Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

N EPAL, BUDDHIST A RT IN
Bibliography
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Gellner, David N. Monk, Householder and Tantric Priest: Newar
Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1992.
Hutt, Michael. Nepal: A Guide to the Art and Architecture of the
Kathmandu Valley. Boston: Shambhala, 1994.
Lewis, Todd T. “Newars and Tibetans in the Kathmandu Valley:
Ethnic Boundaries and Religious History.” Journal of
Asian and African Studies 38 (1989): 31–57.
Lewis, Todd T. Popular Buddhist Texts from Nepal: Narratives
and Rituals of Newar Buddhism. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 2000.
Lienhard, Siegfried. “Nepal: The Survival of Indian Buddhism
in a Himalayan Kingdom.” In The World of Buddhism, ed.
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Ramble, Charles. “How Buddhist Are Buddhist Communities?
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2 (1990): 185–197.
Riccardi, Theodore, Jr. “Buddhism in Ancient and Early Medieval
Nepal.” In Studies in the History of Buddhism, ed. A.
K. Narain. New Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 1980.
Slusser, Mary S. Nepal Mandala. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
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TODD T. LEWIS
NEPAL, BUDDHIST ART IN. See Himalayas, Buddhist
Art in
NEWARI, BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN
Beginning with Sanskrit inscriptions dating from the
fifth century C.E., the large mid-montane Himalayan
valley called Nepal has been a vibrant cultural center
where both Hindu and Buddhist traditions have flourished.
What is called “Nepal” today was formed after
1769 when the modern Shah state expanded across the
region, conquering the valley city-states and making
Kathmandu its capital. The first cities and religious
monuments of this valley were built by the Newars, the
earliest attested ethnic group of the region. Newars
speak a nontonal Tibeto-Burman language called
Newari in the Euro-American world, but referred to
by Newars as Nepal Bhasa, using Sanskritic terminology,
or Newa: Bhay in the spoken vernacular. This language
has been thoroughly influenced by Sanskrit
vocabulary, especially in the technical terms imported
from the Indic traditions that shaped Newar culture.
Newari texts have similarly been written using north
Indian-derived scripts, the earliest on palm leaves (tara
patra), and from the seventeenth century onward on
paper made from the daphne plant. In the latter form,
the texts were written on stacked rectangular pages, or
in the format of a folded book (thya saphu). Many such
books were illustrated with finely rendered miniature
paintings, some with fifty to one hundred images.
Since this valley was from its origins a Himalayan
trade and pilgrimage center, and later a refuge for Buddhist
monks fleeing the destruction of north Indian
monasteries in the wake of the Muslim conquests that
ended in 1192 C.E., many monasteries in Kathmandu,
Bhaktapur, and Patan became centers of manuscript
veneration, archiving, and copying. From this era onward,
Tibetan scholars visited Nepal to obtain Sanskrit
manuscripts and, in some cases, to confer with
Nepalese panditas. There have been many Newar Buddhist
scholars—especially among the “householder
monk” groups calling themselves śakyabhiksus and
vajracaryas—who could read and utilize Sanskrit,
making it an important local language for the indigenous
Buddhist elite. Some notable panditas up through
the modern era also composed works in Sanskrit.
The vast holdings of Sanskrit manuscripts in the
Kathmandu Valley have remained central to the modern
academic study of Buddhism, beginning with the
texts sent to Calcutta and Europe by the official British
resident in Nepal from 1825 to 1843, Brian Hodgson.
Many ancient Sanskrit texts survived only in Nepal.
Though one might include these works as a literature
used by the Newar Buddhist religious elite and other
literati, the remainder of this entry focuses on the religious
texts composed in the Newari vernacular.
The Newar saṅgha’s widespread familiarity with
Sanskrit, and especially the use of Sanskrit mantras and
religious terminology, explains the existence of the
many hundreds of manuscripts rendered in a bilingual
592 E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM