③Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscript from the National Archives of Nepal (No. 4-21), Romanized Text 2 (2001)

Published by the Soka Gakkai
Edited by Hirofumi Toda
In cooperation with the National Archives of Nepal
Coordination by the Institute of Oriental Philosophy
Date of publication: May 25, 2004
ISBN: 4-88417-010-5
Collection of the National Archives of Nepal
Copy date: 1151 CE
Number of pages: xii + 144 (total 156 pages)
Language: Sanskrit, Nepalese, English and Japanese

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Hirofumi Toda supervised the facsimile edition of manusxript no. 4-21 and edited its romanized texts 1 and 2.
The top of the manuscript starts with Rāhulabhadra's "Saddharmapuṇḍarīkastavaḥ" (eulogy on Saddharmapuṇḍarīka). This manuscript consists of two textual portions: fols. 1-176, fol. 178b (Text A), and fols. 177, 178a, 179a (Text B), totaling 179 folios. Text B is seemingly a partial duplication of Text A, but it has an added colophon lacking in Text A. It reads, "It was copied in the Chaitra month (March-April) of the year 271 (1151 CE) in the Nepal calendar, under the reign of King Ānandadeva (1147-1167 CE). It infers that the copy date of Text A falls on the same period as Text B or earlier, i.e., approximately the first half of the 12th century CE. The text redundancy in the final part of the script also appears in a Lotus Sutra manuscript (Add. no. 2197) in the collection of Cambridge University Library. The style of the colophon added to the Nepalese manuscript resembles the one added to the first text of the Cambridge manuscript (131b, 3).