Klaus. 2000. Sanskrithandschriften aus den Turfanfunden. Teil 8. Die Katalognummern 1800–1999. Vol. 8. Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 10. Stuttgart: Steiner.