Maitreyasamitināṭaka

Maitreyasamitināṭaka is a Buddhist drama in the language known as Tocharian A. It dates to the eighth century and survives only in fragments. The drama revolves around the Buddha Maitreya, the future saviour of the world.^[1] This story was popular among Buddhists and parallel versions can be found in Chinese, Tibetan, Khotanese, Sogdian, Pali and Sanskrit.^[2] According to Friedrich W. K. Müller and Emil Sieg, the apparent meaning of the title is "Encounter with Maitreya".^[3]

Tocharian fragment

Uyghur fragment

There is an Old Uyghur translation of the Tocharian text, called Maitrisimit nom bitig. It is a much more complete text and has been dated to between the eighth and eleventh centuries.^[4][5][6] The fragments of the Tocharian text come from six different manuscripts, five from the Shikshin Temple and one from Qocho.^[1] Albert Grünwedel and Albert von Le Coq discovered the Tocharian text during the third German Turfan expedition in 1906, when the Tocharian languages had been extinct for more than a millennium and were unknown to modern linguists.^[7] The Uyghur text is represented by four manuscripts, two from Turfan, one from Qomul dated 1067 and one of uncertain provenance in the collection of Ōtani Kōzui.^[8]

A colophon to the Uyghur text notes that it was translated from a language called toxrï. Under the assumption that this name was connected to a Central Asian people known as the Tocharoi in ancient Greek texts, and since the Maitrisimit nom bitig shows a "clear dependence" on the Maitreyasamitināṭaka, scholars began to refer to the unidentified language of the latter as "Tocharian".^[9] According to the colophon, the Tocharian version was "compiled" or "put together" by Āryacandra from source texts in Indian languages, while the Uyghur translation was the work of Prajñārakṣita.^[8]

The Maitreyasamitināṭaka was originally a long text consisting of twenty-seven acts of ten to fifteen leaves (twenty to thirty pages) each. The Tocharian fragments come from manuscripts of high aesthetic value, indicating a text that was meant to be read. There are stage directions, however, such as lcär poñś ("all have left [the scene]") at the end of each act, which suggests that it was also performed. It is in the champu style with sections of prose mixed with sections of verse. The Maitrisimit translation is all prose.^[1]