Spitzer Manuscript - Revision history

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	The '''Spitzer Manuscript''' is the oldest surviving philosophical manuscript in [[Sanskrit]],<ref name=franco2/> and possibly the oldest Sanskrit manuscript of any type related to [[Buddhism]] and [[Hinduism]] discovered so far.<ref name=franco3/>{{refn\|group=note\|The Spitzer Manuscript – consisting of a collection of treatises – is not the oldest known manuscript of [[ancient India]], however. The oldest known Indian – and the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts in the world – so far are dated between 100 BCE and 30 CE. These were discovered in the caves of eastern Afghanistan (ancient Gandhara) in the early 1990s. They were acquired by the British Library and preserved there since 1994. This collection includes birch bark scrolls and palm-leaf manuscripts. They are under study by groups in Japan, Germany and the USA (led by [[Richard G. Salomon (academic)\|Richard Salomon]]). More have been acquired in the 2000s and 2010s, with some ''pothis'' (manuscripts) now a part of the Schøyen Collection and the Robert Senior Collection. Some of these recently discovered manuscripts in the British Library have been examined, of which a few dated between 1st-century BCE and early 1st-century CE, by techniques such as paleography, names mentioned in the text, other internal evidence, and Carbon-14 dating. The oldest manuscripts are in Gandhari language (a Prakrit language, a daughter of Sanskrit, some features resemble Pali but Gandhari is different in many ways).<ref>{{cite book\|author = Mark Allon\| title= Memory as History: The Legacy of Alexander in Asia\| year= 2007\| editor= Himanshu Prabha Ray and Daniel T Potts\| publisher= Aryan Books \| isbn= 978-81730-5-3252 \| pages=134–135}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal\| title= Review: The Discovery of "the Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts" (Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments by Richard Salomon, Raymond Allchin, Mark Barnard)\| author= Enomoto Fumio\| journal = The Eastern Buddhist \|series=New Series\| volume= 32\| number= 1\| year=2000\| pages= 163, context: 157–166\| jstor= 44362247}}</ref><ref name="Richard2018p1">{{cite book\|author=Richard Salomon\|title=Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara: An Introduction with Selected Translations \|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=phk8DwAAQBAJ \|year=2018\|publisher=Wisdom Publications\|isbn=978-1-61429-185-5\|pages=1–10, 76–82, 359–367}}</ref>}} The Spitzer Manuscript was found in 1906 in the form of a pile of more than 1,000 [[Palm-leaf manuscript\|palm leaf fragments]] in the Ming-oi, [[Kizil Caves]], China during the third Turfan expedition headed by [[Albert Grünwedel]].<ref name=franco1/><ref name=kudo1>{{cite journal\|author = Noriyuki Kudo\| title= Review: Eli FRANCO (ed.), The Spitzer Manuscript: The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit, 2 vols\| journal= Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism: Saṃbhāṣā \|volume= 26\| year= 2007\| pages= 169–173}}</ref> The calibrated age of the manuscript by Carbon-14 technique is 130 CE (80–230 CE). According to the Indologist Eli Franco, the palaeographical features suggest a date closer to 200–230 CE.<ref name=franco3>{{cite journal\|title= Three Notes on the Spitzer Manuscript\| author=Eli Franco\|journal= Journal of South Asian Studies\| year=2005\|volume=49\| pages=109–111\| jstor= 24007655}}</ref> According to Indologist Noriyuki Kudo, Franco's 3rd-century estimate is a presumption based on a theory of palaeographic chronology.<ref name=kudo1/> The text is written in the [[Brahmi script]] (Kushana period) and some early [[Gupta script]].<ref name=franco2>{{cite journal\|title= The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit\| author= Eli Franco\| journal= Journal of Indian Philosophy\| volume=31\| number= 1/3\| year=2003\| pages= 21–31\| doi= 10.1023/A:1024690001755\| jstor= 23497034\| s2cid= 169685693}}</ref> It is named after [[Moritz Spitzer]], whose team first studied it in 1927–28.<ref name=kudo1/>		The '''Spitzer Manuscript''' is the oldest surviving philosophical manuscript in [[Sanskrit]],<ref name=franco2/> and possibly the oldest Sanskrit manuscript of any type related to [[Buddhism]] and [[Hinduism]] discovered so far.<ref name=franco3/>{{refn\|group=note\|The Spitzer Manuscript – consisting of a collection of treatises – is not the oldest known manuscript of [[ancient India]], however. The oldest known Indian – and the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts in the world – so far are dated between 100 BCE and 30 CE. These were discovered in the caves of eastern Afghanistan (ancient Gandhara) in the early 1990s. They were acquired by the British Library and preserved there since 1994. This collection includes birch bark scrolls and palm-leaf manuscripts. They are under study by groups in Japan, Germany and the USA (led by [[Richard G. Salomon (academic)\|Richard Salomon]]). More have been acquired in the 2000s and 2010s, with some ''pothis'' (manuscripts) now a part of the Schøyen Collection and the Robert Senior Collection. Some of these recently discovered manuscripts in the British Library have been examined, of which a few dated between 1st-century BCE and early 1st-century CE, by techniques such as paleography, names mentioned in the text, other internal evidence, and Carbon-14 dating. The oldest manuscripts are in Gandhari language (a Prakrit language, a daughter of Sanskrit, some features resemble Pali but Gandhari is different in many ways).<ref>{{cite book\|author = Mark Allon\| title= Memory as History: The Legacy of Alexander in Asia\| year= 2007\| editor= Himanshu Prabha Ray and Daniel T Potts\| publisher= Aryan Books \| isbn= 978-81730-5-3252 \| pages=134–135}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal\| title= Review: The Discovery of "the Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts" (Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments by Richard Salomon, Raymond Allchin, Mark Barnard)\| author= Enomoto Fumio\| journal = The Eastern Buddhist \|series=New Series\| volume= 32\| number= 1\| year=2000\| pages= 163, context: 157–166\| jstor= 44362247}}</ref><ref name="Richard2018p1">{{cite book\|author=Richard Salomon\|title=Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara: An Introduction with Selected Translations \|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=phk8DwAAQBAJ \|year=2018\|publisher=Wisdom Publications\|isbn=978-1-61429-185-5\|pages=1–10, 76–82, 359–367}}</ref>}} The Spitzer Manuscript was found in 1906 in the form of a pile of more than 1,000 [[Palm-leaf manuscript\|palm leaf fragments]] in the Ming-oi, [[Kizil Caves]], China during the third Turfan expedition headed by [[Albert Grünwedel]].<ref name=franco1/><ref name=kudo1>{{cite journal\|author = Noriyuki Kudo\| title= Review: Eli FRANCO (ed.), The Spitzer Manuscript: The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit, 2 vols\| journal= Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism: Saṃbhāṣā \|volume= 26\| year= 2007\| pages= 169–173}}</ref> The calibrated age of the manuscript by Carbon-14 technique is 130 CE (80–230 CE). According to the Indologist Eli Franco, the palaeographical features suggest a date closer to 200–230 CE.<ref name=franco3>{{cite journal\|title= Three Notes on the Spitzer Manuscript\| author=Eli Franco\|journal= Journal of South Asian Studies\| year=2005\|volume=49\| pages=109–111\| jstor= 24007655}}</ref> According to Indologist Noriyuki Kudo, Franco's 3rd-century estimate is a presumption based on a theory of palaeographic chronology.<ref name=kudo1/> The text is written in the [[Brahmi script]] (Kushana period) and some early [[Gupta script]].<ref name=franco2>{{cite journal\|title= The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit\| author= Eli Franco\| journal= Journal of Indian Philosophy\| volume=31\| number= 1/3\| year=2003\| pages= 21–31\| doi= 10.1023/A:1024690001755\| jstor= 23497034\| s2cid= 169685693}}</ref> It is named after [[Moritz Spitzer]], whose team first studied it in 1927–28.<ref name=kudo1/>

	The Spitzer Manuscript was found near the northern branch of the Central Asian Silk Road.<ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175"/> It is unique in a number of ways. Unlike numerous Indian manuscripts whose copies survive as early translations in Tibet and China, no such translations of the treatises within the Spitzer Manuscript have been found so far.<ref name=franco1>{{Cite book\|author =Eli Franco\|year=2004\|title=The Spitzer Manuscript, Volume 1 and 2\|doi= 10.1553/3-7001-3301-4 \|isbn=978-3-7001-3301-8}}</ref> The manuscript fragments are actually copies of a collection of older Buddhist and Hindu treatises.<ref name=franco1/> Sections of Buddhist treatises constitute the largest part of the Spitzer Manuscript. They include verses on a number of Buddhist philosophies and a debate on the nature of [[Dukkha]] and the [[Four Noble Truths]]. The Hindu portions include treatises from the [[Nyaya]]-[[Vaisheshika\|Vaiśeṣika]], Tarkasatra (treatise on rhetoric and proper means to debate) and one of the earliest dateable table of content sequentially listing the ''parva'' (books) of the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', along with numerals after each ''parva''. This list does not include [[Anushasana Parva\|Anusasanaparvan]] and [[Virata Parva\|Virataparvan]].<ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175"/> Studies by the Indologist Dieter Schlingloff on these Spitzer Manuscript fragments suggest that more ancient versions of the ''Mahabharata'' were likely expanded and interpolated in the early centuries of the common era.<ref>{{cite journal \| last=Schlingloff \| first=Dieter \| title=The Oldest Extant Parvan-List of the Mahābhārata \| journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society \| volume=89 \| issue=2 \| year=1969 \| doi=10.2307/596517 \| pages=334–338\| jstor=596517 }}</ref><ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175">{{cite book\|author= K Preisendanz\| editor1 =Florence Bretelle-Establet\|editor2 =Stéphane Schmitt\|title=Pieces and Parts in Scientific Texts \|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYteDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175 \|year=2018\|publisher=Springer \|isbn=978-3-319-78467-0 \|pages=175–178 with footnotes }}</ref> According to Indologist and Sanskrit scholar John Brockington, known for his ''Mahabharata''-related publications, the table of contents in the Spitzer Manuscript includes book names not found in later versions, and it is possible that the ''parvas'' existed but were with different titles. The epic known to the scribe of Spitzer Manuscript may have been in the form of a different arrangement and titles.<ref name=jb75>{{cite book\|author=John Brockington\|chapter=The Spitzer Manuscript and the Mahābhārata\|title=From Turfan to Ajanta\|editor1=Eli Franco\|editor2=Monica Zin\|publisher= Lumbini International\|year=2010\| isbn= 978-9-93755-3025\|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=UqJXyAEACAAJ\|pages=75–86}}</ref>{{refn\|group=note\|According to Brockington, "the evidence of the list found in the Spitzer manuscript is thus in my view not only compatible with but also valuable evidence, albeit incomplete evidence, for the shape of the text at the earliest date for which we have any testimony."<ref name=jb75/>}} The final portion of the Spitzer Manuscript is devoted to dialectics.<ref name=franco1/>		The Spitzer Manuscript was found near the northern branch of the Central Asian Silk Road.<ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175"/> It is unique in a number of ways. Unlike numerous Indian manuscripts whose copies survive as early translations in Tibet and China, no such translations of the treatises within the Spitzer Manuscript have been found so far.<ref name=franco1>{{Cite book\|author =Eli Franco\|year=2004\|title=The Spitzer Manuscript, Volume 1 and 2\|doi= 10.1553/3-7001-3301-4 \|isbn=978-3-7001-3301-8}}</ref> The manuscript fragments are actually copies of a collection of older Buddhist and Hindu treatises.<ref name=franco1/> Sections of Buddhist treatises constitute the largest part of the Spitzer Manuscript. They include verses on a number of Buddhist philosophies and a debate on the nature of [[Dukkha]] and the [[Four Noble Truths]]. The Hindu portions include treatises from the [[Nyaya]]-[[Vaisheshika\|Vaiśeṣika]], Tarkasatra (treatise on rhetoric and proper means to debate) and one of the earliest dateable table of content sequentially listing the ''parva'' (books) of the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', along with numerals after each ''parva''. This list does not include [[Anushasana Parva\|Anusasanaparvan]] and [[Virata Parva\|Virataparvan]].<ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175"/> Studies by the Indologist Dieter Schlingloff on these Spitzer Manuscript fragments suggest that more ancient versions of the ''Mahabharata'' were likely expanded and interpolated in the early centuries of the common era.<ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175">{{cite book\|author= K Preisendanz\| editor1 =Florence Bretelle-Establet\|editor2 =Stéphane Schmitt\|title=Pieces and Parts in Scientific Texts \|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYteDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175 \|year=2018\|publisher=Springer \|isbn=978-3-319-78467-0 \|pages=175–178 with footnotes }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal \| last=Schlingloff \| first=Dieter \| title=The Oldest Extant Parvan-List of the Mahābhārata \| journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society \| volume=89 \| issue=2 \| year=1969 \| doi=10.2307/596517 \| pages=334–338\| jstor=596517 }}</ref> According to Indologist and Sanskrit scholar John Brockington, known for his ''Mahabharata''-related publications, the table of contents in the Spitzer Manuscript includes book names not found in later versions, and it is possible that the ''parvas'' existed but were with different titles. The epic known to the scribe of Spitzer Manuscript may have been in the form of a different arrangement and titles.<ref name=jb75>{{cite book\|author=John Brockington\|chapter=The Spitzer Manuscript and the Mahābhārata\|title=From Turfan to Ajanta\|editor1=Eli Franco\|editor2=Monica Zin\|publisher= Lumbini International\|year=2010\| isbn= 978-9-93755-3025\|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=UqJXyAEACAAJ\|pages=75–86}}</ref>{{refn\|group=note\|According to Brockington, "the evidence of the list found in the Spitzer manuscript is thus in my view not only compatible with but also valuable evidence, albeit incomplete evidence, for the shape of the text at the earliest date for which we have any testimony."<ref name=jb75/>}} The final portion of the Spitzer Manuscript is devoted to dialectics.<ref name=franco1/>

	In addition to the ''Mahabharata'', the Spitzer Manuscript refers to or includes sections from the ''[[Arthashastra]]'' and the ''[[Manusmriti]]'' (juridical chapters) – a tradition of collecting Hindu texts that is found in ancient Buddhist monasteries' collections such as the Kharosthi-script manuscripts of the [[Bajaur Collection]] discovered in Buddhist ruins of Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan since the 1990s, states [[Harry Falk (Indologist)\|Harry Falk]] and Ingo Strauch.<ref>{{cite book \| last1=Falk \| first1=Harry \| last2=Strauch \| first2=Ingo \| editor= Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann\| title=From Birch Bark to Digital Data: Recent Advances in Buddhist Manuscript Research \| chapter=The Bajaur and Split Collections of Kharoṣṭhī Manuscripts within the Context of Buddhist Gāndhārī Literature \| publisher=Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften \| isbn=978-3-7001-7710-4 \| doi=10.2307/j.ctt1vw0q4q.7 \| pages=71–72, context: 51–78\| url=https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_CF8CA1724220.P001/REF.pdf }}</ref>		In addition to the ''Mahabharata'', the Spitzer Manuscript refers to or includes sections from the ''[[Arthashastra]]'' and the ''[[Manusmriti]]'' (juridical chapters) – a tradition of collecting Hindu texts that is found in ancient Buddhist monasteries' collections such as the Kharosthi-script manuscripts of the [[Bajaur Collection]] discovered in Buddhist ruins of Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan since the 1990s, states [[Harry Falk (Indologist)\|Harry Falk]] and Ingo Strauch.<ref>{{cite book \| last1=Falk \| first1=Harry \| last2=Strauch \| first2=Ingo \| editor= Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann\| title=From Birch Bark to Digital Data: Recent Advances in Buddhist Manuscript Research \| chapter=The Bajaur and Split Collections of Kharoṣṭhī Manuscripts within the Context of Buddhist Gāndhārī Literature \| publisher=Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften \| isbn=978-3-7001-7710-4 \| doi=10.2307/j.ctt1vw0q4q.7 \| pages=71–72, context: 51–78\| url=https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_CF8CA1724220.P001/REF.pdf }}</ref>

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[[File:2nd-century CE Sanskrit, Kizil China, Spitzer Manuscript folio 383 fragment recto and verso.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Spitzer Manuscript folio 383 fragment. This Sanskrit text was written on both sides of the palm leaf (recto and verso).<ref>Eli Franco (2004), ''The Spitzer Manuscript: The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit'', Volume 1 & 2, Verlag Der Österreichischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften (Austrian Academy of Sciences Press), {{ISBN|978-37001-3-3018}}, pages 461–465</ref>]]
The '''Spitzer Manuscript''' is the oldest surviving philosophical manuscript in [[Sanskrit]],<ref name=franco2/> and possibly the oldest Sanskrit manuscript of any type related to [[Buddhism]] and [[Hinduism]] discovered so far.<ref name=franco3/>{{refn|group=note|The Spitzer Manuscript – consisting of a collection of treatises – is not the oldest known manuscript of [[ancient India]], however. The oldest known Indian – and the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts in the world – so far are dated between 100 BCE and 30 CE. These were discovered in the caves of eastern Afghanistan (ancient Gandhara) in the early 1990s. They were acquired by the British Library and preserved there since 1994. This collection includes birch bark scrolls and palm-leaf manuscripts. They are under study by groups in Japan, Germany and the USA (led by [[Richard G. Salomon (academic)|Richard Salomon]]). More have been acquired in the 2000s and 2010s, with some ''pothis'' (manuscripts) now a part of the Schøyen Collection and the Robert Senior Collection. Some of these recently discovered manuscripts in the British Library have been examined, of which a few dated between 1st-century BCE and early 1st-century CE, by techniques such as paleography, names mentioned in the text, other internal evidence, and Carbon-14 dating. The oldest manuscripts are in Gandhari language (a Prakrit language, a daughter of Sanskrit, some features resemble Pali but Gandhari is different in many ways).<ref>{{cite book|author = Mark Allon| title= Memory as History: The Legacy of Alexander in Asia| year= 2007| editor= Himanshu Prabha Ray and Daniel T Potts| publisher= Aryan Books | isbn= 978-81730-5-3252 | pages=134–135}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal| title= Review: The Discovery of "the Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts" (Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments by Richard Salomon, Raymond Allchin, Mark Barnard)| author= Enomoto Fumio| journal = The Eastern Buddhist |series=New Series| volume= 32| number= 1| year=2000| pages= 163, context: 157–166| jstor= 44362247}}</ref><ref name="Richard2018p1">{{cite book|author=Richard Salomon|title=Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara: An Introduction with Selected Translations |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=phk8DwAAQBAJ |year=2018|publisher=Wisdom Publications|isbn=978-1-61429-185-5|pages=1–10, 76–82, 359–367}}</ref>}} The Spitzer Manuscript was found in 1906 in the form of a pile of more than 1,000 [[Palm-leaf manuscript|palm leaf fragments]] in the Ming-oi, [[Kizil Caves]], China during the third Turfan expedition headed by [[Albert Grünwedel]].<ref name=franco1/><ref name=kudo1>{{cite journal|author = Noriyuki Kudo| title= Review: Eli FRANCO (ed.), The Spitzer Manuscript: The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit, 2 vols| journal= Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism: Saṃbhāṣā |volume= 26| year= 2007| pages= 169–173}}</ref> The calibrated age of the manuscript by Carbon-14 technique is 130 CE (80–230 CE). According to the Indologist Eli Franco, the palaeographical features suggest a date closer to 200–230 CE.<ref name=franco3>{{cite journal|title= Three Notes on the Spitzer Manuscript| author=Eli Franco|journal= Journal of South Asian Studies| year=2005|volume=49| pages=109–111| jstor= 24007655}}</ref> According to Indologist Noriyuki Kudo, Franco's 3rd-century estimate is a presumption based on a theory of palaeographic chronology.<ref name=kudo1/> The text is written in the [[Brahmi script]] (Kushana period) and some early [[Gupta script]].<ref name=franco2>{{cite journal|title= The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit| author= Eli Franco| journal= Journal of Indian Philosophy| volume=31| number= 1/3| year=2003| pages= 21–31| doi= 10.1023/A:1024690001755| jstor= 23497034| s2cid= 169685693}}</ref> It is named after [[Moritz Spitzer]], whose team first studied it in 1927–28.<ref name=kudo1/>

The Spitzer Manuscript was found near the northern branch of the Central Asian Silk Road.<ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175"/> It is unique in a number of ways. Unlike numerous Indian manuscripts whose copies survive as early translations in Tibet and China, no such translations of the treatises within the Spitzer Manuscript have been found so far.<ref name=franco1>{{Cite book|author =Eli Franco|year=2004|title=The Spitzer Manuscript, Volume 1 and 2|doi= 10.1553/3-7001-3301-4 |isbn=978-3-7001-3301-8}}</ref> The manuscript fragments are actually copies of a collection of older Buddhist and Hindu treatises.<ref name=franco1/> Sections of Buddhist treatises constitute the largest part of the Spitzer Manuscript. They include verses on a number of Buddhist philosophies and a debate on the nature of [[Dukkha]] and the [[Four Noble Truths]]. The Hindu portions include treatises from the [[Nyaya]]-[[Vaisheshika|Vaiśeṣika]], Tarkasatra (treatise on rhetoric and proper means to debate) and one of the earliest dateable table of content sequentially listing the ''parva'' (books) of the ''[[Mahabharata]]'', along with numerals after each ''parva''. This list does not include [[Anushasana Parva|Anusasanaparvan]] and [[Virata Parva|Virataparvan]].<ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175"/> Studies by the Indologist Dieter Schlingloff on these Spitzer Manuscript fragments suggest that more ancient versions of the ''Mahabharata'' were likely expanded and interpolated in the early centuries of the common era.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Schlingloff | first=Dieter | title=The Oldest Extant Parvan-List of the Mahābhārata | journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society | volume=89 | issue=2 | year=1969 | doi=10.2307/596517 | pages=334–338| jstor=596517 }}</ref><ref name="Bretelle-EstabletSchmitt2018p175">{{cite book|author= K Preisendanz| editor1 =Florence Bretelle-Establet|editor2 =Stéphane Schmitt|title=Pieces and Parts in Scientific Texts |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYteDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175 |year=2018|publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-78467-0 |pages=175–178 with footnotes }}</ref> According to Indologist and Sanskrit scholar John Brockington, known for his ''Mahabharata''-related publications, the table of contents in the Spitzer Manuscript includes book names not found in later versions, and it is possible that the ''parvas'' existed but were with different titles. The epic known to the scribe of Spitzer Manuscript may have been in the form of a different arrangement and titles.<ref name=jb75>{{cite book|author=John Brockington|chapter=The Spitzer Manuscript and the Mahābhārata|title=From Turfan to Ajanta|editor1=Eli Franco|editor2=Monica Zin|publisher= Lumbini International|year=2010| isbn= 978-9-93755-3025|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=UqJXyAEACAAJ|pages=75–86}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|According to Brockington, "the evidence of the list found in the Spitzer manuscript is thus in my view not only compatible with but also valuable evidence, albeit incomplete evidence, for the shape of the text at the earliest date for which we have any testimony."<ref name=jb75/>}} The final portion of the Spitzer Manuscript is devoted to dialectics.<ref name=franco1/>

In addition to the ''Mahabharata'', the Spitzer Manuscript refers to or includes sections from the ''[[Arthashastra]]'' and the ''[[Manusmriti]]'' (juridical chapters) – a tradition of collecting Hindu texts that is found in ancient Buddhist monasteries' collections such as the Kharosthi-script manuscripts of the [[Bajaur Collection]] discovered in Buddhist ruins of Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan since the 1990s, states [[Harry Falk (Indologist)|Harry Falk]] and Ingo Strauch.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Falk | first1=Harry | last2=Strauch | first2=Ingo | editor= Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann| title=From Birch Bark to Digital Data: Recent Advances in Buddhist Manuscript Research | chapter=The Bajaur and Split Collections of Kharoṣṭhī Manuscripts within the Context of Buddhist Gāndhārī Literature | publisher=Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften | isbn=978-3-7001-7710-4 | doi=10.2307/j.ctt1vw0q4q.7 | pages=71–72, context: 51–78| url=https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_CF8CA1724220.P001/REF.pdf }}</ref>

The decayed Spitzer Manuscript does not survive in the form it was discovered in 1906, and portions of it were likely destroyed during World War II. Of what survives, predominant portions are now at the [[Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin]] (Berlin State Library) in Germany and cataloged as SHT 810.<ref name=kudo1/> Some surviving fragments are now at the [[British Library]], and are cataloged as Or 15005/6–8, Or 15005/17–21 and Or 15005/30–32.<ref name=franco3/>

==See also==
*[[Bower Manuscript]]
*[[Weber Manuscript]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spitzer manuscript}}
[[Category:Buddhist manuscripts]]
[[Category:Sanskrit texts]]