THT 4083.b

Known as:	THT 4083.b; SHT 1098.b
Cite this page as:	"THT 4083.b". 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-tht4083b (accessed 13 Dec. 2025).
Provenience
Main find spot:	Murtuk
Expedition code:	T III M 132, T III M 143, T III M 145
Collection:	Berlin Turfan Collection
Language and Script
Language:	TA
Text contents
Text genre:	Literary
Text subgenre:	Gloss
Verse/Prose:	prose
Object
Material:	ink on paper
Form:	Poṭhī

Images

Transliteration

a1	[k]· vā re o ki
a2	kā tkā śi

Transcription

a1	n1 n2 k(a)vāre oki
a2	n3 n4 kātkāśi

Translation

a1	like morsels
a2	of the householders

Commentary

Linguistic commentary

n1	The interpretation of this gloss is uncertain: the reading is not secured and the Sanskrit text is incomplete. If the gloss is read correctly, k(a)vāre may stand for kāpāre 'morsels, bite-size pieces' (Carling et al. 2009: 113a). Since kāpār is borrowed from (a Middle Indian form corresponding to) Skt. kavaḍa (see Carling, l.c.), it is understandable that the word was spelled differently. Both the short a and the v are closer to the Skt. form. The semantic connection may be understood as 'crushed' = 'small pieces'. Even if Waldschmidt's cautious restoration to (na)[ṭa]kuṭṭā 'wie Spaßmacher' ['like jesters'] (in Sander and Waldschmidt 1985: 89) is correct, the TA gloss could be an “incorrect” too literal rendering of only the last part of the word.
n3	Pace Malzahn 2007b: 305 (accepted by Carling et al. 2009: 111b-112a), who sees a connection with kātk- 'be glad', kātkāśi does not gloss the following word hāsyaprekṣy 'makes laugh'. Apart from the fact that the gloss is actually found under gṛhiṇo, kātkāśi could not possibly be a form of kātk-: there is no agent suffix -śi v.s., and probably no stem of a causative of this structure would have a long ā in the second syllable, not even the subjunctive stem (Malzahn 2010: 216-7, Peyrot 2013b: 128-9). TA kātkāśi, for kātkāśśi, is probably in th eplural because this word has become a plurale tantum: no singular forms are attested at all and the nom.sg. kātak* (Carling et al. 2009: 110b) is set up on the basis of plural forms.

The interpretation of this gloss is uncertain: the reading is not secured and the Sanskrit text is incomplete. If the gloss is read correctly, k(a)vāre may stand for kāpāre 'morsels, bite-size pieces' (Carling et al. 2009: 113a). Since kāpār is borrowed from (a Middle Indian form corresponding to) Skt. kavaḍa (see Carling, l.c.), it is understandable that the word was spelled differently. Both the short a and the v are closer to the Skt. form. The semantic connection may be understood as 'crushed' = 'small pieces'. Even if Waldschmidt's cautious restoration to (na)[ṭa]kuṭṭā 'wie Spaßmacher' ['like jesters'] (in Sander and Waldschmidt 1985: 89) is correct, the TA gloss could be an “incorrect” too literal rendering of only the last part of the word.

Pace Malzahn 2007b: 305 (accepted by Carling et al. 2009: 111b-112a), who sees a connection with kātk- 'be glad', kātkāśi does not gloss the following word hāsyaprekṣy 'makes laugh'. Apart from the fact that the gloss is actually found under gṛhiṇo, kātkāśi could not possibly be a form of kātk-: there is no agent suffix -śi v.s., and probably no stem of a causative of this structure would have a long ā in the second syllable, not even the subjunctive stem (Malzahn 2010: 216-7, Peyrot 2013b: 128-9). TA kātkāśi, for kātkāśśi, is probably in th eplural because this word has become a plurale tantum: no singular forms are attested at all and the nom.sg. kātak* (Carling et al. 2009: 110b) is set up on the basis of plural forms.

Philological commentary

n2	glosses Skt. /// [ṭ]·kuṭṭā 'crushing, bruising...'
n4	glosses Skt. gṛhiṇo (gen.sg.) 'householder'. To the right of kātkāśi a further gloss hā is found, which clarifies that the first akṣara of hāsyaprekṣy is to be read hā: this akṣara is difficult to read and seems to have been corrected from p.

References

Online access

IDP: THT 4083

Miscellaneous

Peyrot 2014: 133, 140-1

Bibliography

Carling et al. 2009

Carling, Gerd, Georges-Jean Pinault, and Werner Winter. 2009. A dictionary and thesaurus of Tocharian A. Volume 1: Letters a-j. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

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.

Malzahn 2010

Malzahn, Melanie. 2010. The Tocharian verbal system. Leiden/Boston: Brill.

Peyrot 2013b

Peyrot, Michaël. 2013b. The Tocharian subjunctive. A study in syntax and verbal stem formation. Vol. 8. Brill’s Studies in Indo-European Languages & Linguistics. Leiden/Boston: Brill.

Peyrot 2014

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

Sander and Waldschmidt 1985

Sander, Lore, and Ernst Waldschmidt. 1985. Sanskrithandschriften aus den Turfanfunden. Teil 5. Die Katalognummern 1015–1201 und 63 vorweggenommene höhere Nummern. Vol. 10, 5. Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland. Wiesbaden: Steiner.