The Bakhshali manuscript

The images below are my reproductions of the photographs in G. R. Kaye's book on the Bakhshali Manuscript.

Kaye's title page

After the photographs were taken, the Bodleian Library encased all but one of the fragments in mica, and mounted these in a single album (one of its pages is exhibited as Plate I in Kaye's book, and reproduced below). Subsequently they (a) stuck to the mica (presumably because there remained some residual sap in the bark), and (b) darkened considerably. Sticking to the mica had the effect of splitting each folio into hundreds of very tiny fragments, so that it now seems impossible to remove them from their cases.

Kaye's Plate I

The good news is that Kaye's images are quite readable.

To obtain a high resolution image, click on one of the thumbnails below. You may download any of these images for use in any publication, and you may apply any image manipulation software to it. But only if you (a) give credit to me as photographer, (b) mention this website as source, and (c) mention the library of the University of Washington as the (generous) source of the copy of Kaye's book that I used.

Slightly smaller versions are available in one large zip file (18MB).

The order the images are listed in is the same as in Kaye's edition, which differs from that in Hayashi's thesis.

  • Folio 1
  • Folio 2
  • Folio 3
  • Folio 4
  • Folio 5
  • Folio 6
  • Folio 7
  • Folio 8
  • Folio 9
  • Folio 10
  • Folio 11
  • Folio 12
  • Folio 13
  • Folio 14
  • Folio 15
  • Folio 16
  • Folio 17
  • Folio 18
  • Folio 20
  • Folio 21
  • Folio 22
  • Folio 23
  • Folio 24
  • Folio 25
  • Folio 26
  • Folio 27
  • Folio 28
  • Folio 29
  • Folio 30
  • Folio 31
  • Folio 32
  • Folio 33
  • Folio 34
  • Folio 35
  • Folio 36
  • Folio 37
  • Folio 38
  • Folio 39
  • Folio 40
  • Folio 41
  • Folio 42
  • Folio 43
  • Folio 44
  • Folio 45
  • Folio 46
  • Folio 47
  • Folio 48
  • Folio 49
  • Folio 50
  • Folio 51
  • Folio 52
  • Folio 53
  • Folio 54
  • Folio 55
  • Folio 56
  • Folio 57
  • Folio 58
  • Folio 59
  • Folio 60
  • Folio 61
  • Folio 62
  • Folio 63
  • Folio 64
  • Folio 65
  • Folio 66
  • Folio 67
  • Folio 68
  • Folio 69
  • Folio 70