Ne Hāḍe Vajrropamä Vaśärä

The Middle Iranian Khotanese language received copious amounts of loanwords from the Indic Gāndhārī and Sanskrit languages. These loanwords have not, however, been systematically studied, and although the present paper does not constitute an attempt to provide such a comprehensive survey, it makes a limited probe in the same direction through the examination of the borrowed vocabulary in the fifth century Book of Zambasta, the longest extant and arguably most substantial Old Khotanese text. This focused examination of the Indic element in Khotanese highlights the fact that the form of Gāndhārī that informed the earliest Khotanese spread of Buddhism was probably not identical with the one represented in the sacred Buddhist texts from Gāndhāra proper, as well as distinct chronological layers, with Gāndhārī providing the majority of the vocabulary for the most basic terms for Buddhist thought and practice and Sanskrit providing, instead, the more elaborate compound repertoire of terms associated with the Mahāyāna and with mature scholastic philosophy (Skt. abhidharma)