Ricerc@Sapienza

T III S 16 is a complete folio that contains vv. 9-16 of chap. 13 of The book of Zambasta (= Z), an Old Khotanese poem on Mahayana Buddhism commonly believed to have been composed not earlier than the seventh century. The very existence of T III S 16 shows that this is not the case, since this folio should be dated to the fifth or early sixth century on account of the Early Turkestan Brahmi type b used in it. Thus, Z is contemporary with, or even precedes, the oldest known Khotanese translations of Buddhist s?tras.

The chapter collects and comments, with references to primary and secondary literature, all the available Khotanese surces mentioning the Huns from the fifth to the tenth century CE.