Part III: Guardians, Scribes, and Censors—Politics of Preservation
Buddhist texts did not preserve themselves. Behind every surviving manuscript lay human decisions about what deserved protection and what could be abandoned. This section uncovers the politics of preservation: royal patrons who funded massive translation projects to legitimize their rule, scribes whose copying errors created new doctrinal possibilities, censors who banned teachings that threatened established authority, and marginalized voices—women, lay practitioners, regional communities—whose contributions were often overlooked or suppressed. From the hidden manuscript cache at Dunhuang to the destroyed libraries of Central Asia, these chapters examine how power, politics, and persecution shaped which versions of Buddhism survived to reach the modern world.