The Content and Concordance of the Chapters from the Manchu-Chinese Manuscript Emu Tanggû Orin Sakda-i Gisun Sarkiyan 百二老人語録 Kept in the IOM, RAS

Abstract

The Manchu text “The stories of one hundred and twenty old men” Emu tanggû orin sakda-i gisun sarkiyan compiled by Songyûn (Songyun 松筠) in 1790 was edited by Furentai, and then translated into Chinese by Fugiyûn (Fujun 富俊) in 1809. The text exists only in a manuscript form and was never published. Monolingual Manchu and bilingual Manchu-Chinese versions of this text are scattered all over the world. For nearly twenty years the text existed only in Manchu and had suffered edition and rearrangement of the stories’ order. That fact inspired the late Prof. Giovanni Stary to compare the available copies. The present article presents the content of 120 stories according to the Manchu-Chinese manuscript kept in the IOM, RAS. This list of subjects made it possible to compare the Manchu language copies from the University of Chicago, the Osaka university of Foreign Studies and the Beijing University of Nationalities, as well as the Manchu-Chinese versions from the IOM, RAS (St. Petersburg) and the Capital Library. It became obvious that there are no identical versions. Rather substantial differences are found between three Manchu language copies and the Manchu-Chinese bilingual versions from the IOM, RAS (St. Petersburg) and the Capital Library, but they are mostly limited to the 7th and 8th chapters. From the first analysis, which has to be deepened, we can conclude that these two last chapters of the bilingual manuscripts were entirely rewritten and reordered. Most probably it was done by Fugiyûn when he translated “The stories of one hundred and twenty old men” from Manchu into Chinese.